Becoming a doctor is a long process. Four years of undergraduate education and another four years of medical school are just the beginning. Once you graduate from med school, you’ll be ready to begin your residency program. Residency can last for as long as seven years, depending on your specialty. If you’re hoping to become a physician and are already daunted by the cost of the necessary education, you might be worrying about whether you’ll get paid during residency and, if you do, how much you’ll earn.
The good news for aspiring doctors is that you do get paid during residency; unfortunately, the big salaries associated with the medical field don’t come until after residency is over.
How Much Do You Get Paid During Residency?
According to Medscape’s 2025 Resident Salary and Debt report, the average resident earns $75,000 per year, up $5,000 from $70,000 per year in 2024. This is a solid level of earning when compared to national averages—the median household, many of which include two earners, in the United States made $82,690 in 2023.
However, it’s far below the earnings that physicians generally see. The average doctor earned $376,000 in 2025.
Many factors influence exactly how much you can earn during residency. You’ll likely earn more in more expensive areas, such as the northeast.
Does Pay Increase Throughout Residency?
Yes, just as with any industry, pay for residents tends to increase with experience. In 2025, the average first- or second-year residents earned $68,000 per year, while third-year residents earned $72,000, and those in the fourth year of residency or beyond earned $79,000.
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Do Doctors Get Benefits During Residency?
Though pay for residents is low compared to pay for physicians, there are other forms of compensation to consider. The vast majority of residents are eligible for benefits from their employer, including paid time off, health and life insurance, retirement benefits, and more.
Is Resident Pay Enough?
The real question for residents is whether the amount they’re paid feels like it’s enough. The answer, unfortunately for aspiring physicians, is a resounding no.
Among residents surveyed by Medscape in 2025, just 37% of residents said they earned about as much as they needed, and only 5% claimed to earn more or much more than they needed. A plurality, 39%, said they earned less than they needed, and nearly one-fifth said that their earnings were much less than they needed.
Even though resident earnings are in line with median household earnings in the United States, many people are feeling an economic pinch these days. Those people also may not be burdened with the hundreds of thousands of dollars of student debt that you can incur throughout your undergraduate education and medical school. Making ends meet can be difficult for residents.
Then, consider that residents tend to work long hours. In 2018, the majority of residents worked more than 60 hours a week, and about 20% reported working 80 hours a week or more—far more than the typical full-time schedule of 40 hours per week.
Earning $75,000 a year at 60 hours per week means earning $24.03 an hour. Push that to 80 hours a week, and the hourly earnings fall to $18.02, just barely higher than the highest minimum wage in the US. Both are below the median hourly earnings among all American workers of $37.02, so it’s no wonder that residents feel underappreciated and underpaid.
Dealing with Student Debt in Residency
When you’re in residency, you’ll probably have to build a lean budget and find a way to stretch your dollars.
For many residents, student debt is a major concern—particularly repayment of that debt—which often begins after you graduate from medical school. The average medical school graduate owes nearly $250,000 in student loans, which can mean expected payments in the high hundreds or thousands of dollars each month.
One way you can help make your debt more manageable and get some financial relief during your residency is by signing up for an income driven repayment (IDR) program. These payment programs are available for government-backed loans, and they can reduce your student loan payments to a more affordable amount.
Multiple IDR programs are available. Each caps your monthly payments between 10%-20% of your discretionary income, meaning the amount you should have left over after paying essential expenses based on the cost of living in your area.
Under these plans, your payment will increase as your income does until you reach the full required monthly payment and can start paying down your debt. Depending on what loans you have, it's possible to make progress toward student loan forgiveness using IDR plans.
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The Bottom Line
Long story short, residents do get paid for the work that they do. But the pay is far less than physicians earn, and the typical resident does not feel fairly compensated either in terms of pay per hour of work or overall.
That low pay can mean feeling like your budget is tight during your resident years. For most people, one of the best things you can do to ease budget stress during residency is to sign up for an income-driven repayment plan, which can help limit your student loan payments until your income rises.
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