The marriage and family therapist salary you will see quoted everywhere is $66,940, and it is true and close to useless on its own. The distance between the bottom tenth of the profession and the top tenth is nearly 2.8 times, and most of what decides where in that range you land is settled before you ever take a client: the state you practice in, the setting you work for, and whether you are licensed yet.
$66,940
median annual salary, May 2025
$44,650–$123,730
salary range, tenth to ninetieth percentile
66,740
holding the job nationally
How much do marriage and family therapists make?
Marriage and family therapists make a median salary of $66,940, with a quarter of the profession under $50,070 and a quarter over $93,840, on Bureau of Labor Statistics figures for May 2025. About 66,740 people hold the job.
Read that median salary as the middle of a wide field rather than as what the job pays. Half of all marriage and family therapists earn less than it, and the quarter below $50,070 is not a fringe: it is where agency work and the pre-licensed years sit. The number to plan a first job around is closer to the twenty- fifth percentile than to the median.
What is a marriage and family therapist salary as an hourly rate?
A marriage and family therapist salary of $66,940 works out at about $32 an hour on a standard 2,080-hour year, with the tenth percentile near $21 and the ninetieth near $59.
Treat that conversion as arithmetic rather than as what the hour is worth, because clinical work does not divide evenly. A full-time caseload is rarely forty billable hours: notes, supervision, no-shows and case management fill the rest of the week and are paid out of the same annual salary. When you compare a salaried post against an hourly or fee-per-session offer, the number to ask for is billable hours expected per week, not the rate.
Why is the marriage and family therapist salary range so wide?
The range is wide because this occupation contains two quite different jobs. At $44,650 you have a pre-licensed associate accruing supervised hours at a community agency. At $123,730 you have an established clinician with a full private caseload, often a specialty, and years of referrals behind them. Both are counted as marriage and family therapists.
That is why a nearly 2.8-fold salary range between the tenth and ninetieth percentile is not evidence of unfairness. It is a career arc compressed into a single wage series, and the useful question is not what the profession pays but how long it takes to move up it. The honest answer is several years, most of them after graduation.
Which states have the highest marriage and family therapist salary?
New Jersey has the highest marriage and family therapist salary among states with a substantial workforce, at a median salary of $92,150, against $46,300 in Texas. Hawaii reports a higher figure still, $141,960, on roughly 220 jobs, which is too thin a market to plan a move around.
One fact reshapes the whole table: California employs about 34,970 of the 66,740 marriage and family therapists in the country, roughly 52% of the profession, at a median of $67,300. Any national average is largely a California average wearing a different label.
| State | Median | 10th | 90th | Employed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hawaii | $141,960 | $48,950 | $166,400 | 220 |
| New Jersey | $92,150 | $62,150 | $110,990 | 4,040 |
| Georgia | $91,550 | $42,430 | $102,320 | – |
| Oregon | $91,520 | $60,060 | $165,190 | 850 |
| Connecticut | $86,250 | $47,500 | $168,750 | 260 |
| Utah | $84,980 | $39,800 | $151,840 | 2,390 |
| Virginia | $79,900 | $49,720 | $103,330 | 930 |
| Delaware | $76,580 | $53,730 | $91,140 | 400 |
| Minnesota | $72,470 | $54,430 | $99,920 | 4,870 |
| Maine | $71,680 | $64,990 | $91,350 | 180 |
| New Mexico | $70,630 | $52,680 | $92,210 | 160 |
| Ohio | $70,240 | $41,200 | $157,860 | 460 |
| Maryland | $69,900 | $50,230 | $115,330 | 460 |
| Kansas | $68,710 | $46,930 | $101,750 | 190 |
| Massachusetts | $67,370 | $49,070 | $128,490 | 600 |
| California | $67,300 | $46,350 | $130,340 | 34,970 |
| Iowa | $67,180 | $42,680 | $127,720 | 240 |
| Pennsylvania | $66,040 | $47,050 | $91,980 | 2,350 |
| Arizona | $65,290 | $50,270 | $100,720 | – |
| New York | $64,430 | $50,380 | $83,050 | 770 |
| Arkansas | $64,340 | $47,520 | $90,900 | 80 |
| Vermont | $62,780 | $41,460 | $90,110 | – |
| Idaho | $62,700 | $59,330 | $74,680 | 140 |
| Nebraska | $62,610 | $38,490 | $95,590 | 260 |
| Illinois | $60,970 | $51,420 | $104,900 | 860 |
| Colorado | $60,700 | $47,030 | $128,400 | 900 |
| Missouri | $60,440 | $41,930 | $109,200 | 390 |
| New Hampshire | $60,030 | $48,200 | $82,490 | 70 |
| Alaska | $60,010 | $46,680 | $113,710 | 60 |
| Washington | $60,000 | $55,690 | $103,740 | – |
| Oklahoma | $57,670 | $28,540 | $94,140 | – |
| Indiana | $56,810 | $46,730 | $82,430 | 510 |
| Florida | $56,400 | $39,460 | $102,280 | 930 |
| West Virginia | $55,700 | $31,760 | $115,950 | 90 |
| South Carolina | $55,430 | $44,280 | $91,220 | 380 |
| Kentucky | $52,420 | $41,180 | $74,690 | 330 |
| Michigan | $52,270 | $39,110 | $78,740 | 590 |
| Mississippi | $51,440 | $47,790 | $59,690 | 140 |
| Alabama | $49,990 | $40,250 | $75,100 | 190 |
| North Carolina | $48,100 | $27,860 | $109,200 | 1,400 |
| Montana | $46,960 | $32,170 | $75,310 | 100 |
| Tennessee | $46,700 | $34,690 | $63,540 | 1,440 |
| Texas | $46,300 | $36,700 | $93,500 | 1,380 |
| South Dakota | $44,870 | $37,060 | $53,420 | 80 |
| Wisconsin | $37,870 | $34,980 | $69,570 | 180 |
Where do marriage and family therapists work, and what does each setting pay?
Most marriage and family therapists work in offices of other health practitioners, where the median salary is $64,430. The setting that pays best is state government, excluding schools and hospitals (oews designation) at $92,150, a difference of about $27,720 a year for the same license.
That gap is the most actionable thing on this page, because setting is a choice in a way that geography often is not. Government and outpatient employers pay considerably more and tend to come with benefits, caseload caps and supervision built in. Small private offices pay less on a salaried basis and are where most people build toward their own caseload. Neither is the right answer; knowing the trade before you take the first job is.
| Setting | Employed | Median |
|---|---|---|
| Offices of Other Health Practitioners | 25,720 | $64,430 |
| Individual and Family Services | 17,330 | $61,060 |
| Outpatient Care Centers | 7,760 | $75,560 |
| State Government, excluding Schools and Hospitals (OEWS Designation) | 4,120 | $92,150 |
| Offices of Physicians | 3,660 | $66,940 |
| Residential Intellectual and Developmental Disability, Mental Health, and Substance Abuse Facilities | 2,240 | $74,670 |
| General Medical and Surgical Hospitals | 890 | $81,000 |
| Other Residential Care Facilities | 820 | $62,600 |
| Local Government, excluding Schools and Hospitals (OEWS Designation) | 710 | $86,850 |
| Elementary and Secondary Schools | 690 | $71,840 |
| Educational Support Services | 520 | $51,040 |
| Psychiatric and Substance Abuse Hospitals | 480 | $82,340 |
How does licensure change a marriage and family therapist salary?
Licensure changes a marriage and family therapist salary by changing what you can bill for and whether you can practice without someone signing off your work, which is the mechanism behind most of the distance between the bottom and the middle of this range. Before full licensure you are an associate: employed, supervised, and paid accordingly.
The wage series does not separate licensed from pre-licensed workers, so there is no published premium to quote, and anyone quoting one is estimating. What can be said from the data is that the twenty-fifth percentile sits at $50,070 and the seventy-fifth at $93,840, and that the years of supervised practice between graduation and licensure are spent in the lower half of that.
Do marriage and family therapists earn more in private practice?
Private practice is where the top of this range lives, and it is also the part no federal survey measures directly. OEWS counts employees, so a self-employed therapist with their own caseload is largely outside the 66,740 counted here. That is worth knowing before you read the ninetieth percentile as a ceiling.
What the data supports is narrow and worth stating plainly: the settings that employ therapists report a median salary between roughly $51,040 and $92,150 at the median, and the profession's own ninetieth percentile is $123,730. Any specific figure you are given for private practice income, without a source, is somebody's guess dressed as research.
How does MFT pay compare with counseling and social work?
MFT pay sits above mental health counseling and close to healthcare social work. The median salary for marriage and family therapists is $66,940, against $59,350 for substance abuse, behavioral disorder and mental health counselors, and $68,090 for healthcare social workers.
Do not read too much into the gaps. They are smaller than the salary range inside any one of these occupations, the three overlap heavily in who they employ, and many MFT graduates spend their pre-licensed years counted under the counseling code rather than this one. Choose the license on the work you want to do and where you want to be able to do it, not on a few thousand dollars of median.
Does a doctorate raise what an MFT earns?
No federal wage series shows a doctoral premium inside this occupation, and it is worth being direct about that before anyone spends three to five more years chasing one. The doctoral programs lead to teaching, research, supervision and program leadership, which are different jobs rather than better-paid versions of this one.
The neighboring figure people reach for is the $100,580 median that clinical and counseling psychologists earn. That occupation requires a psychology doctorate and psychologist licensure, a separate track with its own accreditation. online PsyD programs are one version of that route, and an MFT doctorate does not lead into it.
What this salary data does not tell you
This salary data does not tell you what a first job pays, because OEWS reports the whole occupation at once rather than by years of experience. They also exclude most self-employed practice, count part-time workers at their annualized rate, and are a year or more old by the time they publish.
It says nothing about caseload, benefits, or how many unpaid hours sit behind a salaried number, and those decide whether a job is liveable more often than what it pays does. Use the state and setting tables to set expectations, then ask an actual employer about caseload size and whether supervision is provided or bought.
Common questions about marriage and family therapist salaries
How much do marriage and family therapists make?
What is a marriage and family therapist salary per hour?
Which state pays marriage and family therapists the most?
Do marriage and family therapists make more in private practice?
Does an MFT license increase your salary?
Do marriage and family therapists earn more than mental health counselors?
Sources
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Every wage and employment figure here, for Marriage and Family Therapists (SOC 21-1013), including the state and industry breakdowns. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 release
- BLS comparison occupations Substance Abuse, Behavioral Disorder, and Mental Health Counselors (SOC 21-1018), Healthcare Social Workers (SOC 21-1022) and Clinical and Counseling Psychologists (SOC 19-3033). Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 release
- COAMFTE Directory of Accredited Programs The 127-program count referenced in the training links above. Read 2026-08-21