How much do substitute teachers make an hour? The BLS May 2025 figures by state, and where to find your district's daily rate

The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median wage for short-term substitute teachers in the United States at $20.03 an hour in May 2025, and the mean at $22.32. That is the newest estimate from its Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program, known as OEWS. The state figures spread widely. Among the 18 states we looked up, the median ran from $10.74 an hour in Mississippi to $28.99 in California. BLS publishes hourly wages for this job, not daily ones, and it publishes nothing for individual districts. Your daily rate is set by the district or staffing agency that employs you, and some states put a floor under it in law.

We pulled every BLS figure here from BLS's own data service, and read every page cited, on October 19, 2026. This post reports what those sources publish. It is not pay advice. Your district's HR office, or your agency, decides what you are paid.

The national figures

BLS files this job as Substitute Teachers, Short-Term, code 25-3031. The May 2025 estimates give these hourly figures for the whole country:

• Median: $20.03. Half the jobs in the estimate paid more and half paid less.
• Mean: $22.32.
• 10th percentile: $13.73. One in ten paid less than this.
• 90th percentile: $31.63. One in ten paid more than this.

BLS's employment estimate for the occupation is 524,770. Use the median as the typical figure. The mean is an average, so a smaller group of higher wages can pull it above the middle, and here it sits above the median.

Who is in these figures, and who is not

The occupation is defined narrowly. BLS describes it as teaching "students on a short-term basis as a temporary replacement for a regular classroom teacher, typically using the regular teacher's lesson plan." The next sentence is: "Excludes long-term substitute teachers who perform all the duties of a regular teacher; these teachers are coded within the 25-1000 or 25-2000 minor groups." So a long-term sub's pay is counted with regular teachers, not here. Our post on long-term assignments covers that side, and how many days a substitute can stay in one classroom covers the rules on length.

Three more limits come from BLS's OEWS questions and answers:

• Part-time subs are in. BLS counts as employees "all part-time and full-time workers who are paid a wage or salary." The survey "does not cover the self-employed."
• The figures are gross base pay. "Wages for the OEWS survey are straight-time, gross pay, exclusive of premium pay." BLS lists overtime, attendance bonuses and year-end bonuses among the pay it leaves out.
• The data is older than its date. "Each set of OEWS estimates is produced by combining six semiannual panels of survey data collected over a three-year period." For May 2025, BLS says those panels run from November 2022 to May 2025. A raise your district gave after May 2025 is not in them.

BLS also publishes annual figures for this job, but the same page says "The OEWS annual wage estimates assume a full-time, year-round schedule of 2,080 hours." A school year is not a year-round schedule, so we left the annual figures out.

The May 2025 median by state

BLS publishes the same statistics for each state. We pulled the hourly median for 18 states from every region of the country. Every figure below is the same statistic, so they compare with each other and with the national median of $20.03. Each one links to the BLS series it came from.

• California: $28.99
• Oregon: $28.02
• Washington: $26.80
• Pennsylvania: $21.57
• New Jersey: $21.05
• New York: $20.91
• Massachusetts: $19.88
• Michigan: $18.99
• Illinois: $18.95
• Virginia: $18.76
• Georgia: $18.69
• Arizona: $18.51
• Ohio: $17.86
• Florida: $17.83
• North Carolina: $16.24
• Texas: $15.41
• Tennessee: $14.18
• Mississippi: $10.74

California's median is $18.25 an hour above Mississippi's. A state figure combines many employers, so one district can sit well above or below its state's median.

If your state is not listed, go to BLS's OEWS tables page, open the May 2025 state list, choose your state, and look for Substitute Teachers, Short-Term.

Why we did not turn these into a day rate

BLS reports this job's wages by the hour. It publishes no daily figure, and its data does not say how many hours a paid sub day is, so we have not made one. To compare a posted day rate with the figures above, go the other way: divide the day rate by the hours your district counts as a full day. That gives you an hourly figure to set beside your state's median.

Who sets your daily rate

Your employer does: the district, or the staffing agency that employs you if your district uses one. Some states also set a floor in law. Two examples:

• North Carolina. The Department of Public Instruction's 2025-26 salary manual says "Current pay rates are indexed to the A-00 teacher rates," which it describes elsewhere as the rate for an entry-level teacher with an "A" license. For a licensed substitute, "the pay rate is at least 65% of the A-00 teacher calculated on a 22-day month (not 21.5)." For an unlicensed substitute, it is "at least 50%." The manual sets a maximum too, and says substitutes who are not full-time "can only be paid for the actual number of days worked."
• West Virginia. State code section 18A-4-7 says "The pay of a substitute teacher shall not be less than eighty percent of the daily rate of the state basic salary paid to teachers." The floor rises for a sub who teaches "in excess of ten consecutive instructional days in the same position," and again past thirty days in the same position.

Where a state sets no floor, the district's or agency's own schedule is the whole answer. Your state education agency can tell you whether a state rule applies to you.

Where to find your district's posted daily rate

We do not name districts, but these are the places to look, in this order:

• The district's substitute page. Search the district's website for "substitute pay" or "substitute rate." The HR or employment section is the likeliest place.
• The district's salary schedules. If the district posts them, the substitute rate may be on one of them or on a page of its own.
• School board agendas and minutes. Where the board approves pay rates, a change shows up in its documents. Search them for "substitute."
• Your offer letter or onboarding packet. If a staffing agency employs you, its rate is the one you are paid, and the district's posted rate may not apply.
• HR, by email. Ask for the full-day and half-day rates, whether licensed and unlicensed subs are paid differently, and after how many days in one assignment the rate goes up.

Washington publishes district figures itself. The state's education agency, OSPI, collects "the full daily compensation rate of each substitute teacher" from districts under RCW 28A.300.615, and its substitute compensation dashboard shows "median hours and compensation statewide, per LEA, and per Locale." LEA, local education agency, is the state's term for a district.

Pay questions we have already answered

• A job canceled the morning of: do substitutes get paid?
• Summer and winter break: unemployment and reasonable assurance
• Retired and subbing in California: the CalSTRS earnings limit
• Taxes: deductions for substitute teachers
• Earning more over a year: our earlier post on sub income

What we can't tell you

• Your district's rate. We do not name districts, and BLS does not publish district figures.
• A BLS day rate. There is not one.
• Anything after May 2025. That is the newest panel in these estimates.
• Long-term sub pay. BLS counts it with regular teachers.
• How many days you will work. An hourly wage says nothing about how much work there is. Our posts on when sub jobs get posted and whether sub jobs go unfilled cover that side.
• The other 32 states and the District of Columbia. Their figures are on the BLS state list linked above.

Learn more: app.getsubhero.com

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