Orthopedic Surgeon Salary in New York 2026,
$414,290 Median | BLS Data by City

A median $414,290 a year, or $199.18 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025 — 15.5% above the national median of $358,550. The published band is extremely wide: $77,150 at the 10th percentile, $111,770 at the 25th, $577,320 at the 75th and $619,340 at the 90th. The bottom quarter of that band is residency and fellowship pay rather than attending pay, so the median is the only sensible reference point.

New York-Newark-Jersey City at $341,430 is the only metro in the state with a published figure above the low six figures — Rochester comes in at $77,150 and Albany-Schenectady-Troy at $75,720. But the New York-Newark-Jersey City figure still sits below the $414,290 statewide median, which tells you the highest-earning orthopaedic practice in this state is not concentrated in the metro tables at all.

Because the metro estimate is dominated by salaried employment. The New York-Newark-Jersey City area has an exceptional density of academic medical centres and large hospital systems, and both employ orthopaedic surgeons on salary alongside very large resident and fellow cohorts. Those cohorts are counted in the same occupational estimate. Private-practice and ambulatory-surgery income, which is what reaches the $577,320 seventy-fifth percentile, is spread across the state rather than concentrated in the city, so the metro median of $341,430 understates what an established city surgeon actually earns.

No. New York issues a physician licence and nothing more specific, and it issues it through the State Education Department's Office of the Professions rather than a standalone medical board — a structural quirk that surprises physicians relocating here. Orthopaedic standing comes from residency completion and American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery certification, which the state neither administers nor requires. Hospital credentialing committees and malpractice carriers are what actually screen on subspecialty qualification.

State income tax is progressive from 4% to 10.9%, and at a $414,290 median a surgeon sits in the upper brackets. The decision that costs real money is where to live: New York City residents pay an additional city income tax of 3.078% to 3.876% on top of the state rate, which is a five-figure annual difference at this income. Employees also fund Paid Family Leave at 0.432% of wages, capped at $411.91 in 2026, plus statutory disability coverage of up to $0.60 a week.

The two usually pull against each other — a dense supply normally softens pay. New York is an exception because its orthopaedic demand is not merely local. The state's hospital systems draw tertiary and quaternary referrals from a much larger catchment than New York itself, and joint replacement, spine and sports-medicine volume follows those referral patterns rather than resident population. High volume supports high compensation even in a densely staffed market. The 1.65 location quotient also counts the state's very large training cohort, which inflates headcount without competing for attending work.

The band around it is barely usable as a distribution. There is $111,770 at the 25th percentile and $577,320 at the 75th, with the median sitting between two effectively different populations — trainees and salaried junior attendings on one side, established practice on the other. Nothing in the OEWS wage measure captures practice distributions, ambulatory surgery centre ownership income or productivity bonuses, all of which are material at this level. And with about 1,450 surgeons in the sample, the metro rows in particular are thin: only three New York metros carry a published figure at all.

Practice structure first. Moving from a salaried hospital appointment to a partnership track is the single largest step in this band, and it is what the distance between the $414,290 median and the $577,320 seventy-fifth percentile mostly describes. Subspecialty volume second — spine and joint replacement carry the highest case values. Facility ownership third: an equity stake in an ambulatory surgery centre changes the arithmetic in a way salary alone does not. And residence fourth, given the New York City income tax surcharge on top of a 10.9% top state rate.