Occupation · SOC 39-7010

Tour and Travel Guides Salary

Tour and Travel Guides earn a median of $38,120 a year in the United States, which is $18.33 an hour. The mean is $43,720, and 53,500 people are employed in the occupation.

Median annual salary $38,120 May 2025 · half earn more, half earn less
Median hourly $18.33
Mean annual $43,720
US employment 53,500
Top 10% earn $60,930+

The full pay range

A single average hides most of what a reader wants to know. BLS publishes the whole distribution, so here it is: each row is the annual salary at that point in the pay range for tour and travel guides.

Annual salary by percentile May 2025

Percentile Annual salary Typically
10th percentile $28,520 entry level, or a lower-paying region
25th percentile $32,910 early career
Median (50th) $38,120 half earn more, half earn less
75th percentile $47,700 experienced
90th percentile $60,930 top of the field

Common questions

How much do tour and travel guides make?

The median salary for tour and travel guides in the United States is $38,120 a year, which is $18.33 an hour. The mean is $43,720. Median and mean differ because a small number of very high earners pull the mean upward, so the median is the better answer to what the job typically pays.

What is the highest salary for a tour and travel guide?

The highest-paid 10 percent of tour and travel guides earn $60,930 or more. That is the highest figure the survey publishes for this occupation; there is no reported maximum, and individual earnings above it are not broken out.

How many people work as tour and travel guides in the US?

53,500, as of the May 2025 release. That covers wage and salary workers in nonfarm establishments and excludes the self-employed, who are not surveyed.

How much do tour and travel guides make a month?

About $3,177 a month before tax, which is the published annual median of $38,120 divided by twelve. BLS publishes annual and hourly wages rather than monthly, so treat this as arithmetic on the annual figure, not a separate measurement.

Do tour and travel guides make $100,000 a year?

Rarely, on the published data. Even the best-paid 10 percent earn $60,930 or more against a median of $38,120, so a $100,000 figure usually involves overtime, self-employment (which this survey does not cover), or a move into a different role.

Where these numbers come from

Every figure above is published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 release, for SOC code 39-7010. Nothing here is interpolated or averaged by this site. The survey covers wage and salary workers in nonfarm establishments and excludes the self-employed. See how to read these figures for what that means in practice.