Companion-animal-exclusive associates — the closest survey group to the dog-and-cat general practice job — reported a median income of $133,000 in 2023, with the middle half earning between $100,000 and $175,000, in the AVMA's 2025 economics report.
Federal data can't isolate small animal practice: BLS puts the median for all veterinarians at $130,100 (May 2025).
Here is how small animal pay moves with experience, pay structure, employer type and location.
What does a typical small animal veterinarian make?
In this guide, 'small animal vet' means a companion-animal general practitioner — the dog-and-cat practice most pet owners know — and the closest small-animal-specific figures come from the AVMA's 2025 economics report (incomes earned in 2023).
Companion-animal-exclusive associates reported a median of $133,000, a mean of $146,196, and a middle half between $100,000 and $175,000, from 873 respondents.
The same survey put the median for all veterinary positions at $133,000 as well, with a mean of $149,856 — so the companion-animal-exclusive associate median matches the median across all veterinary positions.
Federal data can't isolate small animal practice, because BLS publishes one wage series for all veterinarians.
The closest official numbers are therefore broad: a $130,100 national median across all employed veterinarians, and a $129,990 median within the Veterinary Services industry, from the OEWS May 2025 release.
At the extremes, the 10th percentile of employed veterinarians earned $73,920 and the 90th earned $215,700.
The complete national table is in our veterinarian salary guide.
Two more AVMA cuts sharpen the small-animal picture.
By practice function, general medicine veterinarians averaged $142,522 in compensation on a 41.0-hour week; by sector, companion-animal-exclusive veterinarians averaged $155,180, against $117,266 for mixed-animal colleagues.
Full-time companion-animal-exclusive vets worked a 46.6-hour average week — next to 57.7 hours in equine practice, the longest of any private-practice type.
Where that pay sits against emergency, specialty and industry paths is ranked in the highest-paying veterinary jobs.
Three pay series, three different numbers
BLS OEWS reports wages for employed veterinarians. The AVMA report is self-reported income from a survey of the profession. VeterinaryHires listings are advertised pay. Each is valid on its own terms, none is interchangeable with another, and only the AVMA's practice-type tables are small-animal-specific — every figure below is labeled with its source and year.
How does small animal vet pay change with experience?
AVMA's census groups veterinarians by age band rather than years in practice, and almost the whole career-stage gain comes with the move out of the youngest band: average compensation was $124,146 for early-career vets (age 23–34), $157,011 for mid-career (35–44) and $160,374 for late-career vets (45 and up).
After the first step, the averages climb only slightly.
Starting pay sets that early baseline.
Graduates of 2024 entering full-time private practice averaged $131,210 in starting compensation, and seniors expecting to join companion-animal-exclusive practice expected $137,144 on average — against $109,033 for graduates headed into mixed-animal work.
Function matters at entry too.
Class-of-2024 graduates going into general medicine/surgery expected $129,037, while those joining emergency/critical care expected $150,908.
What changes after that — including what board-certified specialists earn — is the territory of our pay by specialty guide; the full class-of-2024 starting-pay picture is in new-grad veterinarian salary.
Base salary, ProSal or production: how are small animal vets paid?
The AVMA asked the class of 2024 how their first job would pay them.
Among graduates entering full-time employment, 67.4% said they would be paid a base salary plus a production bonus, 31.7% a guaranteed salary only, and 1.0% production alone.
Read that as structure, not as a formula.
The survey shows how common each arrangement is at entry — it does not say what a base should be or what share of production is fair, and we found no source establishing a standard split; offers are set practice by practice.
The label ProSal isn't AVMA's, either: the survey's category is simply a base salary plus a production bonus, without the contract terms that distinguish one such package from another.
Because the terms live in the offer letter rather than in a table, the mechanics are their own topic: ProSal and Production Pay, Explained covers how a base, a production percentage and a threshold fit together, and Base vs Production: What to Actually Negotiate covers the terms worth pushing on before you sign.
Do corporate practices pay more than independent ones?
In AVMA's 2024 census, average compensation was $159,512 at group corporate practices and $159,941 at independently owned group practices, against $143,923 at independently owned single-site practices.
At the average, corporate and independent-group employers land in nearly the same place — the sharper line separates single-site independence from every kind of group.
At entry, the gap is wider.
New graduates joining group corporate practices expected $140,956 on average, versus $129,307 at independent group practices and $117,464 at independently owned single practices.
Ownership is the other structural jump.
Companion-animal-exclusive practice owners reported a median 2023 income of $160,000 (mean $191,352, middle half $100,000 to $250,000), against the $133,000 associate median.
Across all practice types, the 2024 census shows owners averaging $180,897 in compensation on a 47.2-hour week, next to $141,974 and 40.9 hours for associates.
The trade-offs behind that wider owner range, and how a buy-in is actually priced, are covered in buying into a veterinary practice.
The day-to-day trade-offs between employer types are compared in corporate vs privately owned practice.
Do small animal vets earn more in cities than in rural areas?
None of the sources this page draws on splits veterinarian pay by city size: BLS publishes one wage series for all veterinarians, and AVMA's census reports where vets practice by community type, not pay by community type.
The usable proxies are state medians and Census regions — and neither is small-animal-specific.
The BLS OEWS May 2025 state medians run from California $163,920, Maryland $163,170, Washington $160,510, New Jersey $160,140 and Arizona $152,020 at the top, down to North Dakota $102,180, Montana $99,390, Oklahoma $98,090, Wyoming $97,240 and South Dakota $88,650 at the bottom (Alaska and Delaware have no published veterinarian median).
The full state table is in highest-paying states for veterinarians.
AVMA's regional averages span a much narrower range: $135,539 in the East South Central region up to $158,325 in the Middle Atlantic, with the Pacific region at $158,115.
Neither series — the BLS state medians or the AVMA regional averages — is adjusted for what it costs to live in each place: a high nominal median in an expensive metro and a lower one in a cheaper town can buy similar lives.
Treat the state table as a starting point for negotiation, not an answer.
Small animal veterinarian jobs on the board
Surveys tell you what veterinarians earned; listings tell you what employers are offering now.
On VeterinaryHires (snapshot October 6, 2026), the 717 veterinarian listings stating annual pay — posted by 601 employers — had an employer median of $135,000 a year, with the middle half offering $125,000 to $145,000.
Those are advertised figures, not earnings: production pay is not counted unless an employer folds it into the posted range.
By state, the same snapshot showed California at an employer median of $170,000 (33 listings), Florida $141,250, Texas $127,500 and Illinois $122,500.
The live postings are where the tables meet the market: veterinarian jobs on VeterinaryHires are updated as employers post.
Reading this from the other side of the desk?
The employer-side guide to hiring a veterinarian covers the hiring process, pay included, from the practice's point of view.