Do you get paid for clinical trials?

Some clinical trials pay participants and some do not, so the honest answer is: it depends on the study. Payment is most common in early phase trials that recruit healthy volunteers, where taking part offers no direct health benefit and often involves significant time, overnight stays and frequent tests. In those studies, payment recognises your time and the inconvenience involved.

Trials that recruit patients with a condition are less likely to offer payment for participation, although many still reimburse expenses. That is partly ethical: regulators and ethics committees want people to join patient studies because the research is relevant to their health, not because they need the money. Even so, plenty of patient studies offer modest payments for time, and almost all cover study treatment and visits at no cost.

It helps to separate two things that are often confused. Reimbursement covers out-of-pocket costs such as travel, parking, meals and sometimes accommodation, and simply puts you back where you started financially. Payment, sometimes called compensation for time and inconvenience, is money on top of that. A study may offer reimbursement only, payment plus reimbursement, or neither.

Amounts vary widely between studies and countries. A short study with a few clinic visits might pay little or nothing beyond expenses, while a residential healthy volunteer study involving days in a clinic can pay from several hundred to a few thousand dollars. Longer or more demanding studies generally pay more. Every payment arrangement must be approved by an ethics committee, which checks that the amount is fair without being so large that it pressures people into taking risks they otherwise would not.

Payments are usually made in instalments tied to completed visits rather than as a single lump sum at the end, and you are normally entitled to a proportional payment if you withdraw partway through. Depending on where you live, trial payments may count as taxable income, so it is worth asking the research team how payments are handled and keeping your own records.

The participant information sheet must spell out exactly what you will be paid and reimbursed before you consent, so read it carefully and ask the research team about anything unclear. And if you are wondering about the other side of the question, whether taking part will cost you anything, our guide on whether clinical trials cost money explains what studies typically cover for participants.