Money · 1 of 5
What heart surgeons make
Estimated middle
$414,010
Bottom tenth
$78,000
Busy heart surgery practice
$720,000
There is no separate federal wage line for cardiac surgeons. They are counted inside Surgeons, All Other, where the published 2025 median is $414,010 a year and the bottom tenth sit near $78,000. Treat the middle figure as an estimate for this job, not a measurement of it. A widely cited 2024 physician pay survey by Doximity put average pay for thoracic surgeons near $720,000, which is where the top of this range comes from. Government surveys count employed doctors only, so surgeons who are partners in their own group are missing from the data.