Travel Agents
What the pay figures show
- Nevada comes first for travel agents on every measure. $63,400 on paper. Still first after tax. Still first at $54,776 once you adjust for what things cost. When the headline and the reality agree, say so plainly.
- For travel agents, Nevada's $63,400 median is the highest nominally, after tax, and after regional price adjustment, at $54,776. Concordance across all three measures is uncommon and worth stating explicitly, because the absence of a reordering is itself the finding for this occupation.
Compare this career across states
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Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$50,160
People doing it
55,110
Highest paid
$63,400
NV
Best off, really
$54,776
NV, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$34,610
Highest tenth
$76,660
Lowest, really
$31,724
SC
States with data
49
National average
$54,660
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
96.98%
NV, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Pay for this job is fairly steady around the country. Count tax and local prices and the states bunch closer still, from $31,724 to $54,776. For work like this, where you live changes your life more than it changes your pay.
- This is a small job: about 55,110 people nationally. Fewer workers means each state figure is built on less data.
- Not every state reports this one. The figures here cover 49 jurisdictions, and the middle wage across them is $50,160. A state you do not see is one with no published number, not one paying nothing. Of those published, Nevada pays most.
- Geographic dispersion in travel agents is moderate by national standards. Tax and price adjustment compress the distribution further, to a real range of $31,724 through $54,776. Where nominal spread is this contained, relocation decisions in the occupation turn on non-wage factors, because the wage differential does not survive the adjustments in a form large enough to drive them.
- With 55,110 workers, travel agents is among the smaller occupations BLS publishes. Treat single-state figures as indicative rather than precise; suppression and sampling error both bite harder at this scale.
- BLS publishes an occupational median for travel agents in 49 jurisdictions, short of the full set. ⚠️ Absence reflects estimate suppression — small samples or disclosure rules — rather than absence of employment, so the state comparison above is over the published subset.
Pay band: Travel Agents
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $34,610 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $50,160 |
| Top tenth earn over | $76,660 |
| This salary | $50,160 |
Positions between the published tenth, quarter, half, three-quarter and ninetieth points are estimated by straight line.
Where these numbers come from
| BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 estimates, time-series bulk download (oe.data.0.Current) | as of 2025-05-01 |
|---|
Steps in Travel Agents
The national median for this job
$50,160around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $34,610 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $50,160 |
| Top tenth | $76,660 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Travel Agents, state by state
The national median for this job
49states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | South Carolina · $34,560 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Nevada · $63,400 |
| Spread | $28,840 |
One dot per state that publishes this job. A missing state means suppressed data, not zero pay.
Best paid, and best off
The national median for this job
| Texas pays | $49,500 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $50,939 |
Median pay against the same pay once BEA price parities are applied.
Every state, three ways
Sorted by what the money is actually worth. "Kept" is take-home for a single filer after federal, FICA and state income tax. "Really worth" divides that by the state's own price level, so a dollar in each row buys the same thing. Tap a state to put your own salary into it. States BLS does not publish for this job are absent — that means no published figure, not no work.
| State | Median pay | Kept after tax | Really worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| NV | $63,400 | $53,122 | $54,776 |
| MT | $61,330 | $49,333 | $54,666 |
| TN | $55,640 | $46,887 | $50,680 |
| VT | $60,560 | $48,953 | $50,658 |
| NC | $56,180 | $45,588 | $48,426 |
| RI | $59,790 | $48,399 | $47,725 |
| UT | $56,670 | $45,193 | $47,570 |
| KS | $53,600 | $42,545 | $47,291 |
| CT | $60,640 | $48,319 | $46,600 |
| MS | $49,050 | $39,722 | $45,504 |
| NJ | $61,090 | $49,438 | $45,405 |
| CO | $56,570 | $45,853 | $45,228 |
| WY | $48,030 | $40,772 | $44,879 |
| NE | $49,690 | $40,549 | $44,867 |
| KY | $49,370 | $40,238 | $44,478 |
| DC | $61,560 | $49,089 | $44,302 |
| TX | $49,500 | $41,953 | $43,173 |
| IN | $48,530 | $39,772 | $43,144 |
| SD | $44,510 | $37,944 | $43,071 |
| ND | $44,740 | $38,129 | $43,048 |
| WA | $55,260 | $46,581 | $42,908 |
| ID | $48,110 | $39,140 | $42,811 |
| AL | $47,640 | $38,419 | $42,702 |
| AZ | $51,800 | $42,909 | $42,440 |
| IA | $45,440 | $37,576 | $42,331 |
| OH | $46,000 | $38,592 | $42,034 |
| MA | $56,450 | $45,035 | $41,607 |
| OR | $56,810 | $43,406 | $41,449 |
| WI | $47,080 | $38,541 | $41,399 |
| NY | $55,580 | $44,434 | $41,286 |
| WV | $44,760 | $36,922 | $41,128 |
| NM | $44,700 | $37,142 | $41,092 |
| FL | $50,060 | $42,403 | $40,988 |
| GA | $48,880 | $39,615 | $40,967 |
| MO | $45,460 | $37,508 | $40,875 |
| PA | $47,720 | $39,058 | $40,060 |
| MI | $46,250 | $37,627 | $39,951 |
| IL | $49,090 | $39,339 | $39,794 |
| AK | $47,650 | $40,467 | $39,784 |
| MN | $47,260 | $38,444 | $39,062 |
| MD | $49,160 | $39,709 | $38,194 |
| NH | $47,190 | $40,097 | $38,063 |
| CA | $51,030 | $41,928 | $37,243 |
| VA | $45,260 | $36,705 | $36,432 |
| AR | $36,600 | $30,692 | $35,479 |
| HI | $47,560 | $38,204 | $35,175 |
| OK | $36,980 | $30,730 | $34,807 |
| LA | $35,970 | $30,389 | $34,398 |
| SC | $34,560 | $29,560 | $31,724 |
Sources and assumptions
- These are middle-of-the-range figures for travel agents, not what a new starter is offered. Half the people doing this job earn under $50,160 nationally, half over. Your own experience and employer will move you well away from that midpoint in either direction.
- One filer, no dependants, nothing paid into a pension before tax — that is the household behind every take-home figure for travel agents. It is the simplest case on purpose, so the states can be compared against each other rather than against each other's family circumstances. City income taxes are not counted. On that household, Nevada keeps the most at $53,122.
- One price figure per state stands behind the real-terms numbers for travel agents. Inside any state, a big city costs far more than a small town, so this is a fair way to compare states with each other and a poor way to price a specific move. The wage figures and the price figures are also from different years. At the bottom of the range sits South Carolina, on $31,724.
- All wage figures for travel agents are medians rather than entry or offer rates; the national median is $50,160. Within-state dispersion typically exceeds between-state dispersion in this data, so an individual's expected wage is determined more by experience, sector and employer than by the state comparisons presented here.
- The household modeled for travel agents is a single filer, standard deduction, no dependants, no pre-tax contributions. Holding the household constant is what makes the interstate comparison meaningful; it also means the absolute figures overstate liability for most real filers. On that basis Nevada retains the most, $53,122. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- Real-terms results for travel agents rest on statewide regional price parities, which average over intra-state variation that is itself larger than much of the interstate variation. They support comparison between states and not the pricing of an individual relocation; South Carolina anchors the distribution at $31,724. Wage and price series are published on separate cycles and therefore carry different reference periods.