Methods and apparatus for virtual machine (VM) load monitoring in provider network environments. A VM load monitor system may be used to offload the processing of VM load data from the execution environment of a VM host device. A VM load monitor may be implemented as a dedicated programmable hardware device on or attached to a host device that is external to the execution environment of the host device, thus freeing host device resources (e.g., processors, memory, etc.) for use by the VMs executing on the host device. The VM load monitor may make VM management decisions for the host device (e.g. launch VM decisions, migrate VM decisions, etc.) based on analysis of resource load data (e.g. network, memory, and/or processor load data) collected from the VMs (or groups of VMs) executing on the host device.