Actor salary: $29.05 an hour median, the pay figure BLS publishes for this job.
Hourly pay by percentile, by state and in the top-paying metro areas, from the latest BLS survey. BLS publishes no annual wage for actors, and neither do we.
BLS publishes only hourly wages for actors. The median hourly wage was $29.05 in May 2025 (BLS); the lowest-paid 10% earned less than $16.50 an hour and the top 10% more than $143.68 an hour. BLS publishes no annual wage for this occupation, because workers in it typically work fewer than 2,080 hours a year, so no annual figure is shown.
- 10th percentile
- $16.50
- an hour
- 25th percentile
- $20.34
- an hour
- Median
- $29.05
- an hour
- 75th percentile
- $97.95
- an hour
- 90th percentile
- $143.68
- an hour
Data BLS releases hourly wages only for this occupation. In the words of its OEWS field notes: “The OEWS program releases only hourly wages for some occupations that typically work fewer than 2,080 hours per year and are paid on an hourly basis, such as actors, dancers, and musicians and singers.” Multiplying an hourly rate by a full-time year (2,080 hours) would not describe what a typical worker in this occupation earns in a year, so this page never does it.
Actor hourly pay in the 21 states with a published median
Data BLS state estimates, May 2025. 21 states publish a median for this occupation; together they employ 44% of the 55,000 actors BLS counts nationally. Sort by pay or by number employed.
| State | 10th–90th percentile, hourly | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Maryland | $36.98 | $16.41–$49.14 | 520 |
| Oregon | $29.81 | $22.26–$56.87 | 470 |
| New York | $28.44 | $20.80–$97.95 | 6,630 |
| Connecticut | $27.91 | $17.07–$37.15 | 180 |
| Texas | $25.86 | $14.97–$111.29 | 2,160 |
| Alabama | $24.71 | $21.19–$25.87 | 150 |
| New Jersey | $24.29 | $17.63–$49.99 | 470 |
| Mississippi | $23.71 | $22.67–$23.71 | 80 |
| Pennsylvania | $22.15 | $13.90–$37.33 | 890 |
| Tennessee | $21.82 | $17.50–$110.57 | 370 |
| Arizona | $21.16 | $17.46–$29.13 | 380 |
| Georgia | $19.75 | $12.19–$131.78 | 1,520 |
| Arkansas | $19.49 | $14.22–$45.73 | 70 |
| Missouri | $19.20 | $13.75–$35.86 | 450 |
| Florida | $19.11 | $16.71–$30.09 | 6,400 |
| Minnesota | $18.95 | $17.50–$32.51 | 520 |
| Kentucky | $18.85 | $11.54–$54.44 | 90 |
| North Carolina | $18.83 | $9.92–$32.85 | 730 |
| Illinois | $15.00 | $15.00–$49.29 | 1,060 |
| Ohio | $13.51 | $11.06–$31.57 | 170 |
| Nevada | $12.76 | $12.74–$33.68 | 790 |
- BLS publishes employment but no wage estimate: California (26,170 employed), Colorado (200 employed), Indiana (510 employed), Massachusetts (660 employed), Michigan (150 employed), Montana (70 employed), South Carolina (140 employed), Utah (630 employed), Wisconsin (260 employed).
- no estimate in BLS's May 2025 state file: Alaska, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wyoming.
Where the hourly median is highest
Data Metropolitan areas with at least 100 people employed in the occupation, BLS May 2025.
Occupations O*NET lists as related
Data Pages for related occupations. Their pay is not compared here: BLS publishes annual pay for most of them and hourly pay only for this one.
How this page is built
Wages are BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics estimates for May 2025 (national, state and metropolitan area), for the occupation shown. BLS releases only hourly wages for this occupation. OEWS wages are straight-time gross pay: they include base pay, commissions, production bonuses and tips, and exclude overtime, shift differentials, non-production bonuses and benefits. Percentiles describe all workers in the occupation, not entry or senior levels.
- Annual earnings: BLS publishes none for this occupation, and an hourly rate times a full-time year would not describe them.
- Pay for self-employed workers (OEWS covers employees).
- Experience level: percentiles are not seniority bands.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 estimates (public domain).
- O*NET 31.0 Database, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA), used under the CC BY 4.0 license. TryHired selected, ranked and combined the data; O*NET is not responsible for these pages.
How TryHired builds this data: sources, methods and downloads. Spotted an error? Report a correction.
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