Inflation continues to dampen gains in veterinarian salaries, fewer new grads entering full-time employment

While the average annual income of U.S. veterinarians has been climbing over the last five years, real income-or the amount adjusted for inflation-tells a different story.

"What we've seen over the last three or four years is that once you account for the impact of inflation, it started to come back down. And really, [for the average U.S. veterinarian,] salaries today, in real-or inflation-adjusted terms-are roughly where they were in about 2004," said Dr. Chris Doherty, assistant director of strategic business research and outreach in the AVMA Veterinary Economics Division.

Dr. Chris Doherty, assistant director of strategic business research and outreach in the AVMA Veterinary Economics Division, gives updates on veterinary compensation trends over time at the 2025 AVMA Veterinary Business and Economic Forum. (Photo by R. Scott Nolen)

The average real income (in 2024 dollars) of veterinarians in 2024 was around $154,000. For new veterinary graduates securing full-time employment, the average real starting salary was $129,000 for those finding full-time employment.

Dr. Doherty previewed some of the results of the 2025 AVMA Senior Survey and Census of Veterinarians during his presentation "The People of Veterinary Medicine: Who are They, and How Are They Working?" at the 2025 AVMA Veterinary Business and Economic Forum, held October 8-9 in Denver.

New graduate pay

Every year, the AVMA conducts its Graduating Senior Survey, which is sent to final-year students at all U.S. veterinary colleges and 2 Caribbean veterinary colleges four weeks before graduation.

In 2025, nearly 60% of graduating seniors had secured full-time employment before graduation; another 28% accepted offers in advanced education, including internships, residencies, and doctoral programs; while almost 7% had received no offers. Overall, the percentage of veterinary graduates entering full-time employment has decreased each year since 2022, while the percentage receiving no offers has increased.

"Things are kind of coming off the boil a little bit, right?" Dr. Doherty said, though noting that the levels are not close to those seen in 2012, following the Great Recession, when more new graduates were going into advanced education or hadn't received a job offer than were entering full-time employment.

"As a graduate of the Class of 2013, I'm acutely aware of that situation that the labor market presented back then. We're nowhere near that but this is another one of those data points that we want to monitor."

The survey also looked at the areas of practice new veterinary graduates pursued and the varying levels of compensation. So, for example, the data combines those going into equine practice with those doing an equine internship, to show how many people are going into equine medicine post graduation. The results showed:

• 72.6% went into companion animal practice, where the average annual starting salary was $140,000
• 10.9% went into mixed practice, where the average was $112,000
• 7.9% went into equine practice, where the average was $95,000
• 3.2% went into food animal practice, where the average was $100,000

Many also received a signing bonus (61%). Other forms of compensation included a moving allowance (37%), student loan repayment (15%), emergency case compensation (10%), and housing allowance (3%).

Since 2014, the proportion of new graduates entering companion animal medicine has increased by over 6 percentage points to nearly 73%, while those entering food animal practice has decreased by more than 2 percentage points to 3%.

One bright spot has been equine practice, where employment income has climbed in recent years to reach near parity with mixed and food animal practice types.

New graduate debt

For the class of 2025, the average debt from earning a veterinary degree was $212,499 among those with debt or $174,484 for all new graduates combined, including those with zero debt. This latter group comprised 17.9% of all new graduates.

Meanwhile, 40% owed over $200,000 in educational debt from veterinary college, with 5.9% indicating they owed $400,000 or more.

Veterinary debt has been climbing for the past two years after a period of a slight downward trend.

Average veterinary college debt burdens have risen from 2023, when the average debt among those with debt was $185,486 and $154,451 for all new graduates.

"The last couple of years, we have seen the debt burden start to tick back up, and 2025 continues that pattern. So, this is something that we monitor very closely," Dr. Doherty said.

The average debt-to-income ratio for new graduates in 2025 was 1.4:1, which is the same ratio as last year. Student debt during the COVID-19 pandemic years, between 2020 and 2023, declined and then leveled out largely as a result of interest forbearance and other federal loan program assistance.

Census of Veterinarians

In 2001, there was a 93% difference in the national average for new graduate real income and real income compensation among all veterinarians. But with new graduates commanding higher inflation-adjusted incomes while the overall veterinary population's incomes have stayed relatively stagnant, there's now only a 19% difference between the two.

Overall veterinarian salaries have been climbing back up, particularly over the past few years, Dr. Doherty says. However, "Once you account for inflation, salaries for veterinarians have been overall stable or declining a bit."

There was wide variation in income across different practice types and between practice owners and associate veterinarians.

Finally, weekly hours worked appears, on average, to be trending back toward prepandemic levels, Dr. Doherty said, after climbing during COVID-19.

In 2025, the average number of hours worked per week was 42.3 hours worked and the median was 41 hours per week, compared with an average of 45.6 hours per week in 2021 and 41.6 hours per week in 2016.

"As the pandemic has waned, society and the economy has gotten back to normal," he said. "We've seen that the number of hours worked per week is starting to go back towards the prepandemic trend, but we're not quite there yet ... That's been pattern for last few years."