Veterinarian Salary in 2026: What Veterinarians Earn
25th percentile
$101,460
Median (50th)
$130,100
75th percentile
$166,120
90th percentile
$215,700
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 national release — SOC 29-1131, Veterinarians.
Veterinarian Compensation Structure
Compensation for veterinariansvaries significantly by employment type. Here's how the most common structures break down:
Bottom 10%
Typically new graduates, and roles in lower-cost or oversupplied markets.
$73,920 or less
Middle 50%
Where most employed veterinarians sit. The spread inside this band is driven largely by compensation model, not title.
$101,460–$166,120
Median
Half of veterinarians earn more, half less. About $62.55 an hour on a standard-hours basis.
$130,100
Top 10%
Concentrated among owners, partners, board-certified specialists, and high-production associates.
$215,700 or more
What Affects Veterinarian Salary?
The band above is unusually wide for a single occupation, and the reason is structural rather than statistical noise.
Compensation model does more work than job title. A large share of veterinarians are paid on a production formula — a base draw reconciled against a percentage of what they produce — rather than a flat salary. Two associates with identical titles and similar caseloads can earn very differently depending on the percentage, on what counts as production, and on how the reconciliation is written.
Ownership is the other major driver. Practice owners and partners are compensated through profit as well as production, which is most of why the top decile sits so far above the median.
Setting matters next: emergency and specialty work generally price above general practice, and board certification changes the curve after several low-earning years of internship and residency. Geography then modifies all of it.
One caveat specific to this occupation: the Bureau of Labor Statistics does not separately break out emergency or relief practice. Both are inside the figures on this page rather than beside them — so this is not a general-practice number, and it should not be used to infer a relief day rate, which is contract pricing rather than employment.
Finally, the number most veterinarians actually care about is not the salary but the ratio between it and educational debt. That is the profession's defining economic argument, and a salary figure read without it is only half the picture.