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Pay · 27-3092

Court Reporters and Simultaneous Captioners earn $72,420 a year at the midpoint

Where you land matters more here than in most jobs — the top tenth earn more than 3.1 times the bottom tenth. The midpoint is $72,420.

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$72,420median a year · United States
$34.82an hour $78,760average 12,870people
Nine in ten people in this work earn between the two ends. The shaded part is the middle half — where most people are.
$53,76025th $72,420median $100,78075th
$42,13010th percentile $130,56090th percentile
$53,760a year at the 25th percentile, nearer a first job
$116,020best-paying state · California
$44,760lowest-paying state · Delaware
+60%top state against the national median
  • Read the spread, not the middle. The median is the midpoint across everyone in the occupation, most of them years into the work. A beginner starts nearer the 10th to 25th percentile, which is why the spread is published alongside it.
  • What the figure counts. The figure counts base pay plus tips, commissions and production bonuses. It leaves out the self-employed, unpaid family workers, private household workers, and the value of benefits or profit sharing.
  • Where you live moves it more than your resume does. National figures. A state or metro area can sit far from the national number, and that gap is usually larger than any difference a resume makes.
  • Not in these numbers. Growth and annual openings are not in this dataset. They come from the separate Employment Projections tables, where an opening is a modelled ten year average and not a posted vacancy.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, 2025. Retrieved through the BLS Public Data API on 2026-08-13. bls.gov/oes “BLS.gov cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from BLS.gov.”

State matters a lotThe same job pays $116,020 in California and $44,760 in Delaware — a gap of $71,260 a year.

Court reporter earnings, from starting pay to the best-paid 10%

Pick the job, where you work and how long you have done it. The range comes from the published wage percentiles for that job.

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An estimate from survey percentiles, not an offer. Employer, industry, shift and credentials move pay within and beyond this range. Full wage page for this job →

A resume for court reporters and simultaneous captioners

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  • Provided transcripts of proceedings upon request of judges, lawyers, or the public.
  • Recorded symbols on computer storage media and use computer aided transcription to translate and display them as text.
  • Recorded verbatim proceedings of courts, legislative assemblies, committee meetings, and other proceedings, using computerized recording equipment, electronic stenograph machines, or stenomasks.

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This page includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. The owner of tiersi.com has modified all or some of this information. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications.

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Number 279 of 788 by median pay

Better paid than 65% of the occupations in the survey.

  1. 277 Commercial Divers $72,990
  2. 278 Fundraisers $72,550
  3. 279 Court Reporters and Simultaneous Captioners $72,420
  4. 280 Occupational Therapy Assistants $72,300
  5. 281 Legal Support Workers, All Other $72,110

Court reporter wages in each state

The 28 states where the most people do this work, of 38 with a published figure: their medians range by 2.36 times. Figures are the 2025 survey.

State Median a year Where most start 10th to 90th Employed
California $116,020 $55,280 $55,280 — $142,930 1,400
Texas $110,080 $54,520 $54,520 — $137,410 1,270
Washington $107,670 $82,220 $82,220 — $113,880 80
New York $101,990 $60,360 $60,360 — $143,790 1,400
Iowa $93,810 $63,560 $63,560 — $104,490 160
Rhode Island $92,250 $61,670 $61,670 — $107,310 60
Minnesota $83,680 $64,150 $64,150 — $97,410 320
Colorado $83,010 $65,960 $65,960 — $110,700 260
Arizona $77,770 $61,510 $61,510 — $90,020 70
Nebraska $76,480 $60,910 $60,910 — $87,080 60
Illinois $75,890 $31,200 $31,200 — $122,390 770
North Carolina $73,510 $57,910 $57,910 — $91,710 110
Missouri $72,500 $56,000 $56,000 — $97,480 270
Alabama $67,340 $37,700 $37,700 — $84,270 350
Ohio $67,330 $49,750 $49,750 — $94,740 340
Pennsylvania $65,100 $40,130 $40,130 — $90,330 670
Louisiana $63,380 $26,650 $26,650 — $97,360 270
Nevada $62,030 $46,750 $46,750 — $78,430 70
Michigan $61,600 $41,040 $41,040 — $79,780 260
South Carolina $61,100 $45,190 $45,190 — $76,300 140
Oklahoma $60,800 $53,000 $53,000 — $68,000 180
Connecticut $59,390 $43,370 $43,370 — $74,680 210
Arkansas $59,180 $53,200 $53,200 — $80,090 130
West Virginia $56,790 $44,550 $44,550 — $70,890 90
Virginia $55,210 $37,840 $37,840 — $78,360 320
Indiana $54,740 $42,740 $42,740 — $77,320 890
Kentucky $50,350 $29,610 $29,610 — $50,350 80
Florida $49,240 $35,320 $35,320 — $81,370 1,110

No estimate is published for 3 states: the survey withholds a figure when too few employers report it. Nothing has been filled in for them.

Related work, and what it pays

Occupations in the same group of the federal classification — the usual next steps, or the ones beside this one.

Court Reporters and Simultaneous Captioners$72,420
Editors$77,920+$5,500 Public Relations Specialists$74,750+$2,330 News Analysts, Reporters, and Journalists$62,200−$10,220 Broadcast Announcers and Radio Disc Jockeys$47,340−$25,080

Court reporter pay rate, from hourly to yearly

Starts at this job’s median. Change the rate or the hours; a full-time year is 40 hours for 52 weeks.

$72,426a year

Questions people ask

What is a court reporter’s yearly income?

A court reporter makes a median of $72,420 a year (2025 survey). The middle half earn between $53,760 and $100,780.

What is a court reporter’s hourly pay rate?

The median pay rate is $34.82 an hour; the average is $78,760 a year.

What is the starting pay for a court reporter?

Starting pay is usually near the 25th percentile, $53,760 a year, and sometimes as low as the 10th, $42,130.

Which state pays court reporters and simultaneous captioners the most?

California, with a median of $116,020 a year.

How many people work as court reporters and simultaneous captioners?

About 12,870 in the United States — number 279 of 788 occupations by median pay.

Work that pays roughly the same

Median pay within $380 of what court reporters and simultaneous captioners earn — $72,420 a year — but not always the same spread.

See all 788 occupations