What is the audiologist starting salary right out of an AuD program?
ASHA's 2025 Audiology Survey anchors it: audiologists with 1–3 years of experience reported a median full-time base salary of $85,000.
BLS's May 2025 OEWS puts the all-audiologist median at $95,780.
This guide breaks down new-grad offers by setting, how sign-on and relocation bonuses work, and how pay rises in the first five years.
Typical new-grad audiologist salary
Our research found no published figure labeled as a starting audiologist salary: the sources we checked — BLS OEWS, ASHA's 2025 survey and AAA's 2023 survey — either cover all audiologists or report experience bands that begin at 1–3 years rather than a new-graduate table.
The closest anchor is ASHA's 2025 Audiology Survey, fielded in late 2025 with 1,525 respondents.
Audiologists with 1–3 years of experience reported a median full-time base salary of $85,000.
Base salary in that survey excludes bonus and commission, covers ASHA-certified (CCC-A) respondents only, and pools everyone currently in the 1–3-year band, not just first-year hires.
The same survey put the overall median full-time salary at $95,000, so early-career pay runs below the profession-wide figure in ASHA's own data.
The survey's trend file shows the 1–3-year median moving from $65,000 in 2016 to $75,500 in 2023 and $85,000 in 2025.
AAA's 2023 Compensation and Benefits Survey is a different measure: total compensation — salary, bonus and commission combined — from Academy members, reporting 2022 income.
Its 1–3-year median was $80,955.
Read the two surveys side by side, never as one scale.
BLS OEWS May 2025 adds the widest lens: audiologists (SOC 29-1181) had a median annual wage of $95,780.
The 10th percentile was $64,610 and the 25th was $79,340.
Those percentiles cover all wage-and-salary audiologists — OEWS excludes the self-employed, so practice owners are not in them.
For the full tables by state, setting and percentile, see our audiologist salary overview.
Still in school?
The externship year has its own pay question, separate from a first salaried offer — our AuD externship guide covers that year.
Three sources, three measures
Starting pay by setting: VA, hospital, ENT, private practice and retail
Our research found no first-year-by-setting pay table, so the nearest comparable figure is each setting's all-experience median — context for a first offer, not a first-year promise.
In ASHA's 2025 data, the 1–3-year median of $85,000 sits below every facility median the survey reported.
ASHA's 2025 facility medians for full-time base salary, all experience levels, appear below.
| Facility | Median base salary | 25th–75th percentile |
|---|---|---|
| Hospitals | $103,000 | $90,000–$122,000 |
| Colleges and universities | $96,000 | — |
| Nonresidential health care | $89,700 | $79,500–$102,000 |
| Schools | $87,513 | $73,000–$101,000 |
| All settings | $95,000 | $82,000–$112,548 |
Nonresidential health care is the survey's label for audiologists' and physicians' offices.
The percentile bands show where lower offers land inside each setting.
Retail is the gap in the 2025 table: ASHA received too few franchise and retail-chain responses (18) to report a median.
Its trend file recorded $70,000 in 2016, $73,000 in 2018, $68,000 in 2021 and $80,000 in 2023 for that setting.
Separately, BLS's May 2025 industry row for health and personal care retailers shows a median of $87,990 for audiologists in that industry.
The VA works from a published pay scale instead.
VA postings state that new graduates who are not yet licensed may be given a temporary appointment as a graduate audiologist at GS-11, and cannot be promoted to GS-12 until licensed; GS-12 is the full-performance level for staff audiologists.
The 2026 General Schedule runs GS-11 from $63,795 to $82,938 before locality pay.
Locality moves that range.
Under the 2026 Rest of U.S. table, GS-11 runs $74,678–$97,087 and GS-12 runs $89,508–$116,362.
In the San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland locality table, GS-11 runs $93,358–$121,371.
ASHA's nonresidential health care figure — the survey's label for audiologists' and physicians' offices ($89,700) — is where ENT clinics and independent audiology practices land in ASHA's data.
AAA's total-compensation view splits them: $92,000 in private-practice ENT against $127,500 in private-practice audiology.
That private-practice audiology figure includes practice owners, which lifts it.
AAA's job-title medians, across all settings, put owners at $150,000 and staff audiologists at $91,681.
Sign-on and relocation bonuses for new grads
The honest answer first: our research found no published national figure for audiologist sign-on bonuses.
ASHA's 2025 survey and AAA's 2023 survey measure annual bonuses and commission, not signing packages, so an employer's sign-on number has to be judged on its own terms.
What the surveys do measure is annual bonus money.
In ASHA's 2025 survey, 323 salaried audiologists reported a bonus in the previous 12 months, with a median of $5,000.
Median salary-plus-bonus ran $115,000 in hospitals, $96,400 in colleges and universities and $95,000 in nonresidential health care.
That is a performance bonus for the year, not money paid at signing.
The trend file shows hospital bonuses rising from a median of $1,500 in 2016 to $5,000 in 2025.
Nonresidential health care reached that same $5,000 median in 2025, and colleges and universities reported $3,750.
Federal employers, including the VA, follow a published rule instead.
Recruitment incentives under 5 CFR 575.109 are generally capped at 25% of annual basic pay multiplied by the years of the service agreement, the service period runs at most 4 years, and the employee signs a service agreement that sets repayment conditions.
Each announcement carries its own incentive policy, so read the posting before counting on one.
Our research found no survey benchmark for relocation help either.
Get the employer's relocation policy in writing: what it covers, whether it is a flat payment or reimbursed expenses, and whether any of it must be repaid if you leave early.
The offer letter is the authority on all of it.
Federal rules are written, not word-of-mouth
How quickly pay rises in years 1–5
ASHA's 2025 experience bands put the 1–3-year median at $85,000 and the 4–6-year band at $86,000 — nearly flat across that boundary — with $95,000 at 7–9 years and $100,000 first reached at 10–12.
Each band pools everyone currently in that experience range in one survey year; it is not one group of graduates followed over time.
AAA's total-compensation bands move more visibly: $80,955 at 1–3 years, $91,000 at 4–9 years, $105,000 at 10–15 years, $126,500 at 16–20 years and $125,000 beyond 20 years.
That is a different measure and an earlier survey year, so read it for shape rather than as a dollar match for ASHA's numbers.
The direction is upward for new graduates.
ASHA's 1–3-year median climbed from $65,000 in 2016 to $75,500 in 2023 and $85,000 in 2025.
The overall median full-time salary went from $78,000 to $95,000 over the same 2016–2025 span.
What the surveys can see behind the movement: hospital and industry medians run above office-based ones, VA promotion from GS-11 to GS-12 is formally tied to licensure, and audiologists receiving commission or bonus report higher combined medians than salary-only peers.
Those levers — setting, licensure and variable pay — are the ones the data actually shows.
How to evaluate a first offer
Start with the base salary.
Set the offer against ASHA's $85,000 median for the 1–3-year band and the setting table above, adjusted for the market you would actually work in.
Then price the structure.
ASHA's 2025 respondents were 83% paid primarily an annual salary, 15% primarily an hourly wage and 2% primarily a commission.
AAA's members reported 52% on salary or hourly pay only, 28% with a bonus, 14% with commission and 6% with both.
Where variable pay exists, the surveys report dollar medians among recipients, not percentage formulas.
ASHA's salaried commission recipients (124) reported a median commission of $20,000 and a median salary-plus-commission of $105,000.
AAA reported $96,000 total compensation on salary or hourly pay alone, $107,000 with commission and $109,200 with both.
Our research found no national benchmark for a commission rate, so ask how the employer's number is computed.
Confirm the credential terms.
In AAA's 2023 survey, 83% of respondents said their employer required ASHA's CCC-A and 24% said ABA certification was required.
In ASHA's 2025 survey, the 270 full-time salaried audiologists who received a salary upgrade for holding the CCC reported a median upgrade of $300, so ask who pays credential fees and whether the schedule changes once you hold them.
Location moves the numbers.
ASHA's 2025 state medians topped out at $122,000 in California, but only 19 states had enough respondents to report.
By area type, the survey recorded $98,088 in city and urban areas, $94,000 in suburban areas and $92,000 in rural areas.
The surveys measure pay, not living costs, so a lower rural offer and a higher city offer are not directly comparable.
Last, weigh what no survey captures: health coverage, retirement match, continuing-education support, mentorship while you finish licensure requirements, and the written repayment terms attached to any bonus.
Survey medians are context for the conversation, not a verdict on a single offer — our audiologist career guide covers the career those offers start.
Career information, not legal, medical or tax advice. Figures are ASHA's 2025 survey, AAA's 2023 survey and BLS OEWS May 2025 as published; confirm current releases with ASHA, the American Academy of Audiology or BLS, and federal hiring rules with the Office of Personnel Management and the announcing agency.