Psychiatry residency salary and data report, 2026
What psychiatry residents are paid, which programs sponsor visas, and how the Match moved this year. Every program figure comes from that program's own official website, with the link, so you can check it yourself.
Key findings
We checked the official websites of all 189 psychiatry residency programs in the shrinkiatry Residency Guide, across 13 states, on September 29, 2026. Median base pay for a first-year psychiatry resident was $69,430 for 2026-27, rising to $77,185 by PGY-4. Only 82 programs posted a pay table labeled for this academic year. In the 2026 Match, psychiatry offered 128 more positions than the year before, and 65 of them went unfilled in the Main Match, up from 8.
What psychiatry residents are paid
Resident pay is set by the sponsoring institution, not by the specialty. Most hospitals publish one scale by postgraduate year for every residency they run, and a few programs are covered by a union contract. So when you look at psychiatry pay, you're mostly looking at what each hospital pays its residents.
For 2026-27, the median base salary across the 79 programs with a current published table was $69,430 for PGY-1, $71,691 for PGY-2, $74,533 for PGY-3, and $77,185 for PGY-4. The typical raise from the first year to the fourth was $7,945. That's base pay only. Many programs add housing, meal, or education stipends on top, and a handful fold those stipends into the salary line; we left those out of the medians and marked them in the table below.
The range is wide. PGY-1 base pay ran from $61,068 at Piedmont Macon Medical Center to $98,466 at UCLA (Semel Institute), a scale shared by 2 programs in our directory. Those are the two ends of 79 published scales, not a ranking of programs.
Pay by state, with and without cost of living
Among states with at least three programs reporting 2026-27 pay, California had the highest median PGY-1 base pay at $88,904, and Florida had the lowest at $65,042. A higher salary in an expensive state doesn't go as far, so we also adjusted each state's median with the Bureau of Economic Analysis regional price parities for 2024, which compare price levels across states against a national average of 100. After that adjustment, California was still highest at $80,311 and Florida still lowest at $62,903, but the gap between them shrank.
| State | Programs | Median PGY-1 | Price parity | Adjusted PGY-1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| California | 15 | $88,904 | 110.7 | $80,311 |
| Hawaii | 1 | $85,519 | 110.0 | $77,745 |
| New York | 6 | $77,563 | 107.9 | $71,884 |
| Maine | 1 | $75,010 | 97.1 | $77,250 |
| Wisconsin | 4 | $73,697 | 94.1 | $78,317 |
| Georgia | 3 | $71,557 | 96.3 | $74,306 |
| Ohio | 7 | $69,825 | 92.8 | $75,242 |
| Nebraska | 2 | $69,114 | 90.1 | $76,708 |
| Texas | 9 | $68,908 | 97.1 | $70,966 |
| Michigan | 7 | $68,692 | 96.2 | $71,405 |
| Indiana | 5 | $68,100 | 93.3 | $72,990 |
| Virginia | 5 | $67,930 | 101.1 | $67,191 |
| Florida | 14 | $65,042 | 103.4 | $62,903 |
States with one or two programs are shown but weren't used for the highest and lowest comparisons.
Most programs publish pay, but not always this year's
We found pay figures on an official page for 136 of the 189 programs. Only 82 of those tables are labeled for 2026-27. The other 54 are dated to an earlier year or carry no date at all, so an applicant can't tell whether the numbers are current. For the remaining 53, we couldn't find a figure we could verify. Some programs don't publish pay, some post it only in files or pages we couldn't read, and military programs pay residents on the military scale. If you're comparing offers, ask each program for its current scale in writing.
Visa policies
For international medical graduates, the visa question often decides where it's worth applying. Here's what programs say on their own sites. 59 accept J-1 visas (the J-1 for clinical training is sponsored through ECFMG), 13 accept both J-1 and H-1B, and 31 say they don't sponsor visas. 83, about 44%, don't state a policy anywhere we could find. In the 2026 Match, international medical graduates filled 399 psychiatry positions, about 16% of the total, according to NRMP.
"J-1" means the program says it accepts J-1 physicians; it doesn't mean the program rules out H-1B unless it says so. Policies change, so confirm with the program.
The 2026 Match: more psychiatry positions, more left unfilled
NRMP's 2026 Main Residency Match offered 2,516 categorical psychiatry positions across 434 programs, 128 more positions than in 2025. Applicants didn't keep pace: NRMP counted 3,179 applicants in psychiatry, down from 3,278. 65 positions went unfilled in the Main Match, up from 8, and the fill rate slipped from 99.7% to 97.4%. US MD seniors filled 56.2% of positions, down from 60.0%. Unfilled positions often go to the Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program afterward, and NRMP didn't publish a psychiatry figure after that round, so these are Main Match numbers only.
For context, ACGME counted 353 accredited general psychiatry residency programs in 2024-2025.
Every program
Search by program, city, or state. Each row links to the program's verified profile and to the official page the figures came from. An asterisk means the published figure includes stipends; hover it for details.
Download the data
The full dataset is free to use with attribution. It includes every value, its source URL, and the exact wording we read on the page.
Methodology
On September 29, 2026 we visited the official website of every program in the Residency Guide, along with the sponsoring institution's graduate medical education pages when pay lived there. For each program we recorded base salary by postgraduate year, positions per year, and visa policy, and we only recorded a value when an official page stated it. Each value is stored with its URL and the exact wording on the page. We didn't use FREIDA, forums, or third-party salary sites.
Medians use only tables labeled for 2026-27 and only figures that are base pay. We excluded 3 tables that fold stipends into salary, and we rounded cents to whole dollars. When a table was ambiguous about its year, we took the more conservative reading. Positions are only listed when a program gave a single number per year, not a range or a four-year total.
An independent reviewer then re-checked a random sample of 24 programs against the cited pages. All 121 checked values matched.
Limits: this covers the 189 programs in our directory across 13 states, not every psychiatry program in the country, so treat it as a large sample, not a census. Pay is base salary only and says nothing about benefits, call, or training quality. It isn't a ranking.
How we keep this current
Each source changes on its own calendar, so each part of this report is refreshed on that schedule.
| Data | When it's updated | Next update |
|---|---|---|
| Program pay, positions, and visa policy | Re-collected from every official site each August, after new academic-year pay scales take effect on July 1 | August 2027 |
| NRMP Match figures | Updated each May, when NRMP publishes its Main Residency Match Results and Data report | May 2027 |
| Cost-of-living adjustment | Updated each December, when the Bureau of Economic Analysis releases new regional price parities | December 2026 |
| Source links and newly posted pay tables | Checked every quarter, in January, April, July, and October | October 2026 |
Found a figure that's out of date? Send a correction with a link to the official page, and we'll verify it and update the report.
Frequently asked questions
How much do psychiatry residents make in 2026-27?
Across the 79 programs in our directory that published a 2026-27 pay table, median base pay was $69,430 for PGY-1, $71,691 for PGY-2, $74,533 for PGY-3, and $77,185 for PGY-4. PGY-1 pay ran from $61,068 to $98,466. Figures are base salary from each program's or institution's official site, without housing or meal stipends.
Is psychiatry resident pay the same as other specialties?
Usually, yes. Most sponsoring institutions publish one pay scale by postgraduate year that applies to every residency they run, so a psychiatry PGY-1 earns what an internal medicine PGY-1 earns at the same hospital. That's why so many of the tables in this report are institution-wide.
Which states pay psychiatry residents the most?
Among states with at least three programs reporting 2026-27 pay, California had the highest median PGY-1 base pay ($88,904) and Florida the lowest ($65,042). After adjusting for each state's cost of living with BEA regional price parities, California was still highest and Florida still lowest, but the gap narrowed.
Do psychiatry residencies sponsor visas?
Some do. Of the 189 programs we checked, 59 said on their official site that they accept J-1 visas, 13 said they accept both J-1 and H-1B, 31 said they don't sponsor visas, and 83 didn't state a policy at all. Confirm directly with any program before you apply.
How many psychiatry residency positions were offered in the 2026 Match?
NRMP's 2026 Main Residency Match offered 2,516 categorical psychiatry positions across 434 programs, up 128 from 2025. 65 went unfilled in the Main Match, compared with 8 the year before.
How to cite this report
Refai S. Psychiatry Residency Salary and Data Report, 2026. shrinkiatry; September 29, 2026. https://shrinkiatry.com/reports/psychiatry-residency-salary/
Use these charts
You're welcome to put either chart on your own site. Copy the code, and keep the link so readers can find the source.
Sources
- Official websites of each residency program and its sponsoring institution, visited September 29, 2026. Each program's source link is in the table above and in the dataset.
- National Resident Matching Program. Results and Data: 2026 Main Residency Match. https://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Main_Match_Results_and_Data-2026.pdf
- National Resident Matching Program. Results and Data: 2025 Main Residency Match. https://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Main_Match_Results_and_Data_20250529_FINAL.pdf
- U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Regional price parities by state, 2024, all items, as published by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED). https://fred.stlouisfed.org/release/tables?eid=233639&rid=403
- Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. Data Resource Book, 2024-2025. https://www.acgme.org/globalassets/pfassets/publicationsbooks/2024-2025_acgme_databook_document.pdf
Written and reviewed by Shariq Refai, MD, MBA, FAPA, a board-certified psychiatrist. Published September 29, 2026. Last reviewed September 29, 2026.
Go deeper
The Psychiatry Residency Guide has a verified profile for every program here. If you're still deciding, start with how to apply to psychiatry residency and how psychiatry residency works. For what happens to pay after training, see psychiatrist compensation, and for where psychiatrists are needed most, the State of Psychiatry Access report.