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How Much Do H-1B Software Developers Earn by State?
August 26, 2026
Filed H-1B wages for software developers swing about 40% from state to state — and the highest-volume state isn't the highest-paying. What the LCA data shows.
Software developer is the single most common H-1B occupation, but the wage an employer promises for it depends heavily on where the job sits. Using filed Labor Condition Application (LCA) data for Software Developers (SOC code 15-1252), this article shows how the median filed wage shifts from state to state, why the state with the most filings is nowhere near the top of the pay list, and how to read these numbers without over-interpreting them.
If you want the all-occupation picture instead, see our companion piece on how much H-1B workers really earn across states. Here we stay strictly on one role so the comparison is apples-to-apples.
A ~40% gap for the same job title
Here are the median filed wages for Software Developers in several high-volume states:
| State | Median filed wage (SOC 15-1252) |
|---|---|
| Washington | $135,000 |
| California | $130,000 |
| New York | $110,460 |
| New Jersey | $100,000 |
| Texas | $98,910 |
| Georgia | $94,203 |
| Illinois | $90,500 |
The spread from Washington ($135,000) to Illinois ($90,500) is roughly 40% for the same occupation code. That is not a story about developers in Illinois being less skilled — it reflects local labor markets, the mix of employers filing there, and how the Department of Labor's prevailing-wage rules are anchored to local area wage data.
Two clusters drive the top of the list. Washington is home to large product employers headquartered around Seattle, and California spans the Bay Area and Southern California tech corridors. Both regions have high local prevailing wages, so even entry-level filings start from a higher floor.
Volume is not the same as pay
The most striking pattern in the data is that demand and pay don't move together. Texas is the #2 state by filing volume for this role, with 328,305 filings, yet its median filed wage of $98,910 sits near the bottom of the list above. A state can generate enormous demand for developers — through corporate campuses, consulting delivery centers, and finance back-offices — while still filing at lower median wages than smaller, pricier markets.
For a worker weighing offers, the takeaway is concrete: the fact that a state hires a lot of H-1B developers tells you little about what any individual role there pays. Look at the wage attached to the specific filing, not the headline that "everyone is hiring in Texas."
To see how states stack up across the whole program, this live ranking pulls the current top states directly from the data:
You can also explore individual state pages — for example California, Texas, Washington, and New York — to see the employers and occupations behind each state's numbers.
Where you sit on the wage ladder matters as much as the state
State medians hide a second, equally important axis: seniority. The DOL prevailing-wage system assigns every filing a wage level from I (entry) to IV (senior), and each level has its own required wage floor based on local data. For Software Developers nationally, that ladder runs from a Level I floor of $88,442 up to a Level IV figure of $155,000 — a wider gap than the one between states.
| Level | P25 | Median | P75 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Level I | $78,459 | $90,000 | $112,000 |
| Level II | $92,000 | $103,000 | $126,400 |
| Level III | $110,900 | $130,364 | $159,809 |
| Level IV | $133,120 | $155,688 | $187,000 |
That means a senior developer (Level IV) filing in a lower-paying state can easily out-earn an entry-level developer (Level I) in a top-paying state. When you compare an offer against these numbers, check both the state median and which wage level the role maps to. We break down exactly how these tiers work in Prevailing Wage Levels I–IV Explained.
How the role's pay has moved over time
Software-developer wages haven't stood still. The national median filed wage for the occupation has climbed over the past decade and a half, tracking broader tech-sector compensation growth. This chart plots the real year-by-year median for the role:
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| 2010 | $80k |
| 2011 | $80k |
| 2012 | $81k |
| 2013 | $82k |
| 2014 | $82k |
| 2015 | $82k |
| 2016 | $84k |
| 2017 | $90k |
| 2018 | $93k |
| 2019 | $96k |
| 2020 | $103k |
| 2021 | $112k |
| 2022 | $115k |
| 2023 | $120k |
| 2024 | $124k |
| 2025 | $133k |
Because a rising national median lifts the prevailing-wage floors regionally, the state figures above are best read as a snapshot of the most recent complete data, not a permanent ranking.
Reading these numbers responsibly
The LCA dataset is powerful, but it is easy to misread. A few guardrails apply to every figure in this article:
- An LCA is not a visa. The Labor Condition Application is a wage-and-working-conditions attestation an employer files before petitioning. It is a step in the process, not proof that a visa was issued.
- Certification is not approval. A certified LCA means the Department of Labor accepted the filing; it does not mean USCIS approved an H-1B petition. The two agencies make separate decisions.
- Withdrawn is not denied. Employers routinely withdraw filings for benign reasons — a duplicate, a changed start date, a candidate who declined. A withdrawal is not a rejection.
- The offered wage is not take-home pay. These are gross annual wages an employer attests it will pay. Taxes, benefits, and cost of living — which varies sharply between, say, the Bay Area and the Midwest — all change what the number means in practice.
- The most recent fiscal year is partial. FY2026 figures reflect only about two quarters of reported data, so recent-year totals will keep rising as more filings are processed.
Keep those in mind and the state medians become genuinely useful: they are a reliable read on what employers promise to pay for a given role in a given place, sourced from mandatory federal disclosures.
The bottom line
For H-1B software developers, geography moves filed pay by roughly 40% — Washington and California anchor the top, while high-demand Texas sits well below them despite leading on volume. But the single biggest lever inside one role is the wage level: the national Level I-to-IV range for developers is wider than the gap between states.
If you're benchmarking an offer, do three things: find the state median for Software Developers, identify the wage level the role maps to, and treat volume rankings as a measure of demand — not pay. To search actual sponsors by role and location, start with our guide on how to find H-1B sponsors for your job and state.
- software developers
- wages
- state comparison
- H-1B
- LCA data