Tour and Travel Guides in Alaska
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$37,703
after federal, FICA and Alaska tax
Tax takes
$6,507
14.7% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$37,067
Alaska costs more than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Alaska — roughly, since only five points along the band are published.
One filer, standard deduction, no dependants and nothing paid in before tax — the same household the rest of this page uses, so the comparison holds. City and school-district income taxes are not included.
Median here
$44,210
Kept after tax
$37,703
Worth in national money
$37,067
State rank
9
of 50 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Pay for tour and travel guides is strong here. Alaska's middle earner gets $44,210, putting the state 9 of 50 — about 15.98% ahead of the national figure.
- Within Alaska this is lower-paid work. Of 430 occupations the state publishes figures for, tour and travel guides ranks 373. That is the bottom quarter locally, whatever the national comparison says.
- Prices here sit close to the national average, so the adjustment changes little. From $44,210 the take-home is $37,703, which is worth about $37,067 in comparable money. Tax does most of the work here, not cost of living. The average is higher, $48,510, because the best-paid pull it up.
- For tour and travel guides, Alaska sits in the upper band nationally: a median of $44,210, ranking 9 of 50 and running about 15.98% above the national midpoint. Nominal advantage of this size is usually, though not always, large enough to survive the state's own tax and price levels.
- Against every occupation Alaska reports, tour and travel guides ranks 373 of 430, in the lowest quartile of the state's distribution. That position is set by the local labor market and is independent of how the state compares nationally for this work.
- Alaska's price level is near the national average, so price deflation is close to neutral for tour and travel guides on its $44,210 median: $37,703 retained after tax becomes $37,067 in national-average terms. Where the price adjustment is small, the tax stack is the dominant determinant of the real outcome. The mean of $48,510 sits above the median, the right skew typical of wage data.
Compare this career across states
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Pay band: Tour and Travel Guides
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $33,410 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $44,210 |
| Top tenth earn over | $58,890 |
| This salary | $44,210 |
Positions between the published tenth, quarter, half, three-quarter and ninetieth points are estimated by straight line.
The same pay, somewhere else
The state median for this job
| Take-home in Alaska | $37,703 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $37,703 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$1,732 |
The raise and the real gain point in opposite directions here.
State income tax and state price levels only. No city income tax, and no housing market.
What you would need there
The state median for this job
| To match take-home only | $44,210 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$2,094 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 102 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Half the people doing this work in Alaska earn less than $44,210. The published range is $33,410 up to $58,890, so an individual figure can sit a long way from the middle in either direction.
- That $37,703 take-home in Alaska comes from $44,210. It is the no-frills case: single filer, standard deduction, nothing set aside before tax. Real circumstances almost always reduce the tax. City and school-district taxes are not counted at all. Locally the work ranks 373 of 430.
- One number stands for prices across all of Alaska, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $37,067, the adjusted value of that $44,210 median, as a way to compare states fairly, not as a quote for any particular place. The two datasets are also from different years. This job sits at 373 of 430 in the state.
- Reported values are medians; for tour and travel guides in Alaska the tenth-to-ninetieth percentile band is $33,410 to $58,890. Neither the median nor the band is an offer rate, and neither accounts for hours, shift differentials or overtime.
- Retained pay of $37,703, from $44,210, assumes a single Alaska filer with the standard deduction and no elective deferrals. Pre-tax retirement or HSA contributions, dependants and itemized deductions all reduce it further; local income taxes, excluded here, would increase it in the states that levy them. This occupation ranks 373 of 430 locally, and the state ranks 9 of 50 for it.
- Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Alaska, so $37,067 — the adjusted value of that $44,210 median — establishes comparability between states rather than accuracy within one. The wage and parity series are dated independently, each following its own publication cycle, and neither is projected forward. This occupation sits at 373 of 430 locally.
Questions people ask
Is this the average pay for the job?
It is the midpoint, not the average. The average here is $48,510, dragged up by high earners; the middle figure describes a typical worker better.
How much does pay for this job actually vary?
Less than you might expect. The bottom tenth earn $33,410 and the top tenth $58,890, so most people doing this work in Alaska sit within a fairly tight band.
Does a bigger number here mean I am better off?
A larger wage in a dearer place is not automatically more. Adjusted for local prices, this pay behaves like $37,067 of national purchasing power.
Is most of this wage taxed away?
Less than people assume. $37,703 of this wage reaches your account, because Alaska takes no income tax from wages — but federal tax, Social Security and Medicare still apply exactly as they do everywhere else.
Why is this job missing from some states?
Because the survey suppresses a figure when too few employers report it. This occupation has published pay in 50 states — the rest are withheld to protect confidentiality, which is not the same as nobody doing the work there.
How does the published median differ from the mean for this occupation?
The median is the midpoint of the distribution; the mean for this occupation in Alaska is $48,510. Wage distributions are right-skewed, so the mean exceeds the median wherever a minority earn substantially more. BLS publishes both because substituting one for the other misstates a typical worker's pay.
What is the dispersion of this occupation's wage distribution?
The tenth-to-ninetieth percentile span ($33,410 to $58,890) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Alaska rather than a national figure.
How does the state price level affect real compensation?
Alaska's regional price parity sits above the national average, so nominal wages overstate purchasing power. Deflating take-home by the state price level gives $37,067 in national-average terms. ⚠️ RPPs are an all-items index; housing parities vary far more widely than the headline figure.
Why is the take-home ratio comparatively high in this state?
Alaska levies no personal income tax on wages, so take-home of $37,703 reflects the federal layer and FICA alone. Federal income tax and FICA are unchanged; states without a wage income tax generally recover revenue through consumption and property bases instead.
Why does this occupation lack published estimates in every state?
BLS suppresses estimates failing disclosure or reliability criteria. This occupation has published state-level estimates in 50 of the fifty-one jurisdictions. Suppression reflects sample size and confidentiality rules, and cannot be read as an absence of employment.