Government veterinarian pay is published, not guessed.
BLS OEWS puts the median for veterinarians in the federal Executive Branch at $110,590 and in state government at $115,490 (May 2025; the state and local government series exclude schools and hospitals), against a $130,100 national median.
Posted numbers are only the floor: federal roles are advertised on GS grade ranges with locality pay added, and agencies layer on incentives — FSIS lists a $20,000 sign-on bonus and a benefits package it describes as worth ~38% over salary.
What GS grades do veterinary medical officers earn?
The federal veterinarian postings captured for this page — Veterinary Medical Officer roles on USAJOBS, in the Veterinary Medical Science series, code 0701 — are classified on the General Schedule, the base pay table the Office of Personnel Management publishes each year.
OPM's 2026 base table, effective January 2026 and before locality pay, runs from $63,795 to $82,938 at GS-11, $76,463 to $99,404 at GS-12 and $90,925 to $118,204 at GS-13.
Above those grades, GS-14 runs $107,446 to $139,684 and GS-15 $126,384 to $164,301.
The base table is not what an offer letter says.
Actual federal salaries add locality pay on top, and the posted announcement ranges reflect that: a USDA APHIS Veterinary Medical Officer announcement open in 2026 listed $74,678 to $145,468 a year at GS-11 to GS-12, and a USDA Agricultural Research Service supervisory posting in Manhattan, Kansas, opened October 8, 2026, listed $125,776 to $192,331 at GS-14 to GS-15.
Where an offer lands inside a posted range comes down to three variables: the grade the position is classified at, the step you enter at, and the locality rate at the duty station.
FSIS's public health veterinarian announcement is written for the same GS-11 and GS-12 grades, so the same table brackets it.
Base table vs. posted range
FSIS vs APHIS vs FDA: does the agency change the pay?
At the same grade, step and duty station, the agency doesn't change base pay — the General Schedule is the single base table OPM publishes.
What the agency changes is the mix: which jobs it posts, what grades those jobs are classified at, and what incentives are attached.
The APHIS announcement above spans GS-11 to GS-12, FSIS's direct-hire public health veterinarian announcement is written for GS-11 and GS-12, and the senior supervisory research posting above reaches GS-14 to GS-15, topping out at $192,331.
The clearest agency-level difference in this page's data is recruitment pressure.
FSIS lists a $20,000 sign-on bonus for newly appointed veterinarians, government-assisted relocation, student loan repayment and eligibility for Public Service Loan Forgiveness on its public health veterinarian announcement.
No FDA-specific range is quoted on this page because no FDA posting is in the data behind it — check FDA's own announcements for their grade and locality.
How much does a state veterinarian make?
Start with the honest limitation: none of the sources behind this page tracks "state veterinarian" pay as a job series.
What BLS tracks is veterinarians employed in state government, excluding schools and hospitals: a median of $115,490 a year, in a sector employing ~560 veterinarians on the May 2025 OEWS release.
AVMA's 2025 report (2023 income, self-reported) puts state and local government veterinarians at a $105,000 median — on a sample of just 21 respondents.
The "state veterinarian" title — the veterinarian who leads a state's animal-health work — is one job inside that sector.
None of the sources behind this page publishes a named state veterinarian's salary, so treat any specific figure you find elsewhere as unverified and check the state's own postings.
No published "state veterinarian" salary exists in our sources
Federal benefits and PSLF: what the salary doesn't show
FSIS describes its benefits package as worth approximately 38% over salary, including paid leave, a defined-benefit annuity, health insurance options and overtime at time and a half.
Its public health veterinarian announcement also lists recruitment incentives: a $20,000 sign-on bonus for newly appointed veterinarians, government-assisted relocation, student loan repayment and eligibility for Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
Eligibility is the operative word — confirm the terms on the live posting and with the program before you budget on forgiveness.
Loan repayment also arrives outside the job offer.
USDA's Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program (VMLRP) may repay up to $40,000 of student loan debt per year for veterinarians who commit to at least three years in a NIFA-designated veterinary shortage area.
The commitment is to service in the shortage area, so check NIFA's current terms for how a federal or state posting fits — and price both levers into any offer comparison.
Do government veterinarians earn less than clinical veterinarians?
On BLS's series, the federal sector median sits below the occupation-wide median: $110,590 in the Federal Executive Branch (~900 employed) against $130,100 for all veterinarians.
State government lands at $115,490.
Local government — city and county public employers — is the outlier at $140,160 on ~450 employed, above the national median.
The occupation's own spread dwarfs those sector gaps: percentiles run from $73,920 (10th) to $215,700 (90th), with a mean of $142,680.
AVMA's self-reported 2025 report (2023 income) reads differently: federal government veterinarians reported a $142,721 median on 28 responses, against a $133,000 median across all veterinary positions — a survey and an employer payroll series answer different questions, so never average them.
Advertised pay on VeterinaryHires (snapshot October 6, 2026) put the employer median at $135,000 across 717 listings stating annual pay — advertised pay across all veterinarian listings, not a government-sector figure.
For new veterinarians the gap is starker.
2024 graduates entering full-time private practice averaged $131,210 in starting compensation, against $105,829 for public practice; those entering federal government expected $86,633 on average (18 respondents) — 2025 AVMA report, class-of-2024 senior survey.
A 2026 edition of the AVMA report now exists; every AVMA figure on this page is from the 2025 edition.
One caveat on the word "clinical": BLS does not break veterinarian pay out by specialty or practice setting — OEWS publishes one occupation code, 29-1131, for all of them — so these comparisons use the whole occupation, not a matched general-practice figure.
Where the top of the market sits is the territory of the highest-paying veterinary jobs guide; specialist premiums are covered in pay by specialty; and the state-by-state picture lives in the veterinarian salary guide.
Label the series before you compare
What is a state veterinarian?
The state veterinarian is the veterinarian at the head of a state's animal-health work — the state animal health official.
It's a government leadership job, not a clinical one, and no national pay figure for the title appears in the sources behind this page.
The role itself — the agencies, the uniformed services, what the regulatory track involves day to day — belongs to the public health careers guide.
This page prices the jobs; that one explains them.
Staff veterinarian roles in state agriculture departments
State government employed ~560 veterinarians on the May 2025 OEWS release (excluding schools and hospitals) — a small sector, and the state veterinarian's office is one employer inside it.
What those staff jobs are called and what they cover, each state's postings say directly; check them before you assume the title travels.
Where those roles sit in a career, what they require, and how they connect to the federal agencies are covered by public health careers — this page stays on pay.
What staff veterinarian jobs in state government pay
For a staff role, the practical answer is the state government series itself: a $115,490 median (BLS OEWS May 2025).
Around it, the picture is wide.
Local government — county and city public employers — ran a $140,160 median on ~450 employed veterinarians, while AVMA's self-reported state/local figure sits lower at a $105,000 median (2023 income, 21 respondents).
Read all three as the shape of the sector, not a quote: no state-by-state breakdown was collected for this page, the government samples are small, and the number that matters is the one in the posting you apply to.
Small sectors, small samples
How do you get hired as a government veterinarian?
Federal hiring runs through USAJOBS, where veterinarian roles sit in the Veterinary Medical Science series, announcement code 0701.
On October 22, 2026, USAJOBS listed 40 open announcements in the series, most of them Army Medical Command roles.
The announcements captured for this page listed GS-12 VMO ranges such as $89,508 to $116,362 (Dyess AFB, Texas) and $94,654 to $123,052 (Stewart County, Georgia), and NF-04 clinic veterinarian bands such as $95,000 to $110,000 (Fort Huachuca, Arizona) and $105,000 to $115,000 (McConnell AFB, Kansas).
Two structural facts help applicants.
OPM has granted government-wide direct hire authority for Veterinary Medical Officer positions, according to the FSIS announcement.
And the qualification bar is written into the posting: FSIS's public health veterinarian announcement spells out its GS-11 and GS-12 qualification requirements, so you can tell before applying which grade you'd enter at.
State roles are posted on each state's own job portal — start there.
Per AAVSB, veterinarians must have a license in each state where they practice; for a federal role, read the announcement's own qualification and licensure requirements.
To see how civilian advertised pay compares while you search, browse veterinarian jobs alongside USAJOBS.
State vs federal veterinary jobs: how to choose
The two tracks side by side, with each figure labeled by the series that produced it:
| Federal | State government | |
|---|---|---|
| Median wage, BLS OEWS May 2025 (state and local series exclude schools and hospitals) | $110,590, Federal Executive Branch (~900 employed) | $115,490 (~560 employed) |
| Self-reported median income (2025 AVMA report, 2023 income) | $142,721 (n=28) | $105,000, state/local combined (n=21) |
| Pay system | OPM GS base table plus locality pay | No state table in this page's sources — check each state's postings |
| Published extras | $20,000 FSIS sign-on (newly appointed), relocation, loan repayment, PSLF eligibility, benefits FSIS describes as worth ~38% over salary | None published on this page; VMLRP shortage-area repayment may apply |
Three axes decide it.
Pay: the medians are close, and both sit below the $130,100 all-veterinarian median — but local government's $140,160 shows the public sector isn't uniformly lower.
Package: the federal examples on this page publish their extras, so you can price those offers before you apply; state extras you'll read offer by offer.
Work: the job differs more between agencies and states than the pay does — that comparison belongs to public health careers, and it should lead the decision, with salary second.
Program terms move