Veterinarian Salary in New Mexico

At the median, New Mexico sits 1% below the nation: $129,390 against $130,100.

The hourly median tells the same story, $62.21 against $62.55, also 1% lower.

The percentiles on either side do not move in step with that near-match.

The New Mexico 10th percentile is 7% above the national 10th percentile, but the 25th percentile is 4% below the national 25th — a state veterinarian near the bottom of the range can sit ahead of or behind the matching national percentile depending on exactly where in that lower band the offer falls.

Higher up, the 75th percentile is 3% above the national 75th, while the 90th percentile is 1% below the national 90th of $215,700; the New Mexico 90th percentile is $212,850.

The middle half of New Mexico veterinarians — between the 25th and 75th percentiles — earned between $96,980 and $171,140, a band $74,160 wide.

The same band nationally is $64,660 wide.

The full range tells a different story: from the 10th percentile ($79,450) to the 90th ($212,850), New Mexico spans $133,400, against $141,780 nationally — a narrower span than the wider middle band would suggest.

So the middle of the New Mexico distribution stretches out while the extreme ends pull in closer than the national ones do.

OEWS publishes the distribution, not the reasons for it, so this page does not assign that shape to any particular kind of practice.

BLS estimates that 460 veterinarians were employed in New Mexico, 41st of the 49 jurisdictions that publish a median — even though the state ranks 18th of the same 49 by median pay.

A comparatively small workforce means the percentiles on this page summarise a smaller group of veterinarians than a large state's do, so read the exact percentile values with that in mind.

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 any one employer fills a role.

Practising veterinary medicine in New Mexico takes a license from the New Mexico Board of Veterinary Medicine.

Most applicants pass the national NAVLE plus a written state licensing examination, also called the state jurisprudence examination, offered twice a year for $375 or on request for $625.

A veterinarian with five years and 6,000 hours of recent practice elsewhere can license by endorsement without a national-exam score, though the state exam still applies, and a 60-day temporary permit covers short relief stints.

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