Physician assistant salary in California

Physician assistant pay by percentile

Ten percent of California physician assistants earned less than $99,380 and ten percent earned more than $225,190, a spread of $125,810. Where you land depends mostly on specialty, setting, experience and how the productivity pay is built, which is why two offers in the same city can be far apart.

Physician assistant pay by metro area

BLS published PA pay for 25 metro areas that include part of California. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA has the highest median at $223,640. Metro estimates rest on smaller samples than the statewide figure, so treat a low-precision row as a direction, not a number.

How PA pay compares with other clinicians in California

The California PA workforce

BLS counts 13,600 physician assistants on California payrolls, or 0.75 for every 1,000 jobs in the state, less concentrated than in the country as a whole. The federal NPI registry, which also counts self-employed and part-time clinicians, lists 18,342 physician assistants with a California practice address, and 783 new PA NPIs there in the past twelve months.

Using these numbers when you negotiate

A state median is a reference point, not a target. If an offer comes in under $136,730, it sits in the bottom quarter of what California physician assistants earn, and you should know why before you sign: a new-grad rate, a light schedule, or a base kept low because a productivity bonus is supposed to make up the difference. If it is above $206,990, ask what is expected in return, such as call, volume targets or a longer non-compete.

Compare the whole package, not the base: how the bonus is calculated, call pay, CME, PTO and who pays malpractice tail coverage. The negotiation guide and the contract checklist walk through each term.