A medical style doctorate in natural medicine, usually three to five years after a bachelor's. Regulated in 23 states and the District of Columbia, and unrecognized in the rest.
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The median pay is about $115,210 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $65,210 at the lower end to about $195,190 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
7 to 9 years after high school, on the usual route.
$190,000 to $215,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
It depends where you work. You need a license, certificate or registration in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin. Elsewhere there is none to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Good demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$115,210
Bottom tenth
$65,210
Top tenth
$195,190
The published median is $115,210 a year, with the bottom tenth earning $65,210 or less and the top tenth $195,190 or more. Treat the middle of that with caution: the federal survey has no separate code for naturopathic doctors, so these figures come from a residual group called Healthcare Diagnosing or Treating Practitioners, All Other.
$83,780 a year
25% of the All Other practitioners group earn this or less
Self-employed practitioners are not counted in this survey, and many naturopathic doctors are self-employed. A new practice takes years to fill, and in that time you carry student debt, clinic rent and malpractice insurance on a small patient list.
Many patients pay cash
Coverage for naturopathic care varies by state and by plan
In states that license the profession, some insurers cover visits and some do not. In states that do not license it, patients pay out of pocket for everything, which limits who can afford to see you.
Roughly, all in
$190,000 to $215,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a four year bachelor's degree with science prerequisites at in-state public rates of about $10,000 a year, then the naturopathic doctorate at the National University of Natural Medicine, 269 credits at $538 each, about $145,000 in tuition, plus the two part licensing exams and your state board's fees. The high end is $12,000 a year for the bachelor's and Bastyr University's three year doctorate at $163,237 in tuition. There are no public naturopathic schools in the country, so there is no in-state discount to find and the whole doctorate is charged at private rates. Setting up a practice afterwards costs more again for rent, equipment, dispensary stock and malpractice insurance, and debt in this field tends to be high relative to the income it buys.
File the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) every year. Graduate students can borrow federal loans, but there are no accredited public naturopathic schools, so debt in this field tends to be high relative to the income it buys.
Fee for visit
Longer appointments than a conventional clinic, usually billed by time.
Dispensary sales
Supplements and herbal preparations sold through the practice, which is also the part critics scrutinize most.
Insurance billing
Possible in some licensed states, and a large part of whether a practice is viable.
Teaching and writing
The accredited schools and their clinics employ faculty.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Seven to nine years, and the doctorate is only available at a handful of private schools.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Biology, chemistry, physics and math, taken seriously. The prerequisites for the doctorate are real science courses.
Bachelor's degree
4 years
Any major, with the science prerequisites: general and organic chemistry, biology, physics and psychology.
Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine
3 to 5 years
Three to five years at an accredited school, depending on the school and the pace you choose. Anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology and diagnosis alongside botanical medicine, nutrition and counseling.
Clinical training
Included
Supervised patient care in the school's teaching clinic, built into the program.
Licensing exams and a state license
Months
The NPLEX (Naturopathic Physicians Licensing Examinations), Part 1 in biomedical science and Part 2 in clinical science, then apply to your state board.
Chemistry
Two years of college chemistry are a prerequisite, and it is where people fall down.
Biology
Anatomy, physiology and pathology run through the whole doctorate.
Psychology
Appointments are long and a lot of the work is behavior change and counseling.
Business
Most naturopathic doctors run their own practice, and many fail as businesses rather than as clinicians.
The Association of Accredited Naturopathic Medical Colleges counts 26 jurisdictions with laws regulating naturopathic doctors, including the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, and the rules differ sharply between them: what you may prescribe, whether you may order imaging and whether you may call yourself a physician all change at the state line. Where there is no licensing law there is no route to practice under this title at all. This is also not the same profession as a medical doctor. If your goal is to diagnose and treat disease with the full authority of a physician, look at family medicine, a physician assistant program or nursing instead, and look honestly.
Only a small number of schools in the United States are accredited to award the degree. All of them are private.
Bastyr University
Campuses near Seattle, Washington and in San Diego, California. Its doctorate runs three years.
National University of Natural Medicine
Portland, Oregon. You can take the doctorate over 3, 3.5, 4 or 5 years.
Sonoran University of Health Sciences
Phoenix, Arizona.
National University of Health Sciences
Chicago area, Illinois, which also trains chiropractors.
Universidad Ana G. Méndez
Gurabo, Puerto Rico.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Residency
Postgraduate training in a clinic after you graduate. Places are few and hard to get, but it is the fastest way to become a competent clinician.
Integrative oncology
Working alongside cancer teams on nutrition, symptoms and side effects. There is a board certification for it.
Women's health and fertility
One of the largest sources of patients in private naturopathic practice.
Environmental and occupational medicine
Exposure histories and chronic complaints that conventional clinics move through quickly.
Shadowing a licensed naturopathic doctor
Do this before you apply. A day in a real practice tells you more than any brochure.
Nutrition coursework
Central to the work and useful whichever health career you end up in.
Small business skills
Bookkeeping, scheduling, marketing and insurance billing, all of which fall to you.
A backup plan
Public health, nutrition and nursing are adjacent fields with broader licensing.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Four to six patients rather than twenty. First visits run an hour or more: full history, diet, sleep, stress, family history, medications, then an exam and lab orders. Follow-ups are shorter but still long by conventional standards. Between appointments you review lab results, write plans, call a pharmacy or a physician about a patient you share, and restock the dispensary. Admin, billing and marketing fill whatever is left, because in most practices you are also the owner.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Students at the National University of Natural Medicine finish more than 1,200 hours of clinical training, supervised care of real patients in the school's teaching clinics, before they graduate.
The National University of Natural Medicine charges $538 a credit for a 269 credit doctorate, about $145,000. Bastyr University lists $163,237 in tuition for its three year program. Every accredited school is private, so there is no in-state rate.
The National University of Natural Medicine has taught in Portland, Oregon since 1956, and it is the oldest accredited naturopathic medical university in North America.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Therapy and rehab first, then the rest of the field. See every career in health.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in United States dollars, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data and published pay scales. They vary by state, employer and experience. Tuition is for in-state students at public schools unless the card says otherwise. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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