Meta's median filed base salary for AI research roles is $204,598. That is the midpoint of 1,411 certified labor condition applications filed by Meta Platforms, Inc for AI research job titles and decided between October 2, 2024 and June 30, 2026, as of the FY2026 Q3 disclosure file. It is the largest AI research payroll in this database by a factor of four, and it pays mid-table.
Key takeaways
- 1,411 certified H-1B filings with AI research titles, median filed base $204,598, p25 to p75 of $182,000 to $223,579 (Visionary Talks analysis of DOL LCA disclosure data, FY2026 Q3).
- Meta filed 11,568 certified H-1B cases in total over the period. AI research titles are 12.2% of them. The other 10,157 are excluded from this page.
- Meta files a single exact salary on 100% of these filings and anchors at the legal prevailing wage on 3.0%. The median is an offer, not a floor.
- Median filed base rose 10.8% year over year, from $192,880 in FY2025 to $213,715 in FY2026, with filing behaviour unchanged.
- Research Scientist alone accounts for 980 of the 1,411 filings, at a $187,974 median, with a range inside the title from $80,080 to $322,412.
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.
What "Meta AI" Means On This Page
Meta Platforms sponsors visas across its entire US workforce, from data centre technicians to lawyers. Reporting all of it as "Meta AI salary" would be meaningless, so this page filters by job title.
A filing counts here if its title matches one of: research scientist, research engineer, machine learning, ML engineer, AI research, research manager, or applied scientist. An "AI" substring on its own is not enough, because it matches unrelated jobs.
That filter keeps 1,411 of Meta's 11,568 certified H-1B filings and drops 10,157. The ten largest surviving titles are in the table below, and every one of them is recognisably an AI research role, which is the test of whether the filter worked. The same filter is applied to Google LLC on the DeepMind salary page, so the two are comparable.
Roles And What Each One Filed
| Job title | Filings | Median base | Range within title |
|---|---|---|---|
| Research Scientist | 980 | $187,974 | $80,080 to $322,412 |
| Software Engineer, Machine Learning | 122 | $221,753 | $144,096 to $283,971 |
| Research Engineer | 99 | $214,032 | $124,000 to $302,000 |
| AI Research Scientist | 68 | $232,000 | $156,000 to $382,000 |
| Machine Learning Engineer | 54 | $214,032 | $146,671 to $265,090 |
| Applied Research Scientist | 13 | $232,000 | $181,786 to $268,984 |
| Research Scientist, Systems ML - SW/HW Co-Design | 7 | $182,000 | $178,360 to $182,000 |
| Machine Learning ASIC Engineer, Architecture | 3 | $220,000 | $220,000 to $227,000 |
| ML Engineer | 3 | $220,000 | $193,000 to $287,042 |
| Machine Learning Software Engineer | 3 | $192,599 | $178,360 to $202,436 |
The striking line is the first one. Meta filed 980 people under the single title Research Scientist, which is more AI research filings than every other company in this database combined, excluding Google. The spread inside that one title runs from $80,080 to $322,412, a factor of four.
That $80,080 floor is not a typical Meta research salary. It is what the bottom of a very large, very heterogeneous title looks like when a company uses one label for doctoral-level hires and senior staff alike. The median of $187,974 is the number to hold on to, and it sits $16,624 below Meta's own AI-wide median because the more specialised titles above it pay more.
Note the premium for naming the thing. Research Scientist pays a $187,974 median; AI Research Scientist, with two extra characters in the title, pays $232,000. The same pattern holds at Google, where GDM-prefixed roles are filed separately from the general research population.
Scale Without A Premium
Here is the finding that matters. Meta runs the largest AI research sponsorship programme in the United States outside Google, and it pays close to the market median for it.
Meta AI's $204,598 sits $4,598 above the pooled median of $200,000 across the 11 companies in the AI Salary Database. OpenAI pays $270,000, $65,402 more, on 311 filings against Meta's 1,411. Scale AI pays $210,000, on 135.
Meta is not outbidding the frontier labs on base salary. It is out-hiring them, roughly four and a half times over, at a price the rest of the market already accepts. For a public company that can pay in liquid stock, base salary is the least interesting lever it has, and the filings suggest it is not pulling it.
The geography supports the same reading. Meta is the second least California-concentrated company here at 63.6%, with 16.9% in Washington and 15.0% in New York. A company hiring 1,411 researchers across three states is running a distributed industrial process, not a talent auction.
The 10.8% Rise
Meta AI's median filed base went from $192,880 in FY2025 across 572 filings to $213,715 in FY2026 across 839, a rise of 10.8%.
The comparison holds: Meta's filing style did not change at all between the two years, with band share at 0.0% in both. This is a genuine increase in filed base, not a paperwork artefact, and it came alongside a 47% rise in filing volume. Paying more and hiring more at the same time is the clearest signal in this dataset that Meta was competing hard for AI researchers through FY2026.
FAQ
What is the average salary at Meta AI?
The median filed base is $204,598 across 1,411 certified filings with AI research titles, decided between October 2024 and June 2026, with the middle half between $182,000 and $223,579. Individual filings run from $80,080 to $440,000. Base only, no equity.
What does a research scientist earn at Meta?
The 980 filings with the plain title Research Scientist have a median filed base of $187,974, ranging from $80,080 to $322,412. Filings titled AI Research Scientist are higher at a $232,000 median across 68 filings, as of the FY2026 Q3 file.
Does Meta pay less than OpenAI for AI research?
On filed base, yes, by $65,402: $204,598 against $270,000. Both companies file exact salaries rather than ranges, so this is a like-for-like comparison, unlike most in this database. It excludes equity, which at a public company like Meta is liquid and at OpenAI is not.
Is this total compensation?
No. Labor condition applications disclose base wage only. Meta restricted stock units, which for senior research staff are frequently larger than base, are not in this data.
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. LCA Record Layout, FY2026 Q3, US Department of Labor OFLC: dol.gov performance data. Defines JOB_TITLE, the field used for the AI research filter described above.