Veterinarian Salary in South Carolina

At the median, South Carolina trails the national figure by $7,970, or 6% — $122,130 against $130,100.

The hourly median tells the same story: $58.72 against $62.55, also 6% below.

The gap is not even across the range.

The 25th percentile sits closest to the national line, 4% below at $96,920 against $101,460, while the 75th percentile runs 5% below at $157,220 against $166,120 and the 90th percentile falls 7% below at $200,860 against $215,700.

The widest gap by far sits at the 10th percentile: $48,140 against a national $73,920, a difference of $25,780, or 35%.

A veterinarian weighing a South Carolina offer against national percentile figures should note which part of the range the offer falls in — the bottom of the South Carolina range sits much further from the national bottom than the top of the range sits from the national top.

The middle half of South Carolina veterinarians — between the 25th and 75th percentiles — earned between $96,920 and $157,220, a band $60,300 wide.

Nationally that band is $64,660 wide, so the South Carolina middle runs narrower than the national one.

The full range tells a different story: from the 10th percentile ($48,140) to the 90th ($200,860), South Carolina spans $152,720, while the national span is $141,780 — wider than the national range despite the narrower middle.

The state's 90th percentile is 4.2 times its 10th percentile, against 2.9 times nationally.

OEWS publishes the shape of a distribution, not what drives it, so this page does not attribute the wider span to any particular kind of role or employer.

BLS estimates that 1,380 veterinarians were employed in South Carolina, a headcount that ranks 24th of the 49 jurisdictions that publish a median for the role — squarely in the middle of the range of workforce sizes across those jurisdictions.

Employment counts people in jobs during the survey period, not open positions, and it says nothing about how many roles any one practice is trying to fill.

Read the 1,380 figure, and its rank, as the size of the profession the percentiles above describe, and nothing more.

Practising veterinary medicine in South Carolina takes a license from the SC Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners (LLR).

The examination route runs through the NAVLE, scored within five years of the application, plus a state-specific SC Jurisprudence Examination taken online once the board approves the file.

A veterinarian already licensed elsewhere may apply by endorsement under section 40-69-260, which still requires the jurisprudence exam, 30 CE hours from the previous two years, and a $175 application fee.

Renewal runs on a two-year cycle against 30 CE hours, at least 22 of them in veterinary medical or surgical coursework.

Those steps apply the same way no matter where in the wage distribution a role sits; the full South Carolina license requirements page covers each one with its citation.