There are two people in the room and they are paid very differently. The veterinarian earns a median of $62.55 an hour. The veterinary technician earns $22.78, which is below the $24.51 median for every occupation in America. The vet is paid 2.75 times the technician. And the technician is the one holding your animal.More
There are also more technicians than vets: 129,140 of them against 83,900 veterinarians, on BLS's count of the employed. The technician takes the blood, places the catheter, runs the sample through the analyser, clips the nails, holds the leg still for the X-ray, and sits on the floor with your dog while it comes round from the anaesthetic. Most of the minutes of your visit belong to them. The bill is shaped around the doctor. Put your own bill in, with the minutes each of them actually spent, and the page prices those minutes at each person's own wage and shows you what is left. Then read the part about what the rest is, because the rest is not profit and calling it profit would be the easiest lie on this page. It is the building, the X-ray machine, the anaesthetic machine, the in-house laboratory, the autoclave, the drugs, the licence, the malpractice cover, the employer's half of the payroll tax on both wages, the receptionist and the practice manager who never touch your animal, and the plain fact that a practice has to be able to open a chest at two in the morning even on the days when nobody asks it to.
What your bill is, once the two wages come out of it
$217
The veterinarian's minutes, at the veterinarian's own median wage$16
The technician's minutes, at the technician's own median wage$17
Everything else: the building, the machines, the drugs, the lab, the licence, the cover, the people who never touch your animal, and the margin$217
Two people, and one of them earns 2.75 times the other. A veterinarian's median
is $62.55 an hour. A veterinary technician's is $22.78, which is 7.1% below the $24.51 median for every
occupation in America. There are 129,140 technicians on BLS's count and 83,900 veterinarians, and the
technician is the one holding your animal. At this page's defaults, three quarters of the minutes are the
technician's and 47.8% of the wage bill is the veterinarian's.More
And the rest of your bill is NOT profit. Here is what it actually is. The building and
the lease on it. The X-ray machine, the anaesthetic machine, the monitors, the in-house analyser and the
autoclave, all of which are bought whether or not your animal needs them today. The drugs and the consumables.
The licence, the accreditation and the malpractice cover. The EMPLOYER'S half of the payroll tax on both wages,
which no employee ever sees. The receptionist who booked you, the practice manager who runs the place and the
cleaner who comes at night, none of whom touch your animal and all of whom are on the payroll. The vet reading
your lab result at seven in the evening, writing the record, and ringing the specialist, which is your animal's
time and is not in the room. And the standing cost of a practice being ABLE to open a chest at two in the
morning on the days when nobody asks it to.
Some of what is left over is margin, and we are not going to size it for you. We cannot. What
we can give you is one honest anchor from the industry's own books: across NAICS 541940, veterinary services,
the 2022 Economic Census reports $62,819,440,000 of receipts and $23,087,098,000 of annual payroll. That is
36.75 cents of every dollar going straight back out as wages, before a single machine, drug or square foot is
paid for. Whatever the margin is, it lives in what survives after everything else on that list is paid for too.
What this page is NOT telling you. It is not telling you that you were overcharged. It cannot:
nobody publishes the price of a veterinary visit, so there is nothing to hold your bill against, and a
comparison to nothing is worth nothing. And the two medians are what the OCCUPATIONS earn nationally, which
means they are not what your practice pays. It may pay more. A good one probably does.
§ 02 Where the money in the bill goes
The two people's time, at their own median wages$32.73
Everything on the bill that is not those two wages$217.27
Share of the bill that is not the two wages86.9%
Share of the minutes that were the technician's75%
Share of the wage bill that is the veterinarian's47.8%
The two wages are BLS's and they are exact, and they are what the OCCUPATIONS earn nationally rather than what your practice pays. The $73.69 per employee-hour is the veterinary industry's own receipts over its own hours (2022 Economic Census over BLS CES series CEU6054194002): a CLASS figure, gross of the drugs and the machines, spread across every employee, and a ceiling on nobody. The minutes and the bill are yours. The residual this page shows you is NOT profit: it is the building, the machines, the drugs, the licence, the cover, the employer's payroll tax, the staff who never touch your animal, and the standing capacity to operate at 2am. Some of it is margin, and we cannot tell you how much.
Recommended next steps
Most of what you paid is not the two wages, and that is what a bill from a practice with a laboratory, an X-ray machine and an operating table looks like. It is not a markup on somebody's time. It is a hospital, and you are paying for the parts of it your animal used and a share of the parts it did not.
A veterinarian earns a median of $62.55 an hour. A veterinary technician earns $22.78.More
BLS, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. Veterinarians (SOC 29-1131): $62.55 an hour, $130,100 a year, 83,900 employed. Veterinary technologists and technicians (SOC 29-2056): $22.78 an hour, $47,380 a year, 129,140 employed. The vet earns 2.75 times the technician, and the technician earns 7.1% less than the $24.51 median for every occupation in America. Both figures EXCLUDE the self-employed, which is BLS's own rule and which matters most for the vets, because many of them own the practice.
There are more technicians than veterinarians, and most of the minutes are theirs.More
129,140 technicians against 83,900 vets. The technician weighs the animal, restrains it, takes the blood, runs the sample, places the catheter, clips the nails, holds the leg for the X-ray, monitors the anaesthetic and sits on the floor with your dog while it comes round. The veterinarian examines, decides and explains, which is the visible part of a long appointment that gets billed hardest: MINUTE FOR MINUTE, the doctor's time is priced at 2.75 times the technician's. Minute for minute is the whole of that claim and we are going to be exact about it, because the loose version is false. At this page's defaults the technician's longer, cheaper hours still come to the LARGER half of the wage bill, and the veterinarian's quarter of the minutes to slightly under half of it. The doctor's minute costs 2.75 times the technician's. The doctor's pile of minutes does not.
The veterinary industry takes in $73.69 per employee-hour, and this page nearly refused to tell you so.More
The refusal would have gone: sector 54 of the Economic Census has no hours column, therefore nobody has the hours, therefore no rate can be built. The first clause is true. The rest is false, and this site has made that exact leap sixteen times. BLS's Current Employment Statistics publishes average weekly hours for NAICS 541940, veterinary services, at that six-digit code, monthly since March 2006, as series CEU6054194002. So: $62,819,440,000 of 2022 receipts, 535,783 paid employees, 30.6 average weekly hours, 52 weeks, which is about 853 million employee-hours and $73.69 an hour. IT IS A CLASS AVERAGE. It is gross of the drugs, the machines and the building, it is spread over every employee including the front desk, and it is not a ceiling on your quote.
For every dollar the veterinary industry takes in, 36.75 cents goes straight back out as payroll.More
The 2022 Economic Census reports $62,819,440,000 of receipts and $23,087,098,000 of annual payroll across 34,126 establishments. That payroll is BEFORE the employer's half of the payroll tax, before the building, before a single machine, drug or bandage. Two warnings on it. Census payroll counts people on a payroll, so a working owner of an unincorporated practice may not appear in it. And this is an industry aggregate, so it says nothing about the practice you visited.
Nobody publishes the price of a vet visit, and the reason is precise: there is no count.More
The 2022 Economic Census does publish what vets sell. Routine veterinary examinations are $16,479,098,000, which is 26.2% of the industry. Non-surgical treatment is 26.1%, veterinary laboratory services are 16.0%, surgical treatment is 14.9%. What it does not publish is how MANY. Not one veterinary product line carries a quantity, across all 7,120 NAPCS collection codes. Dollars with no count is not a price, and no amount of confidence turns it into one. That is why your bill is the input to this page rather than the output of it.
Nearly a third of the industry's receipts is the laboratory and the operating table, and that is a floor.More
Veterinary laboratory services are 16.0% of what vets sell and surgical treatment is 14.9%, which is 30.9% of the industry between them. It is a FLOOR rather than a measurement: the Census withholds the value of the two dental intervention lines, so the true combined share is higher by an amount nobody outside the Census knows. This is the answer to the question people ask when they see the residual. Where did the money go? Into an analyser, an autoclave, an anaesthetic machine and a monitor, all of which are bought once and used on somebody.
2 more
The person in scrubs may not be a technician at all.More
There is a third occupation in the room: veterinary assistants and laboratory animal caretakers, SOC 31-9096, a median of $18.34 an hour and 126,580 employed. An assistant is not a credentialed technician and is paid about a fifth less. If the person who held your cat was an assistant, this page prices their minutes a little high, and the residual is correspondingly a little larger than it shows. We would rather tell you that than quietly round it away.
So what is the rest of the bill?More
The building. The X-ray machine, the anaesthetic machine, the monitors, the analyser and the autoclave. The drugs and the consumables. The licence, the accreditation and the malpractice cover. The employer's half of payroll tax on both wages. The receptionist, the practice manager and the cleaner, who never touch your animal. The vet reading your lab result in the evening and ringing the specialist. And the capacity to open a chest at two in the morning, which costs money on every night nobody asks for it. Some of what remains after all of that is margin. We cannot size it, we will not guess at it, and we are not going to call the whole residual profit, because that would be the easiest lie available to this page.
Sourced: both wages (BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025:
veterinarians, SOC 29-1131, median $62.55/hr and $130,100/yr, 83,900 employed; veterinary technologists and
technicians, SOC 29-2056, $22.78/hr and $47,380/yr, 129,140 employed; all occupations, $24.51/hr), and the
industry rate of $73.69 per employee-hour, built below. Ours, and declared: the 15 vet minutes
and 45 technician minutes in the boxes, and the $250 default bill, which is a placeholder and not a price.
Yours: the bill, and the minutes you actually watched.More
We built the industry rate rather than refusing it, and the refusal is the mistake this site
keeps making. The reflex here would have been to write that sector 54 of the Economic Census has no
hours column, and that therefore nobody has the hours, and that no rate can be built. The first clause is true.
The second is FALSE, and it has been false sixteen times. BLS's Current Employment Statistics publishes average
weekly hours for NAICS 541940 at that exact six-digit code, monthly since March 2006, as series CEU6054194002,
with average hourly earnings beside it as CEU6054194003. The code sits in BLS's own industry catalogue as
"60541940, 54194, Veterinary services". So: the 2022 Economic Census gives NAICS 541940 receipts of
$62,819,440,000 across 34,126 establishments and 535,783 paid employees. CES gives those employees a 2022
average of 30.6 hours a week. 535,783 x 30.6 x 52 is about 853 million employee-hours, and the receipts over
those hours are $73.69 per employee-hour. Against average hourly earnings of $29.53 in the same
year, that is a gross ratio of about two and a half.
What that rate is NOT, and this matters more than the number. It is a CLASS statistic. It is
the whole industry's receipts over the whole industry's hours, so it is GROSS: it still contains the drugs, the
machines, the building and the lab, because the Economic Census does not break them out. It is spread over EVERY
employee, the receptionist as much as the surgeon. And it is not a ceiling on your quote, or a floor under it.
A practice charging more than $73.69 an employee-hour is not thereby overcharging you and one charging less is
not thereby a bargain. It is a yardstick for the SHAPE of a bill.
The two numbers you might be tempted to divide, and must not. BLS counts 83,900 employed
veterinarians. It is arithmetically possible to divide $62,819,440,000 of industry receipts by that and get a
large, confident, meaningless number. We do not, and here is why: OES EXCLUDES THE SELF-EMPLOYED, in BLS's own
words ("Does OEWS have occupational employment estimates that include the self-employed? No."), and a great many
veterinarians own the practice they work in. The 83,900 is the vets on somebody else's payroll. It is not the
number of veterinarians, so it is not a denominator for anything. The 535,783 above is a different count from a
different agency: it is every paid employee of a veterinary business, front desk included, and it is the count
the Census itself pairs with those receipts.
And the occupations are wider than your vet. SOC 29-1131 is every veterinarian in America,
which includes the food-animal vet, the equine vet, the laboratory-animal vet, the USDA and state regulatory
vets, the pathologists and the academics. SOC 29-2056 likewise takes in technicians in research laboratories,
universities, zoos and reference labs. Neither median is a median of small-animal practice, and we are not going
to dress it up as one.
Where every number above comes from
Wage data
BLS, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, national. Veterinarians (SOC 29-1131): 83,900 employed, median $62.55/hr, $130,100/yr, 10th percentile $35.54/hr, 90th percentile $103.70/hr. Veterinary technologists and technicians (SOC 29-2056): 129,140 employed, median $22.78/hr, $47,380/yr. Veterinary assistants and laboratory animal caretakers (SOC 31-9096): median $18.34/hr. All occupations (SOC 00-0000): median $24.51/hr
BLS, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, by state. Veterinarians: a median published for 50 areas, which is 48 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and not the 50 states (Alaska and Delaware are not published), from $42.62/hr in South Dakota to $78.81/hr in California. Veterinary technicians: 52 areas, from $13.45/hr in Puerto Rico to $29.46/hr in the District of Columbia
BLS, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics FAQ. Verbatim: 'Does OEWS have occupational employment estimates that include the self-employed? No.' Many veterinarians own their practice, so the employment counts above are the ones on somebody's payroll, and nothing on this page is divided by them
BLS, Current Employment Statistics, series CEU6054194002: average weekly hours of all employees in veterinary services (NAICS 541940), monthly since March 2006. The 2022 annual average is 30.6 hours, with average hourly earnings of 29.53 beside it as CEU6054194003. This is the denominator an earlier reflex would have declared missing
BLS, Current Employment Statistics industry catalogue (ce.industry). Veterinary services is carried at the six-digit code, verbatim: '60541940 | 54194 | A | Veterinary services'. We cite it because the claim that a series exists is itself a claim
US Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, EC2254BASIC, NAICS 541940 Veterinary services: receipts, establishments, employees and annual payroll. It carries NO hours column, which is true of the whole of sector 54, and which is NOT the same thing as nobody having the hours
US Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census product lines, EC2200NAPCSINDPRD: what veterinary practices sell. Routine veterinary examinations, non-surgical treatment, laboratory services and surgery. Not one veterinary line carries a QUANTITY, across all 7,120 NAPCS collection codes, which is exactly why no price per visit can be built from it
BLS, Consumer Price Index, series CUUR0000SS62054, 'Veterinarian services in U.S. city average'. It is an INDEX. It tells you how fast the price of veterinary care is moving and it never tells you the level, which is why it cannot price your visit
Every one of these is a place the number could be off. They are here because you should be able to check our working, not because we are hedging.
The residual is not profit, and this is the assumption the whole page turns on.
Take the two wages out of a bill and what is left is the building, the X-ray machine, the anaesthetic machine, the in-house lab, the autoclave, the drugs, the consumables, the licence, the accreditation, the malpractice cover, the employer's half of the payroll tax on both wages, the receptionist, the practice manager, the cleaner, the software, the waste contractor, the vet's time on your animal outside the room, and the standing cost of being able to operate at two in the morning. Some of what survives all of that is margin. We cannot size it and we do not try. Calling the whole residual profit would be the easiest lie on this page and it would also be false.
The wages are the OCCUPATION's medians, not your practice's payroll.
We do not know what your vet is paid. A busy small-animal practice in an expensive city may pay well above the median; a rural mixed practice may pay below it. The state spread is wide in both directions: veterinarians run from $42.62 an hour in South Dakota to $78.81 in California, and technicians from $13.45 in Puerto Rico to $29.46 in the District of Columbia. What the page gives you is a national median priced over the minutes you saw, and it says IF and it means IF.
The SOC codes are wider than the animal on your table (Rule 22).
SOC 29-1131 is every veterinarian: small animal, food animal, equine, laboratory, regulatory, public health, pathology and academia. SOC 29-2056 is every veterinary technician, including the ones in research labs, universities and zoos who have never met a client. Neither is a median of companion-animal practice, because BLS does not publish one, and pretending otherwise would be the kind of quiet substitution this site keeps a rule about.
BLS excludes the self-employed, and we never divide anything by the employment count.
In BLS's own words: 'Does OEWS have occupational employment estimates that include the self-employed? No.' Many veterinarians own their practice, so the 83,900 employed veterinarians is the number of vets on somebody else's payroll, and it is smaller than the number of veterinarians. Dividing industry receipts by it would produce a large, confident, meaningless figure, and this page does not do it. The $73.69 an employee-hour uses the Census's own count of 535,783 paid employees of veterinary businesses, which is a different measure from a different agency and is the one the Census pairs with those receipts.
The 15 vet minutes and 45 technician minutes are OURS, and they move the answer most.
No federal source measures how the minutes of a veterinary appointment are divided. Not OES, which surveys wages. Not CES, which measures hours worked by employees across a whole industry and cannot see a single visit. Not the Economic Census, which counts dollars and not appointments. So the split is a judgement, and it is the input we most want you to replace with something you actually watched.
The $73.69 an employee-hour is built on two agencies' counts, and the join is not perfect.
The receipts and the employee count are the Census's (a March pay-period headcount, which we then treat as the year's average). The weekly hours are BLS's, from a different survey with a slightly different universe. And 52 weeks treats a working year as having no unpaid gaps in it. Every one of those makes the hour count a little generous, which makes the rate a little low. It is the same method our pest-control and lawn pages use, it is stated rather than buried, and it is a yardstick rather than a measurement.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a vet visit cost?
Nobody publishes a national figure, and we are not going to invent one. The reason there is no national figure is exact and it is worth knowing: the 2022 Economic Census publishes $16,479,098,000 of routine veterinary examinations and does not publish how many examinations that was. Not one veterinary product line carries a quantity, across all 7,120 NAPCS product codes. Dollars with no count is not a price. So this page does the useful thing instead. Put in what you were charged and the minutes each person spent, and it shows you what those minutes are worth at each person's own wage, and what the rest of the bill is.
Why is a vet so expensive?
Because a small-animal practice is a hospital that happens to be down the road from you. It has an X-ray machine, an anaesthetic machine, monitors, an in-house blood analyser, an autoclave, a surgical theatre, a pharmacy and a licence, and it has to have all of them on the day your animal needs one, which means it pays for them on every day your animal does not. On top of that sit two salaries that are 2.75 times apart, the employer's half of the payroll tax on both, malpractice cover, and a front desk. The industry's own books put payroll at 36.75 cents of every dollar it takes in, before anything else is paid for at all.
What does a vet actually earn?
A median of $62.55 an hour, or $130,100 a year, with a tenth percentile of $35.54 and a ninetieth of $103.70. That is BLS's figure for SOC 29-1131, and it covers every veterinarian in America, including the food-animal vet, the regulatory vet and the laboratory vet, not just the one who saw your cat. One warning that matters here more than on most pages: BLS excludes the self-employed, and a great many vets own their practice, so the 83,900 it counts are the ones on somebody else's payroll.
What does a vet tech earn?
A median of $22.78 an hour, or $47,380 a year. That is 7.1% below the $24.51 median for every occupation in America, and the veterinarian standing next to them is paid 2.75 times as much for the same hour. There are 129,140 of them on BLS's count, which is more than the 83,900 veterinarians, and they are the people who hold your animal, take its blood, run the lab, monitor the anaesthetic and sit with it while it wakes up. Most of the minutes of your appointment are theirs. If the person in scrubs was a veterinary ASSISTANT rather than a credentialed technician, the wage is lower again: $18.34 an hour, SOC 31-9096.
Is the difference between my bill and the wages just profit?
No, and this is the sentence this page exists to write. Out of that difference come the building, the X-ray machine, the anaesthetic machine, the analyser, the autoclave, the drugs, the licence, the accreditation, the malpractice cover, the employer's half of payroll tax on both wages, the receptionist, the practice manager, the cleaner, the software, the clinical waste contractor, the vet's time on your animal when you are not there, and the standing cost of a practice being able to open a chest at two in the morning. Some of what is left after every one of those is margin. We cannot size it and we will not guess. What we can tell you is that industry-wide, payroll alone eats 36.75 cents of every dollar of receipts before anything on that list is paid for.
Am I being overcharged by my vet?
We do not know, and we are not going to imply it, because there is no sourced price to hold your bill against and a comparison to nothing is worth nothing. The two wages on this page are what the OCCUPATIONS earn nationally, which means they are not what your practice pays, and the $73.69 an employee-hour is what the whole INDUSTRY takes in, which means it is not a ceiling on your quote. A group statistic never bounds one person's bill, in either direction. What you can legitimately do is ask what the bill is for, itemised, and ask what the practice pays its technicians. Both are fair questions and a good practice will answer them.
Why did I pay so much when the vet was only in the room for ten minutes?
Because the ten minutes were not what you were buying, and this is the misunderstanding the whole bill runs on. You were buying a technician's hour, a building, a machine that took an image, an analyser that read a sample, a drug that came out of a locked cupboard, and the vet's attention afterwards on the result. At this page's defaults, three quarters of the minutes are the technician's and the doctor's are the short ones. The bill is shaped around the doctor and staffed by everybody else.
