Home Health Aides: pay and how to start

You visit clients at home, help them bathe, dress, and take medications, prepare meals, do light housekeeping, and offer companionship.

Pay is the median annual wage for the whole United States. Each number is followed, in brackets, by its publisher and date.

What it pays, and what it takes

Median pay is the national median annual wage: half the people in the job earn more, half less. Openings a year is a BLS projection that counts people leaving the job as well as new jobs, so it measures turnover, not positions open today. Where we hold no verified figure it says Provisional, never an estimate.

Median pay: $35,800 [CareerOneStop (BLS OEWS), United States, 2025]
Openings a year: ProvisionalBLS projects this only for home health and personal care aides together (BLS code 31-1120) and has no separate line for Home Health Aides, so there is no figure for this job alone.
Projected change in jobs, ten years: ProvisionalBLS projects this only for home health and personal care aides together (BLS code 31-1120) and has no separate line for Home Health Aides, so there is no figure for this job alone.
Typical way in, as BLS lists it: High school diploma or equivalent · No work experience · Less than 1 month on-the-job training [CareerOneStop (BLS Employment Projections), retrieved 2026-09-28]BLS lists this for home health and personal care aides together (BLS code 31-1120) and has no separate line for Home Health Aides.
Registered apprenticeship title: Yes [O*NET RAPIDS crosswalk, U.S. Dept. of Labor/ETA, 2026-03]Whether the Department of Labor lists a registered apprenticeship for this job at all. It does not say one is open near you.

Education people in the job hold

The highest level of education reached by people already working in this job, as the publisher reports it. It is a description of who is in the job, not a requirement to enter it.

High school: 35.5% [CareerOneStop (BLS Employment Projections), United States, retrieved 2026-09-28]
Some college: 23.7% [CareerOneStop (BLS Employment Projections), United States, retrieved 2026-09-28]
No high school diploma: 17% [CareerOneStop (BLS Employment Projections), United States, retrieved 2026-09-28]
Bachelor's: 10.8% [CareerOneStop (BLS Employment Projections), United States, retrieved 2026-09-28]
Associate's: 9.4% [CareerOneStop (BLS Employment Projections), United States, retrieved 2026-09-28]
Other: 3.6% [CareerOneStop (BLS Employment Projections), United States, retrieved 2026-09-28]

Verification required

Licences and credentials

Most of these jobs need a state licence, a certification, or both, and the rules differ by state. We do not list requirements on this page, and nothing here certifies that a program or a credential qualifies you for any job. Before you pay for training, check what your state requires with its licensing board.

CareerOneStop's License Finder lists licensing requirements by state.

What this page cannot tell you

Every figure here is national. What this job pays where you live can sit well above or well below the median on this page, and nothing here tells you which.

An opening is a projection over ten years, not a vacancy you can apply to today, and a projection is a forecast that can be wrong. The typical way in describes how most people got there, not the only route and not a rule about you.

These are the 42 healthcare jobs we hold a verified pay figure for. A job that is missing is one we have not added or have not verified pay for yet.

Medical & Clinical Laboratory Technicians and Home Health Aides have no verified projection. We would rather show that than borrow a figure from a neighboring job:

Medical & Clinical Laboratory Technicians: projected change in jobs ProvisionalBLS projects this only for clinical laboratory technologists and technicians together (BLS code 29-2010) and has no separate line for Medical & Clinical Laboratory Technicians, so there is no figure for this job alone., openings a year ProvisionalBLS projects this only for clinical laboratory technologists and technicians together (BLS code 29-2010) and has no separate line for Medical & Clinical Laboratory Technicians, so there is no figure for this job alone.
Home Health Aides: projected change in jobs ProvisionalBLS projects this only for home health and personal care aides together (BLS code 31-1120) and has no separate line for Home Health Aides, so there is no figure for this job alone., openings a year ProvisionalBLS projects this only for home health and personal care aides together (BLS code 31-1120) and has no separate line for Home Health Aides, so there is no figure for this job alone.

For two of these jobs, BLS lists the typical way in for a wider group of jobs, not for the job alone. We show it as BLS lists it and say so beside it, so read it as a description of the group:

Medical & Clinical Laboratory Technicians: typical way in Bachelor's degree · No work experience · No on-the-job training [CareerOneStop (BLS Employment Projections), retrieved 2026-09-28]BLS lists this for clinical laboratory technologists and technicians together (BLS code 29-2010) and has no separate line for Medical & Clinical Laboratory Technicians. O*NET lists the job in Job Zone Three: most people need training in vocational schools, related on-the-job experience, or an associate's degree. (O*NET OnLine, retrieved October 3, 2026.) BLS and O*NET describe it differently, so we show both.
Home Health Aides: typical way in High school diploma or equivalent · No work experience · Less than 1 month on-the-job training [CareerOneStop (BLS Employment Projections), retrieved 2026-09-28]BLS lists this for home health and personal care aides together (BLS code 31-1120) and has no separate line for Home Health Aides.

What it does not include: what training costs, which programs are accredited, or pay in your state or city.

Where these numbers come from

Every figure on this page was published by someone other than us and is shown as published. Retrieved from the publisher on September 28, 2026: typical way in, education people in the job hold. The rest show the period they cover, not a retrieval date, and we state none for them: median pay, registered apprenticeship titles. A figure we cannot source is marked Provisional, and one the publisher does not measure says so. Both appear on the page itself, not behind a tap.

Median pay CareerOneStop (BLS OEWS), 2025. About this source
Typical way in CareerOneStop (BLS Employment Projections), retrieved 2026-09-28. About this source
Education people in the job hold CareerOneStop (BLS Employment Projections), retrieved 2026-09-28. About this source
Registered apprenticeship titles O*NET RAPIDS crosswalk, U.S. Dept. of Labor/ETA, 2026-03. About this source

The provisional flag and every publisher's terms are explained on Where our numbers come from.

Found something wrong? Email hello@highpathways.com and name the page and the figure. It goes to a person at HighPathways.

Wages, time-to-entry, education levels, state licensing and local training programs sourced via CareerOneStop (BLS OEWS; BLS Employment Projections; License Finder; Local Training Finder: NCES IPEDS and US DOL ETP/WIOA), sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration and operated by the Minnesota Department of Employment & Economic Development. Shown as published.

This page includes information from the O*NET 30.3 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. HighPathways has modified some of this information: we shorten O*NET’s official occupation titles so they read the way people say them; USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications. Pay and cost figures are sourced separately and listed on the Data sources page.

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