How many veterinarians are in the US: AVMA, BLS and Census counts, the practices they work in, and how to list them

This page is for anyone who needs the number of veterinarians in the US, and for companies that sell to veterinary practices: practice management software, diagnostics and imaging, pharmaceuticals and supplies, staffing, payments and pet insurance. It reconciles the official counts, breaks them down by type of practice, size and state, and shows how to build a list of practices and who buys there.

How many veterinarians there are in the US

Why the counts differ

• People versus jobs. The AVMA counts veterinarians, including 28,343 with no employment information, some of whom are retired or not working. BLS counts jobs.
• Veterinarians versus practices. The Census Bureau counts practice locations, each with several veterinarians and support staff. A group with ten hospitals counts ten times.
• One-person businesses. The 29,808 nonemployer veterinary businesses are mostly sole proprietors filing their own tax returns; many of these vets also appear in the AVMA and BLS counts.
• A company estimate. Chewy reported that about 20,000 practices used its PracticeHub platform on 1 February 2026, which it estimated at 50% of all US vet clinics. That implies about 40,000 clinics, between the Census count with staff and the count including one-person businesses.

Veterinarians by type of work

Of the total, 91,889 are women and 40,595 men. Among veterinarians in clinical practice, 69.7% are women.

BLS puts 83% of veterinarian jobs in veterinary services, 7% self-employed and 2% each in government and education. Median pay was $130,100 in May 2025, and BLS projects 9% job growth from 2025 to 2035.

Veterinary practices by size

Practices with paid employees employed 475,106 people in March 2023, with an annual payroll of $25.2 billion. By legal form, 19,899 locations are S corporations, 7,433 C corporations, 3,532 partnerships and 3,024 sole proprietorships. C corporation locations are larger, averaging 19.5 employees against 11.3 at S corporation locations.

Veterinary practices by state

Who owns them

Retailers and corporate groups run practices too. Two public companies report their numbers: Petco had about 300 full-service veterinary hospitals in its network on 31 January 2026 and ran about 1,600 Vetco clinics each week, and Chewy had 18 Chewy Vet Care clinics at the end of 2025. Many large practice groups are privately held and file no annual report, so check each group's own site and treat its numbers as its own claim.

How to get a list of veterinarians and practices

Maryland shows how close a state register can get: its 578 licensed veterinary hospitals compare with 576 practices with employees in the Census count. Licensing lists name the veterinarian; the practice and its owner usually take a second step to find.

Who buys inside a veterinary practice

As general guidance:

At an independent practice with 10 to 20 staff, the owner veterinarian decides and the practice manager runs the evaluation. At a corporate group, the practice's medical director has influence, but contracts sit with the group.

Worked example: practice software in North Carolina

Illustrative example. The company and its rates are invented; the counts are Census County Business Patterns figures for 2023.

The seller: Clearwater Vet Systems (clearwater-vet.example) sells cloud practice management software to practices with 10 to 49 staff. The territory: North Carolina.

1. Count the segment. North Carolina has 1,223 veterinary practices with employees. 355 have 10 to 19 employees and 262 have 20 to 49, so 617 fit.
2. Separate independents from groups. Groups often choose software centrally, so pitch them separately. Look up each practice's owner on the state's license records and the practice's own website.
3. Do the arithmetic. If Clearwater reaches the owner or manager at an illustrative 70% of the 617, that's 432 practices. At a 4% meeting rate it gets 17 demos; closing 30% gives 5 new customers. At an illustrative $9,000 a year each, that's $45,000 a year from one state, before referrals.
4. Find the buyer. Finding the practice manager and what's changed (a new hospital, a new owner, a software migration) is the slow part; Bebop finds the contacts and researches each practice in the list.

Subject: Reminders and records at [practice name]

Hi [first name],

I saw [practice name] added [something new, e.g. a second doctor or extended hours] this year.

Practices your size tell us the pinch comes at the front desk: reminders, records requests and callbacks that pile up as the schedule grows.

We help practices with 10 to 40 staff move that work into one system. Would a 15-minute look at how a [similar practice type] set it up be useful?

[Your name]
[Phone number]

Next step: profile each practice with the account research template before you write.