H-1B Salary Dallas 2026: The $96,034 Floor Hiding in 22,787 Filings

Why 14,724 H-1B Offers in Dallas Are All Exactly $96,034

Across four separate Texas cities, 14,724 certified H-1B filings share an identical 25th-percentile wage - to the dollar. A number repeated that precisely is not a salary. Here is how to tell whether yours is one.

9 November 2026 4 min read Pay & Tax

We parsed 391,748 certified H-1B filings from the Department of Labor's disclosure file and broke the wages down by city. Most of it looked the way you would expect: higher in the Bay Area, lower in the south, a wide spread everywhere.

Then one number stopped us.

In Plano, Irving, Frisco and McKinney - four separate Texas cities, filed by different employers - the 25th-percentile wage is exactly the same figure. Not similar. Identical, to the dollar, across 14,724 filings.

$96,034. That is where the bottom quarter of H-1B wages sits in all four cities.

The two numbers that run Dallas-Fort Worth

Widen it to the whole metro and the pattern holds. Across 22,787 filings in seven DFW cities, the bottom quartile takes only two values.

City	Filings	25th percentile	Median	75th	90th
Plano, TX	6,001	$96,034	$113,000	$140,000	$164,000
Dallas, TX	5,747	$92,581	$115,578	$150,000	$179,700
Irving, TX	5,291	$96,034	$112,930	$135,660	$160,000
Frisco, TX	2,272	$96,034	$113,000	$136,000	$162,000
Richardson, TX	1,873	$92,581	$112,923	$131,082	$156,998
McKinney, TX	1,160	$96,034	$113,000	$136,000	$165,000
Lewisville, TX	443	$92,581	$112,923	$133,850	$147,957

Seven cities. Two numbers. The medians cluster just as tightly - six of the seven sit within $100 of $113,000.

Now look at the Bay Area

Run the identical analysis on 43,840 filings across eight Bay Area cities and nothing repeats at all.

City	Filings	25th percentile	Median	75th	90th
San Francisco, CA	8,799	$150,000	$187,574	$220,000	$263,000
San Jose, CA	8,400	$146,000	$180,000	$216,091	$264,011
Sunnyvale, CA	7,860	$150,160	$181,532	$211,260	$238,770
Santa Clara, CA	6,138	$152,123	$177,758	$207,432	$233,632
Mountain View, CA	4,761	$167,000	$196,000	$224,000	$250,000
Menlo Park, CA	2,819	$179,000	$202,000	$228,599	$265,116
Palo Alto, CA	2,618	$155,000	$186,833	$225,077	$268,000
Cupertino, CA	2,445	$154,428	$181,100	$205,482	$227,327

Eight cities, eight distinct figures, none shared. Twice the filings of DFW and not one collision.

What a repeated number actually means

A wage that lands on the same figure to the dollar, across thousands of filings and several cities, is not the result of thousands of separate negotiations. It is a number being copied from a table.

In this system there is one obvious table: the prevailing wage. When an employer files a labor condition application it must state the prevailing wage for that occupation in that area and commit to paying at least that much. The figure normally comes from the OEWS survey and is published at four wage levels. If an employer sets the offered wage equal to the published rate, the filing records that exact rate - and so does every other filing that does the same thing.

We cannot prove which rate each $96,034 row came from. Our figures are aggregated per city, so we cannot tie an individual filing back to its SOC code and wage level - and we are not going to guess. What the data shows is the repetition itself, which is a property of a published rate rather than a negotiated salary.

The practical reading is simpler than the mechanism. In DFW, the bottom quarter of the H-1B market is not being paid a market salary. It is being paid a floor.

How to tell which one your offer is

Read your certified LCA. Your employer must make it available to you. It states the occupation code, the wage level, the prevailing wage and the wage offered - all four, on one form.
Compare the last two. If the wage offered equals the prevailing wage, you are at the floor by definition, whatever the number is.
Check whether your figure is suspiciously exact. A salary someone argued for tends to land on a round number. $96,034 is not a number anyone negotiated to.
Check the level, not just the amount. Levels run 1 to 4, roughly entry to fully competent. If you have real experience and the filing says Level 1, that is worth a conversation - the level is a choice your employer made, not a fact about you.

What this changes in a negotiation

It changes which argument works.

If you are at or near the floor, citing the prevailing wage helps your employer, not you - you would be quoting the minimum they already meet. The argument that works is the distribution: in Plano the 75th percentile is $140,000 and the 90th is $164,000, against a floor of $96,034. The same city, the same visa, the same year, $68,000 apart.

It also reframes the relocation question. Moving from Plano to Sunnyvale takes the median from $113,000 to $181,532 - but that $68,532 is not a raise, because Bay Area housing consumes much of it. The number that does travel is the percentile: being at the 25th in Plano and the 25th in Sunnyvale are different jobs, not different cities.

For the full picture by occupation, see our H-1B salary data by role and city, and for how the floor is set, the prevailing wage explained.

What this data cannot tell you

These are per-city percentiles across all occupations, so a city with a different mix of roles will show a different distribution for reasons that have nothing to do with generosity. DFW has a heavy concentration of IT services and consulting filings; the Bay Area has a heavy concentration of product engineering. Some of the gap is occupation mix, not location.

The wage on an LCA is also base pay as promised to the Department of Labor. It excludes bonus and equity, which is exactly where a large part of Bay Area compensation lives. Treat the DFW-to-Bay-Area comparison as a comparison of floors, not of take-home.

Finally, a certified filing is not a hire. The file records what employers committed to pay on applications that were certified, not who actually started work.

Questions

What does it mean if my H-1B offer is exactly $96,034?

It means your wage matches the figure that 14,724 certified filings across Plano, Irving, Frisco and McKinney share as their 25th percentile. A wage repeated to the dollar across thousands of filings and several cities is a published rate being copied, not a negotiated salary - in practice, you are at or very near the legal floor for your occupation and area.

How do I find out my own prevailing wage?

It is printed on your certified Labor Condition Application, which your employer must make available to you. The form states the occupation code, the wage level, the prevailing wage and the wage offered. If the last two match, you are at the floor.

Is a Dallas H-1B salary actually lower than a Bay Area one?

The medians say yes - $113,000 in Plano against $181,532 in Sunnyvale. But part of that gap is occupation mix rather than location, since DFW carries far more IT services and consulting filings. The LCA wage is also base pay only and excludes bonus and equity, which form a large share of Bay Area compensation.

Should I use these percentiles when negotiating?

Yes, and in preference to the prevailing wage if you are near the floor. In Plano the floor is $96,034 while the 75th percentile is $140,000 and the 90th is $164,000. The distribution is the argument; the legal minimum is the employer's argument.

Where does this data come from?

The Department of Labor's Office of Foreign Labor Certification publishes a disclosure file of every labor condition application it processes. We parsed 391,748 certified filings and computed the percentiles by city ourselves. It is public data that is rarely read at this level of detail.

Note: This is general information drawn from official sources, not legal or immigration advice. Immigration rules change and individual cases differ — confirm your own position with the official source linked above or a licensed attorney before acting.