Best-paying cities for H-1B software engineers
Published November 10, 2026 · Data through FY2026 Q3
Where you work changes what you earn as a software engineer on an H-1B, often by more than your employer or your seniority. This guide ranks U.S. metro areas by the median base salary on certified Labor Condition Application (LCA) filings for software engineers, using data from FY2025–FY2026. FY2026 covers only the first three quarters (Q1–Q3).
All figures are annual base salary from certified LCA filings, without bonus or stock. A certified LCA is not a visa approval, and one filing can cover more than one worker.
The national baseline
Across the window there were 289,690 certified software engineer filings. The national median base salary was $139,194. The middle half of filings fell between $112,923 and $172,200, and the 10th and 90th percentiles were $100,000 and $204,900.
Use $139,194 as a reference point when reading the tables below.
The 20 best-paying metros
We ranked metros with at least 300 software engineer filings by median salary.
| Rank | Metro | Filings | 25th pct | Median | 75th pct |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | San Francisco, CA | 17,679 | $162,000 | $189,987 | $219,221 |
| 2 | San Jose, CA | 32,111 | $164,000 | $187,974 | $217,500 |
| 3 | Seattle, WA | 29,977 | $147,900 | $168,376 | $190,486 |
| 4 | New York, NY | 22,717 | $129,600 | $155,324 | $187,000 |
| 5 | San Diego, CA | 2,868 | $126,880 | $152,027 | $177,154 |
| 6 | Los Angeles, CA | 4,532 | $129,667 | $151,549 | $176,134 |
| 7 | Stockton, CA | 838 | $117,000 | $150,080 | $172,087 |
| 8 | Boston, MA | 5,782 | $130,000 | $147,846 | $172,744 |
| 9 | Boulder, CO | 306 | $132,012 | $146,058 | $169,225 |
| 10 | Portland, OR | 1,515 | $121,488 | $138,000 | $161,740 |
| 11 | Austin, TX | 11,577 | $114,754 | $135,200 | $162,600 |
| 12 | Worcester, MA | 358 | $116,397 | $132,950 | $158,016 |
| 13 | Denver, CO | 1,943 | $117,375 | $131,040 | $157,900 |
| 14 | Riverside, CA | 418 | $115,981 | $130,000 | $152,027 |
| 15 | Durham, NC | 2,923 | $117,000 | $130,000 | $148,382 |
| 16 | Charlotte, NC | 7,173 | $112,986 | $130,000 | $145,000 |
| 17 | Washington, DC | 8,203 | $122,699 | $129,000 | $156,197 |
| 18 | Raleigh, NC | 3,803 | $112,500 | $128,600 | $149,178 |
| 19 | Providence, RI | 573 | $110,406 | $128,586 | $147,680 |
| 20 | Chicago, IL | 8,846 | $108,012 | $127,754 | $150,000 |
Stockton, CA at number 7 may look unexpected. The metro includes Tracy, Lathrop and Mountain House, and its largest software engineer filer is Walmart, with 121 of the metro's 838 filings, ahead of Cisco (35). Walmart's software engineer filings there average about $150,000, in line with the metro median, so a large employer paying at Bay Area-adjacent levels sets the figure for this metro.
Riverside, Durham and Charlotte are tied at a $130,000 median.
The Bay Area leads clearly
San Francisco and San Jose sit about $2,000 apart at the top, both near $190,000. San Francisco's median is about $50,800 above the national median; San Jose's is about $48,800 above it. San Jose is also the second-largest software engineer market in the data, with 32,111 filings, so its high median is not driven by a small sample.
Seattle and New York follow
Seattle ($168,376) is the clear third, about $29,000 above the national median, and has nearly 30,000 filings. New York comes fourth at $155,324. Below New York, the medians bunch together: positions 5 through 9 all fall between about $146,000 and $152,000.
Only nine metros beat the national median
Of the 20 metros in the table, only the top nine have a median above the national $139,194. Portland, at $138,000, is just under it. This shows how much the largest high-paying markets pull up the national figure.
Small samples
Some metros in the list have few filings. Boulder (306 filings) and Worcester (358) are just above our 300-filing threshold, so their medians can move more from year to year than those of large markets.
The largest software engineer markets
The best-paying metros are not always the biggest. Here are the 15 metros with the most software engineer filings.
| Metro | Filings | Median | 25th pct | 75th pct |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dallas, TX | 35,788 | $114,420 | $106,000 | $141,809 |
| San Jose, CA | 32,111 | $187,974 | $164,000 | $217,500 |
| Seattle, WA | 29,977 | $168,376 | $147,900 | $190,486 |
| New York, NY | 22,717 | $155,324 | $129,600 | $187,000 |
| San Francisco, CA | 17,679 | $189,987 | $162,000 | $219,221 |
| Atlanta, GA | 11,688 | $125,000 | $106,218 | $149,760 |
| Austin, TX | 11,577 | $135,200 | $114,754 | $162,600 |
| Chicago, IL | 8,846 | $127,754 | $108,012 | $150,000 |
| Washington, DC | 8,203 | $129,000 | $122,699 | $156,197 |
| Charlotte, NC | 7,173 | $130,000 | $112,986 | $145,000 |
| Boston, MA | 5,782 | $147,846 | $130,000 | $172,744 |
| Philadelphia, PA | 5,323 | $123,000 | $105,300 | $146,800 |
| Houston, TX | 5,072 | $107,431 | $103,210 | $136,716 |
| Detroit, MI | 4,974 | $120,349 | $102,190 | $138,486 |
| Phoenix, AZ | 4,943 | $116,710 | $106,000 | $141,434 |
Dallas has more software engineer filings than any other metro, 35,788, but its median of $114,420 is about $24,800 below the national median. The San Jose median is about $73,600 higher than Dallas's. Houston and Phoenix also combine high volume with medians below $120,000.
Where software engineer pay is lowest
At the other end, these are the ten metros (with at least 300 filings) with the lowest medians.
| Metro | Filings | Median |
|---|---|---|
| San Antonio, TX | 1,132 | $109,283 |
| Houston, TX | 5,072 | $107,431 |
| Bloomington, IL | 392 | $106,000 |
| Harrisburg, PA | 834 | $105,416 |
| Des Moines, IA | 559 | $103,605 |
| Tallahassee, FL | 352 | $100,563 |
| Albany, NY | 848 | $99,840 |
| Lansing, MI | 407 | $99,112 |
| Peoria, IL | 401 | $98,000 |
| Dayton, OH | 330 | $94,765 |
The median in San Francisco is about twice the median in Dayton, a gap of about $95,000 in base salary.
What this means for job seekers
- Compare within a metro. An offer that looks low against the national median may be typical for its city, and the reverse is also true.
- Higher pay usually comes with higher costs. This data shows salaries only; it does not measure living costs, taxes or housing, so it cannot tell you where your money goes furthest.
- Mix matters. A metro's median reflects which employers and seniority levels file there. Markets dominated by large tech companies tend to show higher medians than markets with many IT services filings.
This guide is a summary of public data, not legal or immigration advice.
How we calculated this
We used certified H-1B LCA filings for the software engineer occupation from FY2025–FY2026 (FY2026 through Q3), assigned each filing to its worksite metro area, and computed medians and percentiles of annual base salary. Rankings include metros with at least 300 filings. More on our methodology page.