If you own or manage a rural practice, you have probably already run the domestic playbook. You’ve advertised, raised the offer, and called the schools. You may have gone through a recruiter or two, but the role is still open.
There are simply not enough veterinarians choosing rural and large animal work to fill the roles that exist, and no amount of rewriting the job ad changes that. That’s why a growing number of rural practices are looking further afield.
What the numbers actually say
The AVMA puts rural veterinary shortages at a record high: 245 designated shortage situations across 47 states. Of the 130,415 veterinarians in the US workforce in 2024, just 3.4% worked in food animal practice and 9.6% in mixed animal practice. And only 20% of first-year veterinary students come from rural backgrounds – the group most likely to return to rural work.
Federal incentives help, but they were never going to close a gap this size. The Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program has placed 795 veterinarians into rural shortage areas since 2003, against more than 2,000 applications. Funding rose to $18 million this cycle, but applications still exceeded it. The USDA’s Rural Veterinary Action Plan – announced in August 2025 – is a genuine step forward, but it’s a long-term one.
If you are trying to cover calls this fall, the domestic pool might not be the answer.
Where the candidates come from
International recruitment for US practices is not a scattergun global search.
The countries that consistently produce veterinarians who fit US rural work are Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the UK, and Mexico – markets where vets arrive with real large animal and mixed practice exposure, work in English, and train against expectations that map closely onto US practice. A vet who has run cattle work in the Free State or covered dairy in Waikato will not be surprised by rural Texas.
What to expect: licensure
A veterinarian who graduated outside an AVMA-accredited program cannot simply apply for a state license. First, they must complete one of two equivalence pathways: the AVMA’s ECFVG program or the AAVSB’s PAVE program.
ECFVG runs to four steps:
- Credentials verification
- English language ability
- The Basic and Clinical Sciences Examination
- And the Clinical Proficiency Examination – a hands-on assessment run over three days across seven sections.
Budget properly for it: registration is $1,600, but the CPE itself costs $12,804 in 2026, with retakes charged at $4,571 per section. PAVE follows a similar shape, replacing the final exam with an Evaluated Clinical Experience at an accredited veterinary school, and passing the qualifying science exam does not by itself secure an ECE placement.
The final stage is the bottleneck in both. Reporting in 2024 put ECFVG enrollment at 2,000+ candidates, with some waiting over a year for a CPE slot (and if anything, demand has grown since).
Some states have responded accordingly. New Hampshire introduced a conditional license in September 2024: a candidate who has passed the state jurisprudence exam and completed all but the CPE can practice under the direct supervision of a licensed veterinarian while finishing it, with two years to do so and one renewal available. Requirements vary considerably, and checking your state’s position early can change your timeline by a year.
Then there is the NAVLE, plus your state’s own licensure requirements. All of it takes time.
What to expect: visas
The route depends entirely on where your candidate is from, and the differences are bigger than most practices expect.
Canada and Mexico – TN status.
Veterinarian is a listed profession under USMCA. TN is granted in increments of up to three years, renews indefinitely, and has no cap or lottery. Canadians can apply at a port of entry; Mexican citizens go through a consulate first, which adds a few weeks. State licensure is required to practice but is not a condition of getting TN status – useful, because it lets the two timelines run in parallel.
Australia – the E-3.
Australian citizens have a route nobody else does, and it is the better one: a separate annual allocation that is rarely used up, no lottery, two-year renewable increments with no maximum number of extensions, a direct consular application, and the ability for a spouse to apply for work authorization. If you are looking at an Australian candidate, this is almost always the answer.
UK, New Zealand, South Africa – H-1B.
This is the harder path for two reasons. First, selection for the annual cap is no longer a straight random lottery: under a final rule effective 27 February 2026, entries are weighted by wage level. Rural practices are structurally disadvantaged by that, and it is worth knowing before you plan around it. Second, unlike TN, H-1B generally requires the state license to be in hand before the petition can be approved. That single rule is what makes licensure and immigration planning inseparable.
On H-1B costs.
The $100,000 fee introduced by proclamation in September 2025 was vacated by a federal court in June 2026 and is not currently being collected, though the government’s appeal is live. In August 2026 DHS separately proposed a comparable six-figure fee on cap-subject petitions. Nothing here is settled, so treat any H-1B cost quote as provisional and dated.
The concern behind the concern
Most owners we speak with are not really asking about visa categories. They are asking: “if I commit to this, will I pay a fee and still have nobody?”
Honestly, it entirely depends on how the process is run. International recruitment fails in predictable ways: a candidate who has never worked large animal and doesn’t enjoy it, a licensure step nobody tracked until it stalled, a start date that slips two quarters because a filing missed a window.
That’s why GVC always screen for suitability before you see a resume, and map licensure and immigration timelines against your actual staffing need. Our US team in Dallas works alongside our teams in the UK and Australia, which is how a candidate in Adelaide or Johannesburg reaches a practice in West Texas with the compliance work already underway.
Yes, it’s a longer process than a domestic hire. It is also – for a lot of rural practices right now – the one that ends with a veterinarian on the schedule.
Talk it through
If you are weighing whether international recruitment makes sense for your practice, we will give you a straight read on timelines, costs, and whether your role is realistically fillable this way.
