Dermatologist Salary in California 2026,
$328,730 Median | BLS Data by City

BLS does not publish a California median for dermatologists — the state cell is suppressed in OEWS May 2025. The national median is $328,730 a year, $158.04 an hour, with a national range of $102,810 to $578,560. The only published California metro is San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad at $233,370, which sits well below the national figure.

BLS suppresses estimates that do not meet its publication and confidentiality standards, and this cell is one of them. California's surveyed dermatology employment is only about 740 at a location quotient of 0.55, because so much California dermatology is delivered through medical group and private practice arrangements rather than as wage employment. A thin, structurally unusual sample is exactly the situation the suppression rule exists for.

Only San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, at $233,370. BLS does not publish figures for Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim or San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, which between them contain most of California's dermatology practice. That single published metro should not be read as representative of the state.

No. The Medical Board of California issues the physician and surgeon licence and the Osteopathic Medical Board of California licenses DOs; there is no dermatology-specific state credential. Board certification comes from the American Board of Dermatology, and Mohs micrographic surgery is a fellowship-trained subspecialty — national credentials the state does not administer but that patients and employers screen on.

Against national figures and specialty compensation surveys rather than against this page, because no California median exists to compare with. What the national range does establish is the shape of the specialty: a national median of $328,730, a 75th percentile of $452,450 and a 90th of $578,560, with procedural and Mohs practice concentrated at the top. California's high cost of living and 13.3% top income tax rate should be weighed against whatever offer sits inside that shape.

That BLS collected data for California dermatologists but judged the estimate not publishable — typically because the sample is too small or too concentrated among a few employers to release without confidentiality or reliability concerns. It is not a statement that dermatologists are absent or poorly paid in California. This page therefore quotes the national figures and labels them as such rather than presenting a state median that does not exist.

Because of how medicine is organised here. California restricts the corporate practice of medicine, and dermatology in particular has a high proportion of physician-owned private practice, so a large share of the state's dermatologists are owners or group members rather than wage employees on a payroll that OEWS samples. A location quotient of 0.55 across about 740 people measures survey coverage more than it measures clinical capacity.

Every figure quoted is national, and the page says so throughout. The San Diego metro figure of $233,370 is a real California observation but covers a single market and sits below the national median, so it should not be generalised. Treat the structural points — supply-constrained specialty, high private-practice share, medical versus procedural split — as the usable content, and the numbers as national reference points only.