Virtual assistant salary

What It Means

Virtual assistant salary is the pay of a person who works as an assistant to one or more clients from home or their own office, over the internet. Cambridge Dictionary gives that meaning alongside a second one, a voice-controlled computer program, which isn't what this page is about. No government wage survey reports virtual assistants as a separate job in the sources checked, so the figures here come from two salary data companies: PayScale puts the median at $19.70 an hour (data updated June 1, 2026), and ZipRecruiter puts the average at $24.40 an hour (September 2026).

How People Say It at Work

• "I'm a VA for three small businesses, all remote."
• "She charges by the hour and bills at the end of the month."
• "Can my VA handle the inbox and the calendar?"

The Breakdown

The numbers, with their sources

The two companies collect different data and land more than $4 an hour apart, so treat any single figure as a rough guide.

Worked example. A VA charges $19.70 an hour and bills 20 hours a week (example hours). That's $394 a week, about $1,707 in an average month and $20,488 over 52 weeks, before any taxes or costs.

What moves the number

• Experience. PayScale's figures rise from $16.90 for under a year of experience to $18.08 for 1 to 4 years.
• Billable hours. A VA paid by the hour earns only for the hours a client pays for.
• Employee or self-employed. A VA working for themselves pays self-employment taxSelf-employment taxThe Social Security and Medicare tax self-employed people pay on their own profit: 15.3% of 92.35% of net earnings, owed once those reach $400 a year. See more on profit, per the IRS.

Good to Know

These are figures from private salary data companies, each drawn from its own data (PayScale's from salary profiles people report), and they're the sources named here because the government surveys checked don't report this job on its own. If you work as a self-employed VA, the IRS says self-employment tax of 15.3% applies to 92.35% of your net earningsNet incomeWhat's left after everything is taken out: on a paycheck, pay after taxes and deductions; for a business, profit after all expenses and taxes. See more once they reach $400 in a year. A rate that matches an employee's hourly pay leaves you with less once that tax is set aside.

Related Terms and Categories

• Freelance rates

  What a freelancer charges clients, usually by the hour or project, set high enough to cover their own costs and taxes as well as their pay.

• Freelancing

  Working for yourself, selling your skills to different clients by the project or the hour instead of holding a long-term job with one employer.

• 1099 contractor

  An independent contractor whose pay a business reports on Form 1099-NEC; they're self-employed, so no tax is withheld and they owe self-employment tax.

• Self-employment tax

  The Social Security and Medicare tax self-employed people pay on their own profit: 15.3% of 92.35% of net earnings, owed once those reach $400 a year.

• Remote work

  Doing your job from somewhere other than your employer's workplace, most often from home, for some or all of the workweek.

• Side hustle

  Paid work done alongside a main job or other commitments, such as freelancing, delivery driving or selling goods; the IRS treats the income as taxable.

Pay, rates and costs