Anthropic's median filed base salary is $209,082. That is the midpoint of 291 certified labor condition applications filed by Anthropic, PBC and decided between October 3, 2024 and June 22, 2026, as of the FY2026 Q3 disclosure file. The middle half runs $169,541 to $240,000, and the top of its filed ranges reaches a median of $340,000.
Key takeaways
- 291 certified H-1B filings, median filed base $209,082, p25 to p75 of $169,541 to $240,000 (Visionary Talks analysis of DOL LCA disclosure data, FY2026 Q3).
- Anthropic files a salary band rather than a single figure on 78.7% of filings, and sets the bottom of that band at the legal prevailing wage on 46.7% of them.
- The median top of its filed ranges is $340,000, which is $70,000 above the median base at OpenAI and the second highest ceiling in the database.
- Member of Technical Staff is the dominant title: 109 filings at a median of $213,512, with individual filings inside that title running from $133,952 to $1,380,000.
- 80.8% of filings are California worksites, 14.4% New York, 4.5% Washington. One filing lists Washington DC.
This article is based on primary sources: the US Department of Labor Office of Foreign Labor Certification LCA disclosure files for FY2025 Q1 through Q4 and FY2026 Q3, which we processed in full. Every salary figure below is computed from those workbooks. Full source list at the bottom.
The Number, And Why It Understates The Job
$209,082 is a real number and a misleading one, and the reason is worth understanding before reading any further.
When an employer files a labor condition application it can enter a single wage or a range. Anthropic files a range 78.7% of the time. On 46.7% of all its filings, the bottom of that range is set exactly at the prevailing wage, which is the Department of Labor's own minimum for that occupation in that county. It is a legal floor, not an offer.
So the $209,082 median is, for roughly half of Anthropic's filings, the government's number rather than Anthropic's. The number Anthropic chose is at the other end of the band, and the median of those tops is $340,000.
Both are real, both are filed, and neither on its own is "the Anthropic salary." The honest reading is a company whose disclosed bands typically span from a legal floor near $209,000 to a ceiling near $340,000, with the offer somewhere inside.
For comparison, the AI Salary Database pooled median across all 11 tracked companies is $200,000. Anthropic's filed base sits $9,082 above that, and its filed ceiling sits well above every company in the set except Thinking Machines Lab.
Roles And What Each One Filed
| Job title | Filings | Median base | Range within title |
|---|---|---|---|
| Member of Technical Staff | 109 | $213,512 | $133,952 to $1,380,000 |
| Member of Technical Staff (Machine Learning) | 11 | $209,082 | $161,637 to $226,138 |
| Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineering) | 10 | $189,592 | $114,795 to $214,000 |
| Finance & Strategy | 7 | $152,069 | $117,499 to $182,978 |
| Member of Technical Staff (Research Engineer) | 7 | $213,512 | $134,139 to $213,512 |
| Data Science | 6 | $163,862 | $139,506 to $265,000 |
| Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer) | 5 | $213,512 | $209,082 to $213,512 |
| Member of Technical Staff (Manager) | 4 | $307,228 | $274,456 to $405,000 |
| Technical Sales | 4 | $141,170 | $126,818 to $156,000 |
| Account Executive | 3 | $98,322 | $98,322 to $128,814 |
Anthropic has adopted the OpenAI convention of calling almost everyone technical a Member of Technical Staff, which flattens the title structure and makes seniority invisible in this data. 109 of 291 filings carry that exact title with no suffix, and the spread inside it is enormous.
Two filings inside that title, at $1,380,000 and $1,120,000 of base, are more than three times Anthropic's own p75. We report them and we do not trust them. They are either genuine outlier offers or employer entry errors, and the filing does not say which.
The lowest-paid filings are commercial, not technical. Account Executive at a $98,322 median is the floor of the company's disclosed range, and those three filings all sit at the prevailing wage.
Why The Year-Over-Year Number Is A Trap
A naive read of this data says Anthropic cut pay 36.8% in a year. Its FY2025 median filed base was $300,000 across 100 filings. Its FY2026 median was $189,592 across 191.
That is not a pay cut. It is a filing change. The share of Anthropic filings carrying a salary band went from 40.0% in FY2025 to 99.0% in FY2026, a 59 point shift. Once a company starts filing bands anchored at the prevailing wage, its median FROM value falls even if every offer stayed identical.
We are flagging this because the figure is sitting in a public federal dataset waiting to be misread, and because no other company in the database moved like this. OpenAI's band share changed by 0.2 points across the same two years, so its year-over-year move is measurable. Anthropic's is not.
The Money Behind The Payroll
Anthropic is a Delaware public benefit corporation, and the filings confirm it: all 291 name the employer as Anthropic, PBC.
Its Series H on May 28, 2026 valued the company at roughly $965 billion. Amazon has deployed roughly $18 billion and Alphabet holds a minority stake reported near 14%, contractually capped at 15%, both almost entirely in nonvoting instruments. A confidential S-1 was submitted to the SEC on June 1, 2026. The detail of who controls what is in our piece on who owns Anthropic and Claude.
The payroll data tells a smaller and more concrete story. Anthropic's filing volume nearly doubled, from 100 certified cases in FY2025 to 191 in the first three quarters of FY2026. A company at a $965 billion valuation sponsoring under 300 visa workers across 21 months is not hiring at scale. It is hiring narrowly, in California, for one job title.
FAQ
What is the average salary at Anthropic?
The median filed base is $209,082 across 291 certified filings decided between October 2024 and June 2026, with the middle half between $169,541 and $240,000. The median top of Anthropic's filed salary ranges is $340,000. Base only, no equity.
Does Anthropic pay more than OpenAI?
On median filed base, no: Anthropic $209,082 against OpenAI $270,000. On the top of the filed range, Anthropic is higher, $340,000 against $310,000. The two companies file differently, so the base column is not a like-for-like comparison and the ceiling column is closer to one.
What does a Member of Technical Staff earn at Anthropic?
The median filed base for the 109 filings carrying that exact title is $213,512, as of the FY2026 Q3 file. Filings within the title range from $133,952 to $1,380,000, though the two figures above $1,000,000 are flagged as possible entry errors.
Is this total compensation?
No. Labor condition applications disclose base wage only. Anthropic equity is not in this data, and at a company valued near $965 billion as of its May 2026 round, equity is likely the larger part of a senior offer.
Sources
1. LCA Disclosure Data, FY2026 Q3, US Department of Labor OFLC: dol.gov performance data. Decisions from October 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026.
2. LCA Disclosure Data, FY2025 Q1 to Q4, US Department of Labor OFLC: dol.gov performance data. Decisions from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025.
3. Visionary Talks, Who Owns Anthropic and Claude: who owns Anthropic. Establishes the PBC structure, the Long-Term Benefit Trust, and the May 28, 2026 Series H valuation cited above.