A veterinary associate contract has four parts that matter: how you're paid, what restricts you after you leave, which benefits are actually written down, and how the relationship ends.
AVMA publishes guidance on some of this — its own non-compete norms, for instance — but not all of it.
This checklist covers what to check in each part, which of those terms to negotiate before you sign, and where our other pages go deeper on any one of them.
What AVMA's own contract guidance covers — and skips
AVMA publishes guidance for veterinarians evaluating a job offer, and it's worth reading before anything else — but it's thinner than a general attorney's contract checklist.
It sets two clear, self-described norms for restrictive covenants: a non-compete's geographic scope should, as a general guideline, track 80% of the practice's patient base, and one to three years is standard for duration.
Those are AVMA's own stated norms, not law — enforceability still runs entirely through your state, which is covered in full on our non-compete page.
What AVMA's own guidance does not walk through: continuing-education allowance, who pays for licensure and association dues, malpractice and tail coverage, or termination provisions.
Those are exactly the categories a contract can use to hide real cost — and where the rest of this checklist focuses.
General information, not legal advice
Compensation: base, ProSal, or production
Start with which model you're actually being offered, since the three are structured differently and headline percentages are not comparable across them.
A straight base salary is the simplest to evaluate.
ProSal pays a guaranteed base that functions as a recoverable draw against a percentage of your production, and you're paid whichever is greater — so the base is an advance against future production, not a floor plus a bonus.
AVMA's own data put roughly 56% of associates on ProSal in 2024, making it the default model rather than an alternative one.
Pure production pay drops the guaranteed base entirely.
If any production is involved, ask whether it's calculated on production or on collections — collections shifts a share of the practice's bad-debt risk onto you — whether the percentage applies to gross or net revenue, and how shared, referred or technician-performed work gets attributed to you.
If the base is structured as ProSal, ask directly whether negative accrual applies, whether any shortfall rolls forward indefinitely or is capped to a lookback period, and whether the agreement converts to a true guarantee once you clear a production threshold.
The mechanics behind all of this — how the percentage math works, why an indefinite rollforward hits new graduates hardest — are covered in full on our ProSal and production pay page; this checklist only tells you what to ask before you sign.
Restrictive covenants: non-compete and non-solicitation
Confirm first whether your state permits non-competes at all.
California, Minnesota, North Dakota and Oklahoma void virtually all employee non-competes outright, which makes the specific wording of the clause in your contract close to irrelevant if you're practicing in one of them.
Where they are permitted, AVMA's own guidance frames the general guideline as a radius covering 80% of the practice's patient base for geographic scope and one to three years for duration — useful benchmarks, though enforceability ultimately turns on your state's own reasonableness test, not on AVMA's language.
Confirm exactly what activity is restricted (all veterinary practice, or a defined species or specialty), what the radius is measured from — the specific hospital you worked at, or every location the employer owns — and whether the restriction survives if you're terminated without cause.
Check separately for a non-solicitation clause covering clients, staff, or both.
It's a different restriction with different legal treatment, and a client non-solicitation can bite unusually hard in veterinary medicine, because client bonds form with the practitioner rather than the practice.
State-by-state detail — published as each state is researched and dated, including states that use an income threshold instead of a pure reasonableness test — is on our non-compete page.
Benefits AVMA's guidance skips: CE, licensing, malpractice
These line items rarely show up in a headline compensation figure, but they are real income or real cost depending on who pays for them — and they're exactly what AVMA's own contract guidance doesn't walk through.
Confirm who pays state licensure fees and required continuing education, and whether it's specified as a dollar allowance or an hour count rather than left as "as needed."
Confirm who covers professional association dues if membership is expected of you.
On malpractice: confirm that coverage is provided, at what limits, and whether the employer's policy or an individual policy applies to you — and get those specifics in writing rather than assuming a level of protection.
Then ask the question a coverage-limit number doesn't answer on its own: is the policy occurrence-based or claims-made, and if claims-made, who pays for tail coverage after you leave.
That answer can determine whether leaving a job exposes you to an uninsured gap on claims arising from care you provided while you were still there.
Don't assume a W-2 salary means you're automatically covered by the practice's policy — W-2 vs 1099: the real math covers why AVMA PLIT markets individual coverage to employed veterinarians too, and the actual policy limits.
Signing bonuses
58.7% of 2026 veterinary graduates entering full-time employment received a signing bonus, per AVMA's senior survey — and the class of 2025 was close behind at 61%.
Common enough to expect, though AVMA has not published an average dollar amount in either its 2025 or 2026 report.
If one is offered, confirm in writing whether it's repayable, in full or prorated, if you leave before a stated date — and treat the bonus as conditional until those repayment terms are in the contract itself, not something to assume away because the number looked like a gift.
If an employer offers to contribute toward your student loans directly rather than through a bonus, treat it as a separate mechanism from federal loan programs — confirm whether it's structured as taxable compensation and get the terms in writing rather than relying on a verbal description of what's being offered.
Term, termination, and what happens after
Confirm the contract's term length and how it renews — automatically, or only by mutual written agreement — and what notice period either side owes to end it.
Distinguish termination for cause from termination without cause; notice periods, severance, and whether restrictive covenants survive often differ between the two.
Confirm what happens to any ProSal negative-accrual balance, unused CE allowance, or pending production bonus if the relationship ends mid-cycle — the kind of detail a template agreement may not spell out on its own.
And when the renewal itself arrives, negotiating your second contract is its own negotiation — this time with realized production data behind every ask.
How do you negotiate a veterinary associate contract?
Negotiate before you sign, in writing — any change after signature is a renegotiation, and the renewal is a different negotiation still, made with realized production data instead of projections.
Negotiation is expected, not an imposition: AVMA's own job-offer guidance says that a non-compete more restrictive than its norms "can be a point of negotiation" — the clause that guidance addresses in the most detail.
Work the asks in the order they cost you.
The ProSal terms come first: whether negative accrual applies at all, and if the practice keeps it, the negotiated middle grounds are a cap on recoupment, a reset period, or conversion to a true guarantee once you clear a production threshold.
Then the definitions behind the production percentage — production or collections, gross or net — because they change what the same percentage is actually worth.
Then the dollar items: CE and licensure as a written allowance rather than "as needed," any bonus repayment prorated rather than due in full, and tail coverage if the malpractice policy is claims-made.
Which of these numbers to spend your leverage on, and in what order, is covered in depth on our base versus production page.
Salary negotiation starts with a benchmark, not a percentage ask.
Check the compensation line against current starting-salary data — our new-grad salary page tracks the AVMA figures a first offer should be measured against.
And the NLRB says it is unlawful for an employer to have a work rule, policy or hiring agreement that bars employees from discussing wages with each other or requires permission to do so — whether or not employees are unionized.
Talking with peers and mentors about what they were offered is not a leak — it's how you find out the offer's shape.
Before you sign
Every one of these should have a clear answer written into the document itself, not in a conversation you half-remember.
- Which compensation model is this — base, ProSal, or pure production — and what percentage applies?
- If ProSal: does negative accrual apply, and does it roll forward indefinitely or reset after a lookback period?
- Does your state permit non-competes, and if so, what duration and radius apply, and measured from where?
- Is there a separate client or staff non-solicitation clause?
- Who pays for continuing education, state licensure, and professional association dues?
- What are your malpractice coverage limits, and is the policy occurrence-based or claims-made?
- Is a signing bonus repayable if you leave before a stated date?
- What's the contract term, and what notice period applies to end it?
- If you negotiated changes, are they written into the document itself — not just in an email or a phone call?
- Has a veterinary employment attorney in your state reviewed the agreement?
None of this tells you whether a specific offer is a good one — that depends on your market, your specialty and your own priorities, which is exactly why it needs a professional read rather than a generic list.
What it should do is make sure you're asking the right questions before you sign, not after.
Comparing offers across employer types?
See how corporate and private ownership actually change these terms, and if debt is part of your calculation, our debt-to-income page covers how a contract's numbers map onto your loan balance.
If the next document on the table is a practice buy-in rather than an employment contract, our practice buy-in page covers how those deals are priced and structured.
Ready to compare real offers?
Browse open veterinarian positions.