Veterinarian Salary in Missouri

At the median, Missouri veterinarians trail the nation by $15,440, or 12% — $114,660 against $130,100.

The hourly figures move together: $55.12 against $62.55, also a 12% gap.

The percentiles do not move in step with that gap.

The Missouri 10th percentile, $61,270, sits 17% below the national 10th percentile of $73,920 — the widest gap on the page.

The 25th percentile narrows it sharply, to 4%: $97,280 against $101,460.

The 75th and 90th percentiles sit in between, both about 10% below their national counterparts ($149,250 against $166,120, and $193,860 against $215,700).

A veterinarian in Missouri benchmarking an offer against a national percentile figure should expect the comparison to depend on where in the range that offer falls, not on a single fixed gap.

The middle half of Missouri veterinarians — the 25th to 75th percentile — earned between $97,280 and $149,250, a band $51,970 wide.

Nationally that band is $64,660.

From the 10th percentile to the 90th, Missouri spans $132,590, against $141,780 nationally — narrower on both counts.

The band is also uneven around the median: the space between the median and the 75th percentile is $34,590, nearly double the $17,380 between the 25th percentile and the median, so more of the middle-half range sits above the median than below it.

OEWS publishes the shape of the distribution, not what produces it, so this page does not attribute the tilt to any particular kind of practice or employer.

BLS counts 1,920 veterinarians working in Missouri, 16th by employment among the 49 jurisdictions that publish a median — well ahead of the state's 37th-place rank by median wage.

The employment 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 any employer fills a role.

A workforce that size means the percentiles on this page summarise a broad group of veterinarians, not a handful of practices.

Practising veterinary medicine in Missouri takes a license from the Missouri Veterinary Medical Board, part of the Division of Professional Registration.

Every applicant must pass the NAVLE and a separate Missouri State Board Examination, and the statute names no jurisprudence exam.

Foreign graduates of nonaccredited programs route through the ECFVG certificate.

A veterinarian licensed in another state can qualify through licensure by reciprocity after five consecutive years of active practice immediately before applying.

Licenses renew annually with 10 hours of continuing education a year.

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