Veterinarian Salary in Massachusetts

At the median, Massachusetts veterinarians earn $140,260 against a national median of $130,100 — a difference of $10,160, or 8%.

The hourly figures track closely: $67.43 against $62.55 nationally, also an 8% gap.

But that steady 8% at the center hides a lopsided shape underneath it.

The Massachusetts 10th percentile is 30% above the national 10th percentile, and the 25th percentile is 20% above its national counterpart — a much bigger cushion at the low end than at the median.

By the 75th percentile the gap narrows sharply to just 5%, before widening again to 21% at the 90th.

A veterinarian benchmarking a Massachusetts offer against the national 75th percentile of $166,120 is closer to a real comparison than one benchmarking against the national 10th.

The middle half of Massachusetts veterinarians — between the 25th and 75th percentiles — earned between $121,670 and $175,250, a band $53,580 wide.

Nationally that same band is $64,660 wide, so the Massachusetts middle is narrower than the national one even though it sits higher on the dollar scale.

The lower half is narrower too: the median sits $43,940 above the Massachusetts 10th percentile, against $56,180 nationally, so the bottom of the Massachusetts range sits closer to the median than the national bottom does.

The full 10th-to-90th range is still wider in Massachusetts — $163,690 against $141,780 nationally — but that extra width comes entirely from the top: the 75th-to-90th percentile gap is $84,760 in Massachusetts against $49,580 nationally.

OEWS publishes the shape of the distribution, not what drives it, so this page does not assign the pattern to any particular kind of practice.

BLS estimates 1,920 veterinarians were employed in Massachusetts, ranking 16th among the 49 jurisdictions that publish a median.

That puts the state in the middle of the pack by headcount, not among the largest or smallest state workforces counted.

The figure is a snapshot of people working in the role during the survey period — it is not a count of open positions, and it says nothing about how quickly a given practice fills a role.

Read the percentiles on this page as a summary of that mid-sized group, not as a signal of how easy or hard hiring is in the state.

Practicing veterinary medicine in Massachusetts requires a license from the Board of Registration in Veterinary Medicine.

Every applicant passes the NAVLE, and Massachusetts layers its own Jurisprudence Examination on top — a $155 fee that applies whether you're licensed by examination, by reciprocity, or reinstating a license inactive more than three cycles.

Graduates of non-AVMA-accredited schools must also complete ECFVG or PAVE before the Board will license them.

Licenses renew every year, with 15 continuing-education units due before the March 1 renewal deadline.

Those requirements are the same regardless of where a job sits in the wage distribution; the full Massachusetts license requirements page covers each route and its citation.