Neurologist Salary in California 2026:
$357,080 Median

A median $357,080 a year, or $171.68 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025 — 43.7% above the national median of $248,560. The 10th percentile is $104,320 and the 25th is $302,620, but the median, 75th and 90th percentiles are all the same figure, so the published data describes a tight cluster at the top rather than a spread. About 1,090 neurologists are counted statewide.

The metro table here is unhelpful and it is worth saying so plainly: San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont reports $104,320 and Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario $79,410, both far below the California statewide row of $357,080. Metro rows built on very small samples routinely diverge from the state estimate like this, and where they do, the statewide figure is the one to rely on.

Because the survey observed a concentrated cluster of similarly-compensated neurologists rather than a graded distribution. That typically happens when a state's sample is dominated by academic departments, large medical groups and foundation contracts that pay on comparable scales. It does not mean no California neurologist earns above $357,080; it means the employee sample BLS reached does not contain enough of them, at enough different pay levels, to resolve an upper tail.

Yes. California requires a physician and surgeon licence from the Medical Board of California to practise medicine on a patient located in California, irrespective of where the physician is physically sitting. That is why the state's teleneurology market — which supplies acute stroke coverage to Central Valley, far northern and desert hospitals that cannot staff twenty-four-hour neurology locally — is organised around multistate licensure portfolios rather than around geography.

On the published medians they are close: Texas reports $360,640 against California's $357,080, a difference of a few thousand dollars. On take-home they are not close at all, because Texas levies no state income tax and California's runs progressive to 13.3% with an uncapped 1.3% State Disability Insurance contribution on wages. Colorado at $356,250, Alaska at $354,760 and South Carolina at $352,680 all sit within about five thousand dollars of California too, which tells you that neurology compensation is nationally standardised in a way most occupations are not.

Two things. First, that California's level is genuinely high — 43.7% above the national median of $248,560 — and clustered tightly, which means an offer materially below the state figure is worth questioning rather than accepting as market. Second, that the published percentiles cannot tell you what subspecialisation or programme leadership is worth in this state, because the upper half of the band has collapsed onto one number. For that question the specialty compensation surveys, which sample physicians rather than payrolls, are the better source.

It rests on about 1,090 observations, the upper half of the band carries no resolution at all, and both published metro rows contradict the statewide figure by more than two hundred thousand dollars. The wage measure also excludes the call stipends, productivity bonuses and partnership distributions that form a real share of neurology income. This is a defensible statewide central estimate and a poor basis for any finer comparison.

Subspecialty certification first — vascular neurology, epilepsy, neuromuscular medicine and neurocritical care all command premiums, and stroke certification in particular is tied to a hospital accreditation requirement that creates demand independent of patient volume. Call burden second: California's stroke centre coverage obligations mean night and weekend availability is purchased rather than assumed. Teleneurology third, which has become a genuine income route in this state precisely because so much of California is far from an academic centre. Employment model fourth, since the difference between a university faculty appointment and a private group partnership is structural rather than incremental.