# How much does a dental hygienist make in Florida?
The dataset this site works from carries no statewide wage row for this occupation. It holds one BLS estimate per metro area, and Florida has 22 of them. In the May 2025 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics release, median annual wages for dental hygienists run from $79,050 in Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach to $100,140 in Naples-Marco Island. Tampa reports $95,870, Orlando $92,560 and Miami $82,780.
Every metro, one table
| Metro | BLS jobs estimate | Median annual wage | Mean annual wage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Naples-Marco Island | 190 | $100,140 | $100,760 |
| North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota | 610 | $95,930 | $95,310 |
| Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater | 1,670 | $95,870 | $91,900 |
| Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville | 390 | $95,400 | $91,000 |
| Jacksonville | 1,110 | $94,960 | $87,820 |
| Punta Gorda | 70 | $94,740 | $90,740 |
| Sebastian-Vero Beach-West Vero Corridor | 140 | $94,490 | $95,160 |
| Port St. Lucie | 440 | $94,060 | $92,160 |
| Lakeland-Winter Haven | 290 | $93,080 | $89,170 |
| Wildwood-The Villages | 80 | $92,900 | $88,160 |
| Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford | 1,490 | $92,560 | $85,320 |
| Cape Coral-Fort Myers | 350 | $91,120 | $83,340 |
| Crestview-Fort Walton Beach-Destin | 170 | $88,030 | $87,850 |
| Panama City-Panama City Beach | 100 | $87,360 | $86,130 |
| Gainesville | 240 | $84,750 | $86,080 |
| Ocala | 150 | $83,260 | $83,190 |
| Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach | 3,460 | $82,780 | $87,190 |
| Homosassa Springs | 50 | $81,810 | $85,070 |
| Pensacola-Ferry Pass-Brent | 250 | $81,780 | $84,090 |
| Sebring | 40 | $80,590 | $84,610 |
| Tallahassee | 160 | $79,520 | $81,850 |
| Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach | 230 | $79,050 | $81,300 |
Every figure in the table comes from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program, May 2025 estimates, as published for each metro area. The jobs column counts wage and salary workers the survey located in that metro during the reference period. It is not a count of job openings, and it is not a count of licenses.
Median, mean, and why both appear
The median is the wage in the middle: half of the surveyed workers earn less, half earn more. The mean divides the total wage bill by the number of workers, so a small group of very high wages can pull the average away from the middle. In May 2025 the mean sits above the median in 9 of the 22 Florida metros, and Miami is one of them, with a median of $82,780 against a mean of $87,190, a $4,410 gap. In Tampa and Orlando the mean sits below the median. Both columns stay in the table so that neither number tells the story alone.
Where the medians land
The highest median among the 22 metros, $100,140, belongs to Naples-Marco Island, a metro with a BLS jobs estimate of 190. The second highest, $95,930, belongs to North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota. Exactly four metros clear $95,000 (Naples-Marco Island, North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota, Tampa, Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville), and their job counts range from 190 to 1,670. The spread between the highest and the lowest metro median is $21,090. What the dataset does not contain is a reason. OEWS measures wages and does not adjust them for local cost of living, for office type or for benefit packages, so a gap between two metros is a fact about wages, not an explanation of them.
The mean column adds a second read on the same metros. In Naples-Marco Island the mean of $100,760 lands almost even with the median, a $620 difference. In Sebastian-Vero Beach the mean of $95,160 sits $670 above a median of $94,490, on a jobs estimate of 140. In Miami the mean clears the median by $4,410, the widest gap in that direction among the 22 metros. Reading the two columns together, metro by metro, is the only way to know which shape of distribution sits behind a single number.
How many hygienists each metro holds
Wages are half the picture. The other half is supply, and for that the source is not BLS but the Florida Department of Health, which publishes a licensure file through its MQA portal. We pulled a copy on August 3, 2026, and it carries 19,266 dental hygienist records statewide. Grouped by metro, that pull shows more than 2,500 licensed hygienists in Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, more than 2,500 in Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, and 1,001–2,500 in both Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford and Jacksonville. License counts appear here as bands, never as exact figures, the same convention our license density tool uses on every county.
A license file counts people who hold a license. It does not say who is working a chair this month, who commutes across a metro line, or who renewed while practicing somewhere else. Read next to the BLS jobs estimate it describes a different thing. Punta Gorda posts a median of $94,740, sixth highest in the state, on a BLS jobs estimate of 70 and a licensed band of 101–250. Orlando posts $92,560 on a BLS jobs estimate of 1,490 and a licensed band of 1,001–2,500. Similar wage, very different depth of market.
What a wage estimate leaves out
OEWS publishes wages, not offers. The estimates carry no benefits, no production bonuses, no schedule, and no sign of whether a position runs four days a week or five. The reference period is May 2025, so anything that changed after that month sits outside the table. A median is a midpoint, too, which means half of the surveyed hygienists in every one of these metros earned less than the number printed next to it.
Where these numbers come from
Two files stand behind this page. The wage columns come from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program, May 2025 estimates, taken as published for each of the 22 Florida metro areas. The license bands come from the Florida Department of Health licensure file distributed through its MQA portal, pulled on August 3, 2026, which carries 19,266 dental hygienist records statewide. The bands group those records by metro and report a range rather than a count. Nothing else feeds the tables: no client data, no job postings, no figures from any private source, and no statewide BLS row, because the dataset this site uses contains no such row for this occupation.
Using these numbers against a real offer
Four questions turn this table into a comparison. Which metro row does the offer sit in, and how far is its quote from that row? Is the quote hourly, daily or annual, and how many paid hours does it assume each week? Is any part of the pay tied to production, and how is that production measured? And what does the local licensed band say about how many other licensed hygienists the metro holds?
Two things this table will never answer are what a specific office pays and what any single hygienist should accept. The Florida hygienist salary hub expands each metro row into its own page, and the license density tool maps the August 3, 2026 licensure pull county by county, in bands.