Veterinarian Salary in Minnesota

At the median, Minnesota veterinarians earn $133,110 against a national median of $130,100 — $3,010, or 2%, higher.

The hourly figures track closely too, at $64.00 against $62.55, also a 2% difference.

The gap is not even across the range.

The Minnesota 10th percentile is $83,280, 13% above the national 10th percentile of $73,920, and the 25th percentile is $109,260, 8% above the national $101,460.

That advantage narrows toward the top: the Minnesota 75th percentile of $164,690 is 1% below the national $166,120, and the 90th percentile of $217,580 is 1% above the national $215,700.

A veterinarian benchmarking a Minnesota offer against national figures would find the state's advantage strongest near the bottom of the range and largely closed by the 75th percentile.

The middle half of Minnesota veterinarians — those between the 25th and 75th percentiles — earned between $109,260 and $164,690, a band $55,430 wide.

The same band nationally is $64,660 wide.

From the 10th percentile ($83,280) to the 90th ($217,580), Minnesota spans $134,300, against $141,780 nationally.

The state's median of $133,110 sits inside that band, closer to its lower edge than its upper one.

OEWS publishes the shape of a distribution, not the reasons behind it, so this page does not attribute the narrower Minnesota spread to any particular kind of practice or employer.

BLS estimates that 2,140 veterinarians were employed in Minnesota, 13th among the 49 jurisdictions that publish a median veterinarian wage.

The figure is a headcount of people in jobs during the survey period, not a count of open positions, and it says nothing about how quickly an employer fills a role.

Read it alongside the state's median rank of 10th of the same 49 jurisdictions, and nothing more: a workforce of this size tells a job seeker how many veterinarians the survey counted, not how competitive any particular opening will be.

Minnesota licenses veterinarians through the Board of Veterinary Medicine.

Every applicant must pass the national examination in veterinary medicine and the state's own Minnesota Veterinary Jurisprudence Examination — an extra step the national exam alone does not cover.

Qualifying credentials include a DVM degree from an accredited or approved college, an ECFVG or PAVE certificate, or a final-year dean's certificate, and a veterinarian already licensed elsewhere in the U.S. or Canada can apply through the nonresident pathway, where the national exam may be waived on board recommendation after three of the past five years in practice.

Licenses renew on a two-year cycle with 40 hours of continuing education.

Those steps are the same wherever a job sits in the wage distribution; the full Minnesota license requirements page covers each one with its citation.