What a travel agent costs in the US
The wage BLS measured across 55,110 jobs, what an employer pays on top of it, the pay in every state, and which of the job's core tasks already show up in AI use.
Medians for the whole US. Your own cost depends on where you hire, the benefits you offer and the hours worked.
- Median wage
- $50,160
- Hourly wage
- $24.11
- Loaded per hour
- $30.03
- Middle half earns
- $41,950 to $63,060
- Jobs in the US
- 55,110
Wage × 1.2455 for benefits and payroll taxes, from BLS.
A travel agent in the US is paid a median $50,160 a year, $24.11 an hour, across 55,110 jobs. With benefits, a small employer pays about $62,470. Of its 8 core tasks, 2 showed up in Claude.ai conversations in May 2026, and in 1 of those Claude mostly did the task rather than assisting.
The work, task by task
The 8 core tasks O*NET lists for travel agents, most important first, and how each showed up in Claude.ai conversations in May 2026. The bar splits those conversations between Claude doing the task and Claude helping a person do it.
- 01Collect payment for transportation and accommodations from customer.API: 98% did the task, 2% helped
- 02Compute cost of travel and accommodations, using calculator, computer, carrier tariff books, and hotel rate books, or quote package tour's costs.Claude.ai: 43% did the task, 57% helped
- 03Converse with customer to determine destination, mode of transportation, travel dates, financial considerations, and accommodations required.Claude.ai: 64% did the task, 36% helped · API: 97% did the task
- 04Plan, describe, arrange, and sell itinerary tour packages and promotional travel incentives offered by various travel carriers.
- 05Record and maintain information on clients, vendors, and travel packages.
- 06Book transportation and hotel reservations, using computer or telephone.
- 07Print or request transportation carrier tickets, using computer printer system or system link to travel carrier.
- 08Provide customer with brochures and publications containing travel information, such as local customs, points of interest, or foreign country regulations.
2 of 8 tasks appear in the Claude.ai sample of the Anthropic Economic Index for May 2026, and 1 more only in its sample of API traffic, where businesses run Claude inside their own software. A task without a row had too few conversations for Anthropic to publish, which is not the same as none. Shares are of all sampled Claude.ai conversations, so small figures are normal: 0.01% of every conversation that month was about this occupation.
Pay by state
The median annual wage in each state and DC, and the same wage fully loaded. Nevada pays the most, $63,400; South Carolina the least, $34,560. BLS publishes no figure where its sample is too small, which leaves 2 gaps here.
| State | Median wage | Fully loaded | Middle half | Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | $47,640 | $59,340 | $44,790 to $57,410 | 380 |
| Alaska | $47,650 | $59,350 | $46,540 to $59,260 | 190 |
| Arizona | $51,800 | $64,520 | $44,600 to $63,030 | 1,100 |
| Arkansas | $36,600 | $45,590 | $36,390 to $45,180 | 180 |
| California | $51,030 | $63,560 | $45,670 to $58,760 | 4,760 |
| Colorado | $56,570 | $70,460 | $48,370 to $62,500 | 1,100 |
| Connecticut | $60,640 | $75,530 | $48,890 to $71,970 | 650 |
| Delaware | Not published | · | · | 210 |
| District of Columbia | $61,560 | $76,670 | $47,410 to $75,400 | 160 |
| Florida | $50,060 | $62,350 | $39,260 to $63,540 | 9,430 |
| Georgia | $48,880 | $60,880 | $35,630 to $60,050 | 2,300 |
| Hawaii | $47,560 | $59,240 | $31,880 to $65,140 | 580 |
| Idaho | $48,110 | $59,920 | $29,990 to $57,700 | 220 |
| Illinois | $49,090 | $61,140 | $44,540 to $59,240 | 2,120 |
| Indiana | $48,530 | $60,440 | $36,310 to $59,930 | 640 |
| Iowa | $45,440 | $56,600 | $36,470 to $57,360 | 290 |
| Kansas | $53,600 | $66,760 | $46,080 to $60,040 | 250 |
| Kentucky | $49,370 | $61,490 | $44,120 to $58,860 | 220 |
| Louisiana | $35,970 | $44,800 | $33,920 to $47,040 | 310 |
| Maine | Not published | · | · | 120 |
| Maryland | $49,160 | $61,230 | $38,550 to $57,540 | 360 |
| Massachusetts | $56,450 | $70,310 | $46,200 to $66,300 | 1,810 |
| Michigan | $46,250 | $57,600 | $39,090 to $58,500 | 1,150 |
| Minnesota | $47,260 | $58,860 | $35,170 to $71,830 | 890 |
| Mississippi | $49,050 | $61,090 | $39,630 to $59,990 | 160 |
| Missouri | $45,460 | $56,620 | $31,180 to $57,130 | 1,500 |
| Montana | $61,330 | $76,390 | $46,500 to $68,480 | 200 |
| Nebraska | $49,690 | $61,890 | $37,220 to $55,260 | 240 |
| Nevada | $63,400 | $78,960 | $63,400 to $63,400 | · |
| New Hampshire | $47,190 | $58,780 | $42,860 to $60,470 | 130 |
| New Jersey | $61,090 | $76,090 | $45,900 to $73,370 | 1,660 |
| New Mexico | $44,700 | $55,670 | $30,640 to $46,500 | 120 |
| New York | $55,580 | $69,220 | $47,990 to $73,480 | 3,180 |
| North Carolina | $56,180 | $69,970 | $45,560 to $63,810 | 1,250 |
| North Dakota | $44,740 | $55,720 | $37,440 to $59,710 | 150 |
| Ohio | $46,000 | $57,290 | $37,920 to $59,530 | 1,140 |
| Oklahoma | $36,980 | $46,060 | $21,120 to $47,410 | 600 |
| Oregon | $56,810 | $70,760 | $48,800 to $63,400 | 620 |
| Pennsylvania | $47,720 | $59,440 | $40,520 to $61,620 | 1,470 |
| Rhode Island | $59,790 | $74,470 | $45,950 to $76,710 | 250 |
| South Carolina | $34,560 | $43,040 | $30,550 to $49,600 | 680 |
| South Dakota | $44,510 | $55,440 | $37,990 to $58,330 | 200 |
| Tennessee | $55,640 | $69,300 | $46,580 to $63,810 | 540 |
| Texas | $49,500 | $61,650 | $42,550 to $62,060 | 4,310 |
| Utah | $56,670 | $70,580 | $37,970 to $63,680 | 440 |
| Vermont | $60,560 | $75,430 | $50,150 to $64,010 | 120 |
| Virginia | $45,260 | $56,370 | $35,430 to $59,400 | 1,050 |
| Washington | $55,260 | $68,830 | $48,010 to $61,750 | 1,710 |
| West Virginia | $44,760 | $55,750 | $37,880 to $45,010 | 250 |
| Wisconsin | $47,080 | $58,640 | $37,530 to $57,030 | 810 |
| Wyoming | $48,030 | $59,820 | $36,150 to $53,850 | 50 |
The same benefits ratio applies in every state, because BLS does not publish benefit costs by business size for each state. The middle half is the 25th to 75th percentile wage.
Where the numbers come from
Every figure is copied from a public file. The only arithmetic is the loaded cost: the wage times 1.2455.
- Wages
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, occupation 41-3041 (Travel Agents). Annual figures are the hourly wage times 2,080 hours, as BLS computes them, so they already include pay for paid leave.
- Fully loaded
- BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026 (2026 Q2), private businesses with 1 to 49 workers: $37.64 an hour in total compensation over $27.88 in wages plus $2.34 in paid leave gives 1.2455. Paid leave sits in the denominator because the annual wage already pays it.
- Tasks
- O*NET 31.0 core tasks for 41-3041.00, the ten most important by their importance rating. A few occupations list fewer core tasks.
- AI use
- Anthropic Economic Index, release of June 2026, conversations from May 2026. "Did the task" is Anthropic's automation share, where the user directs Claude to do the work; "helped" is augmentation, where the user works with Claude to learn, check or iterate.
- Not measured
- What a particular business pays, and whether an AI system can do a task well. The AI figures count conversations about a task, not jobs replaced.
This page includes information from the O*NET 31.0 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. AI use data from the Anthropic Economic Index by Anthropic, under CC BY. Wage and benefit data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
What would an AI system cost for this work?
Put $62,470 beside the running cost of a system doing the tasks above, with the build counted in year one.
BLS wages May 2025 · O*NET 31.0 · Anthropic Economic Index