Physician Net Worth Benchmarks (2026): By Career Stage and Years Out of Training

The largest current dataset is Medscape's 2026 Physician Wealth & Debt Report, which surveyed 5,916 physicians across more than 29 specialties between September and December 2025. Becker's tabulated its brackets. The last two columns translate each bracket floor into the dashboard's benchmark: how many years out of training the Expected Net Worth formula takes to reach it at family medicine and orthopedic pay.

Three things stand out. First, the median physician falls in the $1 million to $1,999,999 bracket: 38% of physicians are below $1 million, and the running total passes half within the next bracket. Second, the top is pulling away. The $5 million-plus share rose from 11% in the 2023 report to 19%, while the $2 million to $4,999,999 bracket shrank from 29% to 25% as physicians moved up through it. Third, the brackets mix ages. Medscape's 2026 edition doesn't break net worth out by age, and its sample includes many physicians in their 50s and 60s, so a 38-year-old in the bottom bracket may be exactly on schedule. The formula columns make the same point from the other side: at family medicine pay, the formula doesn't expect $5 million until 62 years out, longer than any career. Reaching the top bracket on primary care pay takes a savings rate well above 25%, years of compounding, ownership, or a second income.

For context outside medicine, the Federal Reserve's 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances, released October 9, 2026, put median U.S. family net worth at $215,900 and the mean at $1.24 million. A December 2025 Visa analysis puts the entry point to the top 10% of U.S. households at about $1.8 million. By those measures physicians are wealthy, which is why the general-population tables are useless for grading one physician against another. The rest of this page compares physicians with physicians.

The same report shows how the wealth is held: retirement accounts are the largest source of physician net worth (38%), followed by homes and other real estate (27%), and a mortgage on the primary home is the most common debt. Medscape also found a persistent gender gap: 50% of male and 37% of female physicians reported family net worth of $2 million or more. The specialty guide covers the gender and racial gaps in detail.

The free dashboard compares you with a different yardstick at each stage. Trainees are compared with the range that's normal during residency and fellowship. Attendings and practice owners are compared with the Expected Net Worth formula from The White Coat Investor, Jim Dahle's physician version of the rule of thumb in The Millionaire Next Door, graded by the ratio of what you have to what the formula expects. The tables below are generated from that code, not typed in.

Why 0.25? It is roughly what you would have after saving a quarter of gross income every year since training, starting from zero and earning nothing. Dahle checked it against Medscape's net worth by age data and found that it fit. Real investments earn something, so a steady 25% saver beats the formula over time. Real physicians also start below zero, which pulls them back toward it. The flagship guide walks through both effects.

Age only matters through the years since training it implies. The table runs two tracks, using the flagship guide's trajectory start ages: a family physician whose first attending year is at 32, and an orthopedic surgeon who finishes fellowship at 35, each at their specialty's 2026 Doximity average pay.

Read the 40 row. The orthopedic surgeon is five years out and the family physician eight, yet the formula expects more of the surgeon, because it scales with income. That's the point of an income-based benchmark: it asks whether you converted the income you had into wealth. Surveys of what surgeons actually report run lower in the early years; the surgeon net worth guide gives on-track ranges by age drawn from Medscape's distributions, and notes that the formula "runs hot" in the first three years for long-training specialties.

For the survey view of age, Medscape's 2016 and 2019 data (as analyzed by The White Coat Investor) put the share of millionaires at 16% to 17% for ages 35 to 39, 30% to 36% for 40 to 44 and 55% to 61% for 50 to 54. About 1 in 4 physicians reached their 60s under $1 million. The full age-by-age breakdown is in physician net worth by age.

A 40-year-old neurosurgeon may be 4 years into attending income; a 40-year-old family physician may be 10. Age tables mislabel both. No major survey publishes net worth by years since training, so this page builds the benchmark from the formula the dashboard uses, at 2026 Doximity specialty averages. It is the benchmark the other guides in the series refer to as "years since residency."

The early rows are the least reliable. In years 1 to 3, loan payoff, a down payment and setting up a household compete with investing, and long-training specialists are still digging out of the deepest hole. The formula becomes diagnostic from about year 5. Years 5 and 10 are the checkpoints worth writing down.

The formula is a yardstick. It doesn't describe how money actually grows. The last three columns model a physician who saves 25% of gross pay every year at a 7% annual return, first from zero and then from a −$250,000 starting point, the flagship guide's assumption for a new attending carrying school debt.

Two patterns are worth taking from the table. A steady 25% saver who starts from zero beats the formula: at family medicine pay, the model reaches $1 million in year 10, while the formula expects it 12.5 years out. Add the school debt and the saver lands close to the formula (year 13). That's why the formula works as a benchmark for real physicians, who almost all start below zero. At the high end, a neurosurgeon saving a quarter of $829,161 reaches $1 million by year 6 even from −$250,000, which is why the formula expects so much of high earners.

Across the ten specialties, the modeled physician crosses $1 million in year 5 to 11 from zero, or year 6 to 15 with the debt. If you are past those years and well short, the cause is almost always a savings rate below 25%, and the lifestyle inflation guide shows what each point of savings rate is worth. Specialty income only sets the pace. The specialties that reach $5 million most often are the ones with ownership access, covered in net worth by specialty.

An internist has been an attending for 6 years and earns the 2026 Doximity internal medicine average of $339,274. Retirement accounts, a brokerage account and home equity, minus the mortgage and what's left of the student loans, come to $420,000.

1. Expected net worth: $339,274 × 6 years × 0.25 = $508,911.
2. Ratio: $420,000 ÷ $508,911 = 83% of expected.
3. What the dashboard would say: "A little behind · 83% of expected." Expected net worth 6 years out of training at your income: $508,911 (income × years × 0.25). On track is 100–200%.
4. The catch-up: at year 10 the formula expects $848,185. With the current $420,000 growing at 7%, reaching it in 4 years takes about $67,000 of new savings a year, or 20% of gross pay, counting 401(k) and 403(b) deferrals, any employer match, IRAs, the HSA and extra loan principal.
5. The alternative: keep saving 10% of pay and the internist reaches only 83% of the year-10 benchmark, still "a little behind" 4 years later.

The fix is a savings rate, not a stock pick. Full 401(k) or 403(b) deferrals (the current limits), any employer match, a backdoor Roth and the HSA cover a large share of that 20% before any taxable investing, and every raise from here can go straight to savings.

The same check for a trainee is simpler. A PGY-3 with −$280,000 of net worth sees "Typical for training": the range is wide because debt and program pay vary so much. The question in training is the loan strategy, so start with PSLF vs. refinancing.

To run your own numbers, total your balance sheet with the net worth calculator, or enter your accounts once in the free dashboard. It applies this benchmark automatically, tracks the trend, and includes the comparison in its weekly digest email.

Each benchmark answers a different version of "am I on track?" Pick the one that matches your question.

Find the line that describes you and read the guides in order.

1. Medical student, resident or fellow. A negative number is expected; the goal is a plan for the debt and habits that survive the first attending paycheck. Read the resident's financial guide, then PSLF vs. refinancing. Set up the free dashboard now so your net worth trend starts before the jump in pay.
2. Attending, years 1 to 3. Ignore the benchmark for now and set the savings rate. Read the attending playbook, the $5 million mistake and investing your first $100,000, and buy own-occupation disability insurance before anything else.
3. Attending, years 4 to 15. Grade yourself with the years-out tables. Under 100% of expected? Read the wealth destroyers in physician net worth by age, then fill the account stack: mega backdoor Roth, HSA, tax strategies.
4. Choosing a specialty or practice model. Read net worth by specialty and partnership buy-ins, then run the specialty ROI and career path calculators.
5. Surgeon. Every general benchmark needs adjusting for the late start and heavy overhead. Start with surgeon net worth.
6. Within 10 years of retiring. Stop comparing with peers and compare with your spending. Read net worth at retirement and physician FIRE, then estate planning.
7. Employed with a pension (Kaiser, the VA, a state university). Your visible net worth understates your position. Read your employer's guide in the pensions list below.

All 40 MedMoneyGuide guides that move or measure a physician's net worth, grouped by the job they do, plus the calculators.

More MedMoneyGuide series: Physician employer deep dives · California physician finance · State loan repayment programs · Physician student loans

Every benchmark above relies on outside surveys, and they share the same blind spots: none measure net worth by years since training, practice model or pension status. That's why the years-out benchmark on this page is a formula, not a survey result.

Once samples reach publication thresholds, the benchmarks here will add physician-reported data no other publication has. Planned next in this series: savings rate by age, debt by age, dual-physician household net worth and a financial milestones timeline.

Survey figures. The 2026 distribution and specialty shares are from Medscape's Physician Wealth & Debt Report 2026, with bracket shares as tabulated by Becker's. Age breakdowns are from Medscape's 2016 and 2019 surveys as analyzed by The White Coat Investor, because the 2026 edition doesn't report net worth by age. Survey data is self-reported family net worth, including home equity.

Benchmark figures. Every career-stage and years-out figure is computed when the page is built, by calling the same functions the free dashboard uses for its "How you compare" card (peerComparison and describePeers). The training range (−$200,000 to −$350,000) comes from the flagship guide; the attending benchmark is The White Coat Investor's Expected Net Worth formula, with bands read from the model. Specialty incomes are the 2026 Doximity averages stored for the site's salary guides (as of September 27, 2026). If either changes, the tables here change with it.

Modeled figures. The compounding columns assume end-of-year savings of 25% of gross pay, a 7% annual return, pay held flat at today's average, and, where stated, a −$250,000 start whose debt costs about what the portfolio earns. They are illustrations of the arithmetic, not forecasts. The surgeon retirement range is the surgeon guide's model.

Citing these benchmarks? Link the specific article so readers see current figures. Corrections: editorial@medmoneyguide.com.