New-grad veterinarians starting in companion-animal practice averaged $140,000 in AVMA's Class of 2025 survey — the highest of four tracked practice types, ahead of mixed practice ($112,000), food animal ($100,000), and equine ($95,000).
The prior class (2024) averaged $131,210 in full-time private practice versus $105,829 in public practice.
Most new grads aren't paid a flat salary at all, and 61% reported receiving a signing bonus.
Starting salary by practice type
AVMA's most recent graduating senior survey — the Class of 2025 — breaks new-grad starting pay into four practice types:
- Companion animal practice: average $140,000 (72.6% of the class entered this sector).
- Mixed animal practice: average $112,000 (10.9%).
- Food animal practice: average $100,000 (3.2%).
- Equine practice: average $95,000 (7.9%).
Those four categories account for roughly 95% of the class between them; AVMA's public release doesn't itemize where the remainder went.
The prior class (2024) was reported at a finer grain.
Full-time private practice averaged $131,210 against $105,829 in public practice — and within private practice, companion-animal-predominant work averaged $137,727 and companion-animal-exclusive work $137,227, the two highest of six tracked categories.
The other four — food animal exclusive, food animal predominant, mixed animal, and equine — averaged between roughly $95,900 and $109,000, though AVMA's own chart doesn't allow matching each individual figure back to its category.
The private-practice average is drawn from a relatively large sample (1,822 respondents); the public-practice figure rests on far fewer (71), so treat it as directionally useful rather than a tight estimate.
Two paths pay well below any full-time practice figure: internships averaged $56,705 and residencies $54,847 for the 2024 class — a real cost, since federal loan interest keeps accruing throughout, weighed against the training value of doing one.
Public practice pays less on average — and by sector, a lot less
Public practice consistently trails private practice for new grads, but the spread within public practice is wider still.
AVMA's five-year rolling bands for the Class of 2024 (most recent window 2021–2024):
- Industry or commercial organizations: $120,544 (highest public-sector figure).
- Not-for-profit organizations: $105,076.
- Federal, state, or local government: $79,862.
- Uniformed services: $75,818.
- College or university: $68,583 (lowest).
The gap from top to bottom — more than $50,000 — is wider than the gap between private and public practice overall. "Public practice" isn't one labor market; an industry role and a university role sit in genuinely different pay tiers.
These are five-year rolling averages, not a single-year snapshot — a deliberate smoothing choice for a survey with a relatively small public-practice sample, but it means the figures trail current market conditions by design rather than describing this year specifically.
How new-grad pay is actually structured
A headline average describes a flat number, but most new grads aren't paid one.
In AVMA's Class of 2024 survey, only 31.7% of new grads entering full-time practice were paid a guaranteed salary with no production component. 67.4% were paid a base salary plus a production bonus, and a small remainder — 1.0% — were paid on pure production with no base at all.
"Base plus a production bonus" is a compensation-structure category, not a specific contract term — it doesn't by itself say whether the base is a true floor or a recoverable draw that can go negative if production falls short.
That distinction is the whole subject of ProSal and how production pay actually works, and it affects your take-home more than the headline salary figure does.
The 67.4% figure is now the default new-grad compensation model industry-wide, not a minority arrangement — which is one more reason comparing a production formula's mechanics matters more between two offers than comparing the headline salary number alone.
Signing bonuses and other new-hire extras
Beyond base pay, AVMA's Class of 2025 survey asked new grads what else their offer included:
- Signing bonus: 61%.
- Moving allowance: 37%.
- Student loan repayment assistance: 15%.
- Emergency-case compensation: 10%.
- Housing allowance: 3%.
AVMA's survey didn't publish an average dollar amount for the signing bonus — only the share of grads who received one.
Treat any specific bonus figure you see elsewhere as unsourced.
Don't confuse this with the career-long signing-bonus rate
The new-grad pay gap has been closing
New-grad pay has been catching up to the profession's overall average for two decades.
In 2001, AVMA reported a 93% gap between new-graduate and overall average real income.
By the Class of 2024, that gap had narrowed to about 19% — comparing the $125,938 average real starting salary against a $149,856 average across all practicing veterinarians' 2023 income.
The $125,938 figure is the real, inflation-adjusted number AVMA uses for cross-year comparability; the nominal average anticipated income for the same 2024 class was $130,110.
Use the real figure when comparing across years, and the nominal one when comparing against a specific current offer.
That's an aggregate trend, and it says nothing about your own debt load.
A veterinarian's defining economic question isn't the salary alone but the ratio between it and educational debt — covered in full in the debt-to-income guide.
What this means going into your first offer
These are averages from a self-selected graduating-class survey, not a guarantee for any specific offer — your practice type, geography, and negotiating position will move you above or below them.
What the figures do establish is the shape of the market: companion-animal practice pays best among the four tracked practice types, public-sector pay varies enormously by employer type, most contracts include a production component rather than a flat salary, and a signing bonus is now the norm rather than the exception for a new hire.
One gap worth naming: none of AVMA's practice-type categories break out emergency practice specifically.
No sourced new-grad emergency-pay figure exists yet, so if you're weighing general practice against emergency work, these numbers describe the four tracked categories only — not a comparison point for ER.
Before you sign anything, run the number against your own debt (debt-to-income) and the rest of the contract, not just the compensation line — see what to check before you sign.
Figures are AVMA's, and they move annually