The veterinary profession in numbers: the AVMA counts 133,475 U.S. veterinarians at the end of 2025 — 91,889 of them women.
BLS counts 91,100 veterinarian jobs, a different measure.
Training runs four years of veterinary school on top of the bachelor's degree applicants typically already hold, the profession recognizes 48 specialties, and about three in four vets in practice work in companion animal care, by AVMA's 2023 count.
Here are those facts, verified and sourced.
How many veterinarians are there in the US?
Two well-known counts answer this, and they measure different things.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that veterinarians held 91,100 jobs in the U.S. in 2025 — a count of jobs.
The AVMA, the profession's own association, estimates there were 133,475 U.S. veterinarians as of December 31, 2025 — a headcount of people, covering AVMA members and nonmembers alike, that includes veterinarians whose current employment situation the AVMA has no record of.
The headcount runs higher than the jobs count because the two measure different things: one counts people, the other counts filled jobs.
On AVMA's measure, the headcount rose over the year: the end-of-2024 count was 130,415, and a year later it stood at 133,475 — a rise of more than 3,000 veterinarians in twelve months (the two years' estimates use slightly different inclusion cut-offs).
Looking forward, the BLS projects employment of veterinarians to grow 9% from 2025 to 2035, with the jobs count rising from 91,100 to 99,600 — much faster than the 3% average it projects for all occupations.
For what the work behind the numbers involves — the duties, the patients, the daily setting — start with what a veterinarian does.
Who becomes a vet today?
Today's veterinarian is statistically most likely to be a woman.
Of the 133,475 U.S. veterinarians AVMA counted at the end of 2025, 91,889 were female and 40,595 male — just under 69% of the total, with the small remainder counted as nonbinary, not listed, or not reported.
A year earlier, at the end of 2024, AVMA's count stood at 88,588 female and 40,968 male.
Both years' figures are AVMA estimates covering members and nonmembers alike, not counts of jobs.
One filter shapes who becomes a vet before any of the training even starts: admission to veterinary school is competitive, and applicants typically already hold a bachelor's degree in a field such as biology.
How long the training takes
The veterinary degree itself is four years.
A DVM (or VMD) program generally takes 4 years — most programs include 3 years of classroom, laboratory and clinical work, and students typically spend the final year doing clinical rotations in a veterinary medical center or hospital.
That program is the back half of the runway.
Because admission is competitive and applicants typically arrive with a bachelor's degree in a field such as biology already completed, the path to the DVM starts well before vet school does.
Where the degree can be earned is limited.
The AVMA's Council on Education keeps the only official online list of accredited programs, and its June 2026 list showed 32 U.S. accredited colleges — one of them on probationary accreditation — plus 5 colleges with provisional accreditation and 2 with a letter of reasonable assurance: about three dozen colleges with full or provisional accreditation, with more in development.
AVMA News reported in 2024 that 13 more colleges were in various stages of seeking accreditation, with analysts expecting new colleges' first graduating classes from 2028 to 2030.
Even by 2035, though, only 4% or so of veterinarians were expected to be graduates of the new colleges.
A final gate sits after graduation: veterinarians must be licensed to practice.
Requirements vary by state, and according to BLS all states require an accredited veterinary program and a qualifying exam, with most also requiring a state exam on state law.
The Veterinarian's Oath
Most professions keep their promise in writing, and veterinary medicine's is the Veterinarian's Oath that the AVMA publishes.
It runs to three sentences, and its opening sentence is quoted in full at the end of this section.
The oath's other two sentences commit a veterinarian to practice “conscientiously, with dignity, and in keeping with the principles of veterinary medical ethics,” and to accept “as a lifelong obligation the continual improvement of my professional knowledge and competence.”
That last promise is backed by more than good intentions: according to the AAVSB, all of its member jurisdictions require continuing education for veterinary re-licensure, with each board setting its own rules.
The oath's opening sentence, in AVMA's wording
How many veterinary specialties are there?
As of 2026 there are 22 AVMA-recognized veterinary specialty organizations, comprising 48 distinct recognized specialties — among them surgery, pathology, zoological medicine, laboratory animal medicine and shelter medicine.
The specialist population behind those numbers: more than 16,500 veterinarians have been awarded diplomate status in one or more recognized specialty organizations.
Count certifications instead and AVMA's total is 20,636 active board certifications as of December 31, 2025 — the two figures differ because some veterinarians hold more than one certification.
Either way the specialists are a minority: 20,636 certifications is a fraction of the 133,475 U.S. veterinarians AVMA counts, so most practicing veterinarians are not board-certified.
The spread is wide, too — AVMA's end-of-2025 table shows, for example, 3,347 active pathology diplomates (ACVP) against 47 in shelter medicine (ABVP).
One more may be on the way.
Hospice and palliative care is not yet a recognized specialty: in 2026, AVMA's American Board of Veterinary Specialties sought public comment, with a deadline of August 13, 2026, on a request to recognize the proposed American College of Veterinary Hospice and Palliative Medicine.
Until recognition is actually granted, it stays a proposed college rather than part of the recognized count.
How a DVM actually becomes a diplomate is a pipeline of its own.
Our guide to veterinary specialties walks through it step by step.
Where most veterinarians work
Clinical practice dominates.
In 2025, 83% of veterinarian jobs were in veterinary services, according to BLS.
Among the rest: self-employed workers (7%), government (2%, excluding state and local education and hospitals), educational services (2%) and social advocacy organizations (1%).
One line in that breakdown deserves a caution: the 7% “self-employed” is a BLS employment classification, not a count of practice owners — that line is not a measure of how many veterinarians own practices.
Within clinical work, one setting towers over the rest: about three in four veterinarians in practice work in companion animal care.
AVMA surveys cited in a Brakke analysis commissioned by AVMA put the share of veterinarians in companion animal practice at 61% in 2001 and 73% in 2023.
How those settings turn into distinct careers — general practice, emergency, specialty referral, shelter, mobile and relief work, plus the non-clinical tracks — is the subject of our guide to career paths.