Financial Manager Salary in Georgia: Pay by Experience, City & Take-Home

A financial manager in Georgia earns a median of $166,790 a year, or about $80.19 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Most of the field lands between $126,560 at the 25th percentile and $215,910 at the 75th. The bottom 10 percent earn near $94,040, while the top 10 percent clear $315,890. That median sits a hair above the national figure of $166,570.

How Georgia compares to the national pay

Georgia tracks the country almost exactly at the middle of the pay range. The state median of $166,790 runs $220 above the national median of $166,570, a gap so small it rounds to nothing in real life. For a role where the national and local numbers are this close, the meaningful spread shows up at the edges of the distribution and inside specific metros, which the next two sections break down.

The state mean is higher than the median, at $182,920. That gap between mean and median is normal for financial management, where a cluster of very high earners at large Atlanta-area employers pulls the average up while the typical paycheck sits lower. When a recruiter quotes you an “average” of $182,920, treat it as the pull of the top end, not the number most people in the field actually take home. The median of $166,790 is the better anchor for what a mid-career manager earns here.

With 21,390 financial managers employed statewide, Georgia is a deep market for the role. That headcount matters when you negotiate, because a thick market means more comparable openings, more competing offers, and more room to move between employers without relocating.

One more thing the national comparison hides: the spread inside Georgia is just as wide as the national spread. The 10th-to-90th-percentile range here runs from $94,040 to $315,890, a factor of more than three from bottom to top. So “the Georgia rate” isn’t a single number you can plan a budget around. It’s a band, and where you fall in that band depends far more on your title, your metro, and your credentials than on the fact that you happen to work in Georgia. The sections below exist to place you inside that band rather than at its midpoint by default.

Financial manager pay in Georgia by experience

Pay climbs steeply across a financial manager’s career. The jump from the 10th percentile to the 90th is more than $221,000, one of the widest spreads of any management occupation. The percentile points below map closely to career stage: entry-level managers and recent promotions cluster near the bottom, while seasoned controllers, treasurers, and VPs of finance sit in the top quartile.

The early stretch is where raises move fastest in percentage terms. Going from the 10th percentile to the 25th is a $32,520 step, and from the 25th to the median adds another $40,230. After that the climb keeps its dollar size but slows in pace, because reaching the 75th and 90th percentiles usually means taking on a profit-and-loss line, a larger team, or a treasury function rather than just collecting tenure. A financial manager who moves from the median to the 75th percentile picks up $49,120, and that step almost always tracks a title change into controller, finance director, or VP.

One practical read on this table: if you’re sitting at $126,560 after a few years and your peers with the same title are near $166,790, the gap is a $40,230 conversation worth having at your next review. The data says that step is normal mid-career movement, not an outlier ask.

It helps to translate the percentiles into hours. At the median of $80.19 an hour, a financial manager earns more than double the entry-level 10th-percentile rate of $45.21. By the time you reach the 90th percentile at $151.87 an hour, each working hour pays more than three times the entry rate. Few salaried managers actually track hourly pay, but the comparison is useful when you weigh an offer that comes with longer hours or a heavier on-call treasury load. A senior role that pays $315,890 but demands sixty-hour weeks can quietly drop your effective hourly below a $215,910 role at a saner pace, so run the math before you assume the bigger number is the better deal.

The other lesson buried in this table is that the early percentile steps reward different things than the late ones. Moving from the 10th to the 25th percentile, that first $32,520, usually comes from proving you can run a function cleanly: closing the books on time, owning a budget, managing one or two analysts. The later steps, the $49,120 from median to 75th and the $99,980 from 75th to 90th, are paid for scope and risk ownership. Knowing which step you’re on tells you whether to invest in execution or in taking on a bigger remit.

Financial manager salary by Georgia metro

Where you work inside Georgia changes the number more than almost anything else short of seniority. Atlanta carries the market, both in pay and in sheer volume of jobs. The five largest metros below show a spread of more than $42,000 between the top and bottom median.

Atlanta is the whole story for volume. With 15,660 financial managers, the metro holds roughly three-quarters of every such job in the state, and its median of $171,240 is the only one above the statewide figure. That premium reflects the corporate base around the city, including Fortune 500 headquarters, the airport-driven logistics economy, fintech, and a thick layer of regional bank and insurance operations. If you want the highest typical pay and the most openings, Atlanta is where the market lives.

Outside Atlanta, the picture shifts toward smaller, more specialized employer pools. Savannah at $144,120 leads the rest, helped by its port economy and logistics finance roles. Columbus at $141,460 and Macon at $138,160 sit close together, each anchored by a handful of large local employers. Augusta posts the lowest metro median at $129,180 despite a respectable 600 jobs, a reminder that headcount and pay don’t always move together. The gap between Atlanta and Augusta is $42,060, so a relocation decision inside Georgia can be worth as much as a couple of promotions.

There’s a real planning insight in how the smaller metros stack up. Savannah’s $144,120 is $27,120 below the Atlanta median but still $14,940 above Augusta’s $129,180, so the four non-Atlanta metros span a $14,940 range among themselves. That tightness means the bigger lever, by far, is whether you’re inside the Atlanta corporate market or outside it. Once you’ve left Atlanta, picking between Savannah, Columbus, and Macon moves your median by a far smaller amount than the choice to leave Atlanta did in the first place.

The employment counts also tell you something about job security and mobility. Atlanta’s 15,660 jobs mean you can change employers without changing zip codes. In Augusta with 600 jobs, Savannah with 480, Columbus with 340, or Macon with 310, the local pool is small enough that a job change may well mean a commute or a move. If you value the ability to shop your skills around without uprooting, the Atlanta number isn’t only about higher pay, it’s about optionality. For managers who prefer the lower cost of living in a smaller Georgia metro, the trade is a higher base in Atlanta against cheaper housing and a shorter list of local employers elsewhere.

Take-home pay after tax in Georgia

Georgia taxes wage income, so your gross salary and your deposited paycheck are two different numbers. For the 2026 tax year, the table below runs each percentile point through federal income tax, FICA (Social Security and Medicare), and Georgia state income tax, using a single-filer estimate to show the shape of the deductions. Net monthly is what actually hits your account each month.

At the median, a Georgia financial manager keeps $116,411 of a $166,790 salary, an effective combined rate of about 30.2 percent. The effective rate climbs with income, from 25.4 percent at entry to 34.1 percent at the senior level, because more of each additional dollar falls into higher federal brackets while FICA flattens out above the Social Security wage cap.

Look at how the three taxes behave differently as income rises. Federal income tax does the heavy lifting at the top: it jumps from $12,303 at entry to $74,859 at the senior level, a sixfold increase. FICA grows much more slowly, from $7,194 to $16,542, because Social Security stops applying above its annual wage cap and only the 1.45 percent Medicare portion keeps climbing on the rest. Georgia state tax sits in between, rising from $4,422 to $16,380. The takeaway for high earners: most of the bite at the senior level is federal, which is the same wherever you live in the country. The portion you can change by moving states is the state-tax line, and that’s the comparison worth running carefully.

The senior step is where the marginal math turns sharp. Moving from the 75th percentile at $215,910 to the 90th at $315,890 is a $99,980 raise on paper, but net annual rises only from $149,373 to $208,110, a gain of $58,737. In other words, roughly 41 cents of every additional dollar earned at the very top goes to combined taxes. That doesn’t make the raise unwelcome, it just means the headline jump and the deposited jump are two different sizes, and you should plan around the deposited one.

Here’s the cross-state comparison that matters most. Take the same $166,790 salary to Texas, a state with no income tax, and the take-home rises to $124,754 versus $116,411 in Georgia. That’s a difference of $8,343 a year, the exact amount Georgia collects in state income tax at this salary level. Over a decade at the median, staying in Georgia rather than Texas costs roughly $83,000 in state tax, before any cost-of-living adjustment. That gap is real, but it’s only half the equation.

The number that actually governs your standard of living is net pay minus local housing. A $116,411 net in metro Atlanta, where housing is cheaper than in Austin or Dallas, can stretch further than a tax-free $124,754 in a high-cost Texas metro once rent or a mortgage comes out. Run your own figure against your actual housing cost before you treat the $8,343 tax gap as the final word. The Georgia paycheck calculator will give you a precise net for your filing status and deductions, and tax software like TurboTax can model your full return if you have side income or itemized deductions.

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How to earn more as a financial manager in Georgia

The pay tables above show the ceiling is high. Moving from the median to the 75th percentile is a $49,120 raise, and from the 75th to the 90th is another $99,980. Here’s where that movement actually comes from in this state:

• Get to Atlanta, or get Atlanta employers. The metro median of $171,240 beats every other Georgia market, and the volume of 15,660 jobs means real competition for your labor. Even a remote or hybrid role tied to an Atlanta corporate finance team usually pays on the Atlanta scale.
• Earn a CPA or CFA. A CPA license is the standard credential for controller and accounting-leadership tracks, while the CFA charter signals depth for treasury, FP&A, and investment-facing finance roles. Both routinely separate the 25th-percentile manager from the median-and-above manager. You can build the underlying coursework through finance and accounting programs on Coursera before sitting the exams.
• Move into a P&L or treasury role. The jump into the top quartile almost always comes with owning a profit-and-loss line, a treasury function, or a multi-team finance org. Titles like controller, finance director, treasurer, and VP of finance are where the $215,910-plus pay lives.
• Specialize where Atlanta is deep. Fintech, logistics finance tied to the airport and port economy, insurance, and regional banking are concentrated here. Specialist managers in a high-demand vertical command more than generalists.
• Switch employers deliberately. In a 21,390-job market, comparable openings are plentiful. The fastest documented raises in this field come from moving, because an external offer resets your pay to current market rather than your internal raise history.
• Take the management span, not just the years. The data shows pay slows on tenure alone past the median. The percentile climb after that tracks team size and budget responsibility, so volunteer for the larger remit before you expect the larger number.

Job outlook for financial managers in Georgia

Georgia employs 21,390 financial managers, with the overwhelming majority, 15,660, concentrated in metro Atlanta. That concentration is a feature for job seekers: the depth of the Atlanta corporate base means a steady flow of openings across banking, insurance, logistics, fintech, and Fortune 500 finance departments. Financial management is one of the larger and steadier white-collar leadership categories nationally, and Georgia’s headcount reflects a mature, diversified employer market rather than a single-industry town.

The smaller metros each carry their own pool. Augusta’s 600 jobs, Savannah’s 480, Columbus’s 340, and Macon’s 310 are modest in absolute terms but meaningful if you’re rooted in one of those regions. When you’re ready to test the market, job boards such as ZipRecruiter let you filter Georgia financial manager listings by metro and compensation band to see live demand for yourself.

Related and higher-paying roles in Georgia

Financial manager sits at the top of the finance career ladder in Georgia, and the pay reflects it. Compared with the roles people usually move up from, the gap is large. An accountant in Georgia earns a median of $81,900, which is $84,890 less than a financial manager here. A financial analyst earns a median of $99,420, which is $67,370 less than a financial manager. In practical terms, the move from analyst or senior accountant into financial management is one of the biggest single pay jumps available in the field, which is exactly why the credentials and P&L experience above are worth the effort.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) 2025; federal, FICA, and Georgia state tax estimates for the 2026 tax year. Last updated 2026. See our methodology.