Veterinary conferences 2027.

Veterinary conference 2026: still ahead

Twenty five meetings are left on the 2026 calendar, and the density is extreme: eighteen of them fall in the five weeks from October 2 to November 6. If you need hours before a December 31 renewal, this is the list that matters, and the December meetings are the last realistic chance.

Veterinary conferences 2026 still to run, in date order. The CE column is the maximum one attendee can claim, which is usually far below the number on the conference's own marketing.

What’s the maximum number of CE hours I can claim?

Every meeting on this page is a veterinary continuing education conference. What separates the vet CE conferences 2027 from each other is how many of the hours one person can claim, and whether the RACE column below says approved. Organizers publish two figures: the size of the whole program, and the cap on what one attendee can claim. They can differ by a factor of twenty, and it is the second that decides whether a meeting closes your renewal gap.

Both figures and the RACE status as each organizer publishes them.

The biggest veterinary conferences

Measured by attendance. VMX and the AVMA Convention are the two largest veterinary conventions in the US. These are the largest meetings on the calendar, and what each one is actually like.

Which city hosts what in 2027

Eleven cities carry more than one meeting, or one large one. If you are building a travel year rather than picking a single conference, this is the shorter way to read the calendar above.

Cities hosting a national meeting or two or more meetings in 2027, in date order within each city.

The Las Vegas veterinary conference 2027 slot belongs to WVC, and the vet conference Orlando hosts in January is VMX. Those two weeks are the busiest of the year in both cities, so hotel blocks close earliest there.

Veterinary conferences already run in 2026

Kept here so the year reads as one calendar, and because most of these hold roughly the same slot each year. If a meeting you want is missing from the 2027 table above, this is the best guide to when it will land.

What a conference actually costs

Registration is rarely the biggest number, and the pricing structures differ more than people expect. Here is how the real spend breaks down and where the savings hide.

• Registration. Published 2026 rates run from $99 for a student ticket at Wild West Vet to $1,070 for a non member veterinarian at IVECCS. Most large meetings sit between $250 and $600. Watch the structure: IVECCS and AAHA CON price by membership, while VMX, WVC, Fetch, Wild West Vet and SWVS price purely by role, so joining an association saves you nothing at those.
• Wet labs and masterclasses. Priced separately at nearly every meeting, and they sell out weeks before the general program does. If labs are the reason you are going, book them the day registration opens.
• Travel and hotel. Usually the largest line for a national meeting. Conference hotel blocks are released in stages.

Where the cheap hours are

• Students go nearly free. WVC gives students and active military free registration. Wild West Vet holds students at $99, IVECCS at $120 early bird, SWVS at $75, and the North Carolina conference admits its own 2026 graduates free.
• State and regional meetings. Crossroads, Midwest, Pacific Northwest, New England and the state VMA conferences are consistently the lowest cost per claimable hour, and you sleep in your own bed more often.
• Virtual tickets, where they exist. IVECCS virtual starts around $270 for a technician, VMX Virtual carries the highest per person cap of any option at 51 hours, and the New York State conference includes 70 or more recordings with every registration type. But most meetings offer nothing remote at all, so check before you plan around it.
• Employer budgets. Most associate contracts carry a CE allowance and paid CE days. If yours does, the question is not whether to go but which meeting uses the allowance best.

Calls for papers and abstract deadlines

Abstract and proposal windows open roughly a year ahead of the meeting and close quietly, usually without a reminder. The list below is in deadline order, soonest first. Every date was retrieved from the organizer's own submission page in October 2026.

Open now, or with a 2027 date already published

Calls with a published deadline, soonest first. "Opens" is given where the organizer has announced a window but not yet opened it.

Where an organizer has published a month but not a day, the month is given as it stands.

Ran in 2026, not yet reopened for 2027

These organizers all run open calls, but none has published a 2027 deadline yet. The 2026 dates are given only as a guide to when the window is likely to fall, and should not be relied on as this year's deadline. Check the organizer from about February.

Prior year deadlines, given as a planning guide only. None of these is a live 2027 date.

Meetings that run no open call

Several of the largest meetings on this page build their program by invitation, and submitting an abstract to them is not possible because there is nothing to submit to.

• WVC runs no call for papers. Viticus Group takes speaker interest through a standing form with no deadline, and says outright that submitting it does not guarantee a speaking opportunity. Topics are chosen by its education team. Its WVC specific form says to check back once applications for WVC 2027 open.
• ABVP runs no call. The symposium is invited throughout, with the 2027 program due out in November 2026.
• The AAEP Resort Symposium runs no call, unlike the AAEP Annual Convention above. It is an invited faculty program.
• AAVPT and ACVCP publish no call for abstracts. AAVPT invites its speakers directly. The only open element is a student poster session, for which no 2027 deadline has been posted.
• VHMA accepts proposals continuously, with no deadline, through its Education and Program Advisory Panel, covering conferences, regional events and webinars. Its one firm rule is that content must not be aimed primarily at a clinical audience.
• VMX and Fetch publish no open abstract process. Both build their faculty by invitation. Fetch has moved to the dvm360 Events site and lists past faculty in place of any call.
• AAHA CON, Uncharted and VetPartners publish no call either. VetPartners is the most explicit of the three: its speaker portal opens by welcoming you as an invited speaker, and the only dates on it are material deadlines for people already booked. Uncharted had already named its 2027 speakers when this was checked.
• VETgirl collects speaker interest by email, with no deadline, for its CE program generally and not for VETgirl U specifically. There is no form and no closing date.
• The two AVMA satellite meetings run no call, unlike the AVMA Convention itself. Neither the Veterinary Leadership Conference nor the Veterinary Business and Economic Forum has a submission route; both are programmed centrally. The AAVMC Deans' Leadership Conference is likewise absent from AAVMC's own call for abstracts.
• Southwest Veterinary Symposium takes proposals but sets no deadline. Its CE committee keeps submissions on file and contacts you only if interested, which makes it worth submitting early and not at any particular time of year. SWVS says the 2027 program is already planned.
• The Midwest Veterinary Conference runs a genuine competitive call for speakers, across its clinical, practice management, technician, shelter, equine and food animal tracks. It publishes no dates for it, and the 2027 round has already closed, so the mailing list is the only way to catch the next one.
• FelineVMA, AVSAB and Exotic365 publish no open call. All three build invited programs. FelineVMA is the one to watch out for, because the page whose address still contains "call for" is now simply the accepted program, listing the talks that were chosen rather than inviting new ones.
• The university hosted meetings are invitation only, which surprises people. Neither the New York State Veterinary Conference at Cornell nor the UC Davis program publishes any submission route; both are built by a planning committee, and UC Davis collects abstracts only after it has invited you.

How to choose a conference for CE credits

1. When does your license renew?

Work backward from the renewal date, not forward from the calendar. A Texas license renews annually on 17 hours; a New York license runs on a three year cycle of 45.

2. Do you need labs or lectures?

If you want to come back doing something new with your hands, the meeting matters less than the lab list. WVC, the Veterinary Dental Forum, Wild West Vet and the Gulf-Atlantic all build their reputation on wet labs, or if you want breadth, VMX and AVMA give you more tracks than you can use.

3. Can you travel?

Genuine remote attendance is rarer than the marketing suggests. VMX, IVECCS, ACVIM Forum, the New York State conference and PacVet 2027 offer it properly. WVC, AAHA CON, Wild West Vet, SWVS, AASV and every in person Fetch explicitly do not. If you cannot leave the practice, that shortlist is your whole shortlist.

4. Who else should go?

Technicians and practice managers have their own tracks at SWVS, AAHA CON, IVECCS and most state meetings, and NAVC HiVE and the VHMA meetings are built for them.

5. Are you going for the CE or the people?

Both are legitimate. Specialty meetings such as ACVIM Forum, ACVS Surgery Summit, IVECCS, ACVO, ACVR and ACVP are where your specific corner of the profession is in one room. Larger meetings are a great way to catch up with friends and colleagues.

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About these dates

Every date on this page was checked in October 2026 against the organizer's own website. Where an organizer contradicted itself, we went with the page carrying the actual program.

Confirm with the organizer before you book flights. If you spot something wrong here, tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

Last updated October 4, 2026.