Anesthesiology Salary (2026): What Anesthesiologists Actually Earn

The average anesthesiologist salary is $557,131 in the Doximity 2026 Physician Compensation Report, which draws on 2025 survey data and ranks anesthesiology 12th among the specialties it lists. SalaryDr's median is $520,000 across 162 self-reported salaries, and Medscape's 2026 report puts the average at $543,000. That average ranks fifth among the 29 specialties in the Medscape report, and anesthesiology's 8 percent increase over the prior survey tied for the fourth-largest gain.

But the headline numbers hide a wide spread that has little to do with how skilled you are as an anesthesiologist. On SalaryDr, private practice anesthesiologists average $591,065 while academic anesthesiologists average $468,999, a gap of about $122,000. Whether your state lets CRNAs practice without physician supervision also shapes the job market you negotiate in, though the state data below shows it doesn't sort pay as cleanly as is often claimed.

This guide covers what anesthesiologists actually earn in 2026 by setting, subspecialty, state, and career stage — with real data from Doximity, SalaryDr, Marit Health, Medscape, and AMN Healthcare — plus an honest analysis of the CRNA scope issue that every anesthesiologist evaluating a job offer in 2026 needs to understand.

What the Data Shows: Anesthesiology Salary in 2026

Multiple compensation surveys report slightly different figures depending on methodology and sample size. Here is how the major 2026 sources compare:

On SalaryDr, the 25th percentile sits at $465,000 and the 75th percentile at $570,000, with the 90th percentile at $671,000. Marit's larger sample runs a little higher, from $500,000 at the 25th percentile to $630,000 at the 75th. Bonus pay is common but not universal: 69 percent of SalaryDr's anesthesiology reports include bonus or incentive pay, with a median bonus of $80,000.

The 5.5 percent year-over-year increase in AMN Healthcare's recruiting data stands out in a year when AMN's average starting salary across all the physicians it tracked slipped from $406,000 to $403,000. Demand is part of the story: the Doximity 2026 report ranks anesthesiology ninth among specialties by job-posting demand in 2025 and fourth among the most in-demand locum tenens specialties.

Anesthesiology Salary by Practice Setting

Practice setting is the most controllable compensation variable in anesthesiology. On SalaryDr, the average for private practice runs about $122,000 above the academic average — and the partnership track is where the most significant wealth is built.

Private Practice and Anesthesia Groups: $591,065 Average (SalaryDr)

Private practice pays the most of the common employment models. On SalaryDr, private practice anesthesiologists average $591,065 across 46 reports, against $548,354 for hospital-employed anesthesiologists. Marit shows the same order: self-employed anesthesiologists average $596,500 and those in medical groups $577,500. Those averages blend associates and partners; partners share in group profits and have voting rights on group decisions, which is where the top of the range comes from.

The partnership track in anesthesiology typically runs 2 to 3 years:

• •Year 1–2 (Associate): A set salary, usually below partner pay, with standard call obligations
• •Year 2–3 (Buy-in): Equity purchase, often paid over 1–3 years
• •Year 3+ (Partner): Full distributions plus ownership in group revenue streams

The buy-in is an important consideration most anesthesiology residents underestimate when evaluating offers. A group requiring a $150,000 buy-in paid over two years is essentially asking you to fund your own equity stake from your first-year salary. Negotiate the terms of the buy-in — payment timeline, valuation methodology, and what happens to your equity if the group is acquired — before signing.

Hospital and Health System Employment: $548,354 Average (SalaryDr)

Hospital employment is the most common setting in SalaryDr's anesthesiology reports: 63 of 162, averaging $548,354. Marit puts hospital and health system roles at $569,000. These jobs usually come with comprehensive benefits, including malpractice coverage, CME allowances, and retirement contributions.

The trade-offs versus private practice are real: more predictable income, better benefits, and less administrative burden — at the cost of lower total compensation ceiling and less autonomy. For anesthesiologists in markets where private practice groups are being absorbed by hospital systems, the employed model has become the primary option regardless of preference.

Call pay is a meaningful compensation variable in hospital employment that deserves scrutiny in any contract review. On Marit, anesthesiologists who report call pay put the daily rate at a median of $2,419, with the middle half between $1,047 and $6,000. At $1,500 a call, 10 overnight calls a month adds $180,000 a year on top of base salary — enough to materially close the gap with private practice compensation.

Academic Medical Centers: $468,999 Average (SalaryDr)

Academic anesthesiology pays the least of the main settings on SalaryDr — $468,999 on average across 32 reports — reflecting the trade-offs of protected research time, teaching responsibilities, and academic prestige over pure clinical revenue generation. Marit's larger sample shows a narrower gap: academic anesthesiologists average $549,500 (360 salaries), against $570,000 in non-academic settings (768 salaries).

For anesthesiologists at qualifying nonprofit academic medical centers, PSLF eligibility creates real economic value that partially offsets the salary discount. A physician with $280,000 in student loans receiving PSLF forgiveness after 120 qualifying payments is receiving tax-free forgiveness worth $200,000 to $350,000 in remaining balance — equivalent to supplemental annual compensation of $20,000 to $35,000 over the qualifying period.

Ambulatory Surgery Centers (ASCs)

ASC-based anesthesiology sits between hospital employment and full private practice. Marit's outpatient-center category averages $509,500, though many ASC anesthesiologists also participate in physician ownership of the facility itself — which adds distributions beyond clinical salary and can significantly increase total compensation.

Ownership in an ambulatory surgery center is one of the most lucrative non-clinical income streams available to anesthesiologists. ASC distributions are proportional to ownership percentage and facility revenue, so what a stake is worth depends on its size and the center's case volume.

Locum Tenens

Locum tenens anesthesiology is in steady demand. The Doximity 2026 report ranks anesthesiology fourth among the most in-demand locum tenens specialties in 2025, based on Doximity Talent Solutions data. Pay is usually quoted as an hourly or daily rate, and SalaryDr has only five independent or contract reports for anesthesiology — too few to benchmark against.

The self-employment tax, benefits gap, and administrative burden of multi-state licensure reduce the net advantage over permanent employment — but for experienced anesthesiologists who manage the complexity well, locum tenens can produce total compensation at the top of the specialty range.

Anesthesiology Salary by Subspecialty

Fellowship training can lift anesthesiology pay, but the premium depends on the subspecialty and is smaller than often assumed. Not all subspecialties produce equal financial returns, and the ROI calculation depends heavily on what you give up in an additional fellowship year versus what you gain in career income. The headline figures below are Marit averages, which rest on larger samples than SalaryDr's subspecialty splits.

Cardiac Anesthesiology: $614,000 Average (Marit)

Cardiac anesthesiologists earn the highest average of any anesthesiology subspecialty on Marit: $614,000 across 219 salaries. Procedural complexity, long cases, and a limited supply of fellowship-trained cardiac anesthesiologists all support the premium. SalaryDr's smaller sample puts the cardiac average at $560,000 (18 reports).

On Marit's numbers, the one-year cardiac fellowship is worth about $44,000 a year over the $570,400 average for anesthesiologists overall. Across a 30-year career, that comes to roughly $1.3 million before taxes for one extra year of training.

Pain Medicine: $565,000 Average (Marit)

Pain medicine fellowship has emerged as the most strategically significant subspecialty in anesthesiology in 2026. Pain medicine has become the best hedge in anesthesiology — it creates a practice model immune to CRNA substitution. The pay case is less clear-cut: pain medicine anesthesiologists average $565,000 on Marit (309 salaries), roughly level with anesthesiology overall, while SalaryDr's 19 pain medicine reports average $620,000, the highest of its subspecialty splits.

A pain medicine anesthesiologist does procedures — spinal cord stimulation, interventional injections, nerve blocks for chronic pain — that CRNAs cannot perform independently. In any market, regardless of scope-of-practice laws, the pain medicine anesthesiologist's procedural practice is structurally protected.

The cash-pay component of pain management further improves the compensation picture. Patients paying out of pocket for procedures like regenerative therapies and certain neuromodulation treatments create revenue streams independent of insurance reimbursement.

Critical Care Medicine: $546,500 Average (Marit)

Dual certification in anesthesiology and critical care medicine allows a physician to practice in both the ICU and the OR, creating employment flexibility that other subspecialties cannot match. Marit's 61 critical care anesthesiology salaries average $546,500, but pay for dual-boarded anesthesia/critical care physicians depends heavily on how their time is split between the two settings.

Pediatric Anesthesiology: $575,500 Average (Marit)

Pediatric anesthesiologists average $575,500 on Marit (141 salaries), only slightly above the all-anesthesiologist average, and SalaryDr's nine pediatric reports average $500,000. The fellowship buys a different job more than a pay premium. Like cardiac anesthesia, pediatric cases represent high-complexity scenarios that physician anesthesiologist involvement is standard for.

Regional Anesthesiology: $541,500 Average (Marit)

Regional anesthesiology and acute pain medicine fellowship training has grown substantially as ultrasound-guided nerve block techniques have expanded. Regional anesthesiologists in high-volume orthopedic and sports medicine programs can generate significant supplemental wRVUs from nerve blocks in addition to their primary anesthetic work. Marit's $541,500 average for the subspecialty rests on only 18 salaries.

The CRNA Issue: What Every Anesthesiologist Needs to Know

No topic has more financial impact on anesthesiologist compensation planning than the expanding scope of practice for Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists. This is not a political statement — it is a market reality in roughly half the country.

The current landscape: Federal rules allow states to opt out of the physician supervision requirement for CRNAs in Medicare-participating facilities. As of 2026, 27 states and Guam have opted out, according to the American Association of Nurse Anesthesiology, with Ohio and Vermont the latest in July 2026. Opt-out states include California, Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Iowa, Nebraska, and Idaho, among others.

The compensation impact: SalaryDr's anesthesiology career page estimates that CRNA independence laws in 27 states are compressing anesthesiologist salaries by 15 to 20 percent compared to team-model states. SalaryDr doesn't publish the comparison behind that estimate, and the state averages in the next section don't show a clean split. In states where CRNAs practice independently, hospital systems have reduced reliance on physician anesthesiologists for lower-acuity cases — reducing both the number of positions and the compensation leverage physicians previously held.

What this means in practice:

In ACT model states — where anesthesiologists medically direct CRNAs in teams of 1:3 or 1:4 — an anesthesiologist directing four concurrent cases billed at the medically directing rate generates significantly more revenue per unit of physician time than solo practice. This model actually amplifies physician compensation relative to CRNA-only staffing.

In CRNA-independent states — where CRNAs can practice without physician supervision — hospitals have substituted CRNAs for physician anesthesiologist coverage in lower-acuity cases, reducing the demand for physician anesthesiologists and compressing their compensation leverage. Anesthesiologists in these markets who do not subspecialize are increasingly competing for similar case types with CRNAs, whose mean wage was $248,320 in the Bureau of Labor Statistics' May 2025 estimates, which fundamentally changes the employer's calculus on physician staffing.

The practical advice for anesthesiologists evaluating markets: Research your target state's scope-of-practice laws before accepting any position. A hospital employment contract in a CRNA-independent state with no subspecialty protection is a materially different career trajectory than the same contract in a care-team state. The scope-of-practice map is a required part of your geographic due diligence.

Anesthesiology Salary by State

Geographic variation in anesthesiologist compensation is driven by the CRNA scope issue, local demand, state income tax, malpractice costs, and surgical volume.

Highest-Compensating States

Oregon leads Marit's state rankings at a $646,000 average across 28 self-reported salaries, followed by Minnesota ($631,500), New Jersey and South Carolina ($625,500 each), Nevada ($617,500), and Wisconsin ($617,000), as of September 27, 2026. SalaryDr's state samples are thinner: its highest medians are Ohio ($725,000), New York ($675,000), and South Carolina ($665,000), each built on five or fewer reports.

Texas has a large physician-led private practice market anchored by big hospital systems in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin, but its SalaryDr median is $485,000 across 12 reports, below the national figure. Where Texas, Florida, and Tennessee pull ahead is after taxes: none of the three taxes wage income.

Do CRNA Opt-Out States Pay Less?

Not in the self-reported data. Four of the eight top-paying states on Marit's list — Oregon, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Kansas — have opted out of the federal supervision requirement, and Marit's top-paying cities include Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco. Taxes are a different story: California's high nominal salaries face a steep state income tax, with a top marginal rate of 13.3 percent on income over $1 million.

For the full state-by-state salary analysis across all physician specialties, see our Physician Salary by State guide.

Anesthesiology Salary by Career Stage

Related reading: See where anesthesiology ranks in physician wealth in our Physician Net Worth by Specialty rankings.

Anesthesiology has a relatively compressed early-career income curve compared to surgical specialties — most of the salary growth comes from partnership track and subspecialty premium rather than experience alone.

• •CA-1 through CA-3 Resident: Residents are paid by training year, not specialty, so an anesthesiology resident earns the same stipend as any other resident at the same PGY level and hospital. See our resident physician salary guide for the current AAMC averages by PGY level.
• •Fellowship year (optional): Fellowship stipends follow the same PGY scale, so the fellowship year pays like one more year of training. The income sacrifice is real, and the payoff varies by subspecialty (see above).
• •Early attending (years 0–5): SalaryDr's reports from anesthesiologists with 0–2 years of experience average $534,874 (39 reports), and those with 3–5 years average $505,298 (29 reports). Marit puts the 0–2 year average at $530,000.
• •Mid-career attending (years 6–10): SalaryDr's 6–10 year reports average $587,534 (52 reports). Partnership track is the dominant financial event in this window, and reaching full partner status in a well-run private anesthesia group is where income steps up.
• •Senior physician (11+ years): SalaryDr's reports average $565,000 at 11–15 years (23 reports) and $625,000 at 16 or more years (19 reports). Marit puts anesthesiologists with 11 or more years at $574,000.

How Anesthesiology Compensation Is Structured

Unlike most physician specialties where compensation centers on wRVU productivity, anesthesiology uses a unique billing framework based on base units plus time units.

Base units are assigned to each procedure type by the American Society of Anesthesiologists Relative Value Guide. A coronary artery bypass carries more base units than a routine hernia repair because of clinical complexity.

Time units are added at one unit per 15 minutes of anesthesia time.

The 2026 Medicare anesthesia conversion factor is $20.4976 per unit for most anesthesiologists, up from $20.3178 in 2025, according to the American Society of Anesthesiologists' summary of the CMS 2026 final rule. That is a 0.88 percent increase, compared with 3.26 percent for the general physician fee schedule conversion factor, so anesthesia payment fell further behind other specialties this year.

Supplemental Income Components

Call pay: Reported daily call rates on Marit run from $1,047 at the 25th percentile to $6,000 at the 75th, with a median of $2,419. Verify whether in-house call carries a different rate than home call, and whether post-call clinical obligations are compensated separately.

Medical direction fees: When medically directing 3–4 CRNAs concurrently, billing is at a reduced rate per case but applied across multiple simultaneous cases. Supervising 3 to 4 CRNAs can effectively double total wRVU generation for an anesthesiologist compared to solo practice.

Hospital stipends: Many hospital anesthesia groups receive subsidy payments from the facility above collections to maintain adequate coverage for low-revenue services. Ask how the subsidy is set and whether it flows through to physician pay.

Pain procedures: Anesthesiologists with pain medicine training can generate additional wRVU income from clinic-based procedures.

Anesthesiology vs. CRNA Salary

The most searched anesthesiology compensation question in 2026 is not about subspecialties or state comparisons — it is the anesthesiologist versus CRNA comparison. Medical students deciding between the two pathways search this regularly, and anesthesiologists fielding CRNA scope-of-practice arguments in their workplace need to understand the financial facts.

Nurse anesthetists earned a mean wage of $248,320 in the Bureau of Labor Statistics' May 2025 estimates, with a median of $236,590 — less than half of SalaryDr's $520,000 median for physician anesthesiologists (162 reports) and of the Doximity 2026 average of $557,131.

The physician premium reflects several genuine differences: 4 additional years of medical training, broader scope of independent diagnosis and treatment, the ability to manage complex multi-system medical conditions that arise in the perioperative period, and departmental leadership and supervisory roles. The financial case for the anesthesiology physician pathway has narrowed in CRNA-independent states — making subspecialty training, particularly in cardiac and pain medicine, an increasingly important differentiator.

Is Anesthesiology Still Worth It Financially in 2026?

The honest answer is yes — with meaningful caveats. 91 percent of anesthesiologists who answered on SalaryDr (153 reports) would choose the specialty again, and Marit reports the same 91 percent. The financial rewards remain substantial by any measure.

The qualification is geography and subspecialty. An anesthesiologist in a care-team state with cardiac or pain medicine fellowship training has one of the most financially secure and well-compensated positions in medicine. An anesthesiologist who is a generalist in a CRNA-independent state is in a meaningfully more competitive market where subspecialty differentiation becomes increasingly important over a career.

The training investment is significant — 12 to 15 years total from undergraduate through residency and optional fellowship. The ROI over a 30-year career at median compensation remains strongly positive. But where you practice and what you subspecialize in will determine whether you are at the median or at the top quartile.