Paralegal salary in Dallas-Fort Worth, TX

Pay in Dallas-Fort Worth against Texas and the US

Pay is more spread out here than nationally: the top tenth earns $100,920 or more, 2.6 times the bottom tenth, against 2.3 times across the US. Two offers for the same title can sit far apart. The middle half of paralegals in Dallas-Fort Worth earns $48,760–$80,700. The mean ($68,520) is 8% over the median, so a group of high earners pulls the average up; price a typical hire from the median. From the 25th to the 75th percentile, the local range is $31,940 wide, wider than in Texas as a whole ($30,330) and the US ($29,740), so what a paralegal earns in Dallas-Fort Worth depends more on the employer.

What to budget for a paralegal here

The step from the 25th percentile to the median is $14,460 a year; from the median to the 75th it is $17,480, or about $22,555 once benefits are added. These percentiles describe what people in the job earn locally, not experience levels, so place your offer by the tasks and seniority you need.

For scale, the US median of $62,890 falls between the 25th percentile and the median in Dallas-Fort Worth, and the Texas statewide median of $62,310 falls there too.

What a hire really costs in Dallas-Fort Worth

Pay is only part of it. Benefits and payroll taxes other than paid leave are 22.5% of total compensation in US private industry², which adds about $18,354 to the $63,220 median and brings it to $81,574 a year. Recruiting, equipment and office space come on top. Benefit levels vary by employer, so treat this as an estimate.

We place executive assistants, customer support and e-commerce staff today; for paralegals we answer within one business day whether we can help. Enter the monthly pay you have in mind to compare it with a local hire. The fee field shows our standard fee³; Deel's contractor plan is the default payroll tool⁴.

Other roles in Dallas-Fort Worth

Of the 17 roles we track in Dallas-Fort Worth, this one ranks #8 by median pay, between sales development representatives ($63,280) and payroll specialists ($60,230). Project Coordinator is the highest at $98,900.

Measured against the US median, paralegals rank #7 of the 17 roles we track in Dallas-Fort Worth (+0.5%), between bookkeepers (+2.1%) and customer support specialists (+0.5%). The typical role here is at -0.2%, so this job follows the area's general pay level. Paralegals hold 1.8% of the jobs in these 17 roles in Dallas-Fort Worth, 1.9% across Texas and 2.5% nationally. The job is a smaller part of the local workforce in these roles than it is nationally.

Other areas in Texas

Across the 30 areas of Texas with data for this job, the median runs from $45,480 in Brownsville-Harlingen to $64,500 in Midland, a gap of $19,020 a year. No other area in Texas has as many paralegals, and 27 of the other 29 pay less.

Dallas-Fort Worth against other US metro areas

By number of jobs, Dallas-Fort Worth is #8 of 503 US areas, one of the ten largest markets for this job. Outside Texas, Hagerstown-Martinsburg and New Haven pay just above Dallas-Fort Worth and Yakima and El Centro just below. All four are within $220 a year of the median in Dallas-Fort Worth. Of the three markets with about as many paralegals, two pay more.

Questions

Sources

How these pages are built: methodology and data sources. Last updated 2026-11-12.