Physiotherapist salary in Australia (2026), compared with the UK, New Zealand, the USA and Canada

The legal minimum for a new-graduate physiotherapist in Australia is A$1,308.80 a week under the Health Professionals and Support Services Award from 1 October 2026 (about A$68,058 a year, our calculation over 52 weeks), and a master’s degree doesn’t raise it. Public health pays more: Queensland Health’s HP3 grade starts at A$83,824 (from 1 September 2026), and it advertises senior physio roles at HP4, which reaches A$142,315, and advanced roles at HP5, which reaches A$155,647. Your employer pays 12% superannuation on top.

Every figure below comes from the award, a government pay scale, a public health job advert, a government statistics agency or another official or union source, with its date. Recruiter salary surveys aren’t used.

Australian physio pay: the floor and the public benchmark

The award covers physiotherapists and lists physio at AQF Level 7 only, the same scale as OTs. That matters if you hold a master’s: unlike speech pathology, physio has no higher award minimum for a master’s degree. From 1 October 2026, the full-time Level 1 minimum runs from A$1,308.80 a week (A$34.44 an hour) in year 1 to A$1,689.50 from year 7, and Level 2, a higher classification rather than a further Level 1 step, starts at A$1,945.40.

Queensland Health publishes its rates, and its Smartjobs listings put senior physio roles at HP4 and advanced physio roles at HP5. From 1 September 2026:

Which grade you’re appointed at is the employer’s decision, based on the role and your experience, not a conversion from your overseas band or title. The grade mapping guide covers how to make your seniority count.

Other states set their own public rates. For a national view, Jobs and Skills Australia puts median full-time earnings for physios at A$1,888 a week before tax (ABS data, May 2025). For a Queensland breakdown by setting, see pay by setting in Queensland.

If you’re sponsored, the floor is higher. A Skills in Demand (482) sponsor must pay at least A$79,423 a year (from 1 July 2026), the market salary rate, and the same terms as an Australian in the same role, never below the award. So a sponsored physio can’t legally be paid the award’s year-1 rate.

Australia against the UK, New Zealand, the USA and Canada

The A$ figures are our calculation at the Reserve Bank of Australia’s rates of 27 October 2026: £0.5264, NZ$1.2335, US$0.7021 and C$0.9841 to A$1. Gross pay only.

How to read it:

• UK: in A$ terms, the bottom of HP3 is above the top of NHS Band 5. The band-by-band figures are in the UK physio guide.
• New Zealand: the step-scale advert closed before the 2.5% Health NZ allied health increase from December 2025, and a further 2% is due in December 2026. Even so, the top NZ step converts to well inside the HP3 range. I haven’t confirmed whether the same increases apply to the rotational role. The NZ physio guide covers the Trans-Tasman route.
• USA: the BLS median for physical therapists (about A$146,361) sits above the top of HP4 (A$142,315) and below the bottom of HP5 (A$149,360), the grade Queensland Health uses for advanced physio roles. So on gross public pay in A$ terms, a US PT on the median would need an advanced (HP5) role to earn more. BLS also reports medians by setting: US$114,740 in home health, US$110,460 in nursing and residential care, US$106,800 in hospitals and US$97,160 in therapy offices. Note too that US physios can only use the Council’s FLYR route if they graduated in Texas, Massachusetts or California.
• Canada: Job Bank reports hourly pay (low C$30.00, high C$56.21, about A$30.48 to A$57.12). The award year-1 rate is A$34.44 an hour, but that’s a legal minimum, not a median, so it isn’t a like-for-like comparison. Provincial medians range from C$39.93 in Manitoba to C$50.00 in British Columbia.
• Ireland isn’t in the table. I couldn’t confirm HSE physiotherapy pay from the official HSE scale, so I’ve left it out rather than guess. The moving from Ireland guide covers the Irish route.

What the table doesn’t show: tax, pension or super, leave and cost of living all differ by country, and the exchange rate will have moved by the time you read this. Physios and OTs sit on the same AQF 7 award scale, so for a general take-home example at the award year-1 rate and at HP3 entry, see the OT salary guide; the figures are the same for a physio.

Private practice

Private practices set their own pay, at or above the award, and some link part of your pay to what you bill. One funding detail shapes that: Medicare’s chronic condition physio item (10960) pays a benefit of A$63.40 on a A$74.55 schedule fee (from 1 July 2026), but each patient gets at most 5 allied health services a year across all professions. The physio jobs guide explains what that means for a private caseload and the questions to ask before you accept a private role.

From my side of the table

I’m a physio, and I’ve worked in community, paediatrics, inpatients and ICU, in government roles and in rural hospitals. Today I run a multi-site paediatric allied health practice in South East Queensland, and several of our clinicians came to us from overseas. On these numbers, a US physical therapist on the median would need an advanced (HP5) role to come out ahead on gross public pay; for UK and NZ physios the public pay gap is real, but setting, state and cost of living decide whether it holds up.

Your next step

Before comparing offers, check which route you’re on: one of the Australian Physiotherapy Council’s (Express FLYR, FLYR or APEP), or possibly Trans-Tasman if you’re registered in New Zealand, because that decides how soon you can start earning here and what it costs first. The pathway check is the quickest way to find out, and tells you whether to book a call with me or sort something first.