Accountant Salary in New York: Pay by Experience, City & Take-Home

Accountants in New York earn a median salary of $102,640 a year, or about $49.35 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Most of the field falls between $63,700 at the 10th percentile and $171,030 at the 90th. That median sits well above the national figure for the role, and New York is one of the better-paying states in the country for this work.

How New York compares to the national average

The national median for accountants is $83,680 a year, per BLS OEWS 2025. New York’s median of $102,640 runs $18,960 higher, which works out to roughly 22.7 percent above the U.S. figure. That gap is real, and it reflects two things at once: a heavy concentration of corporate headquarters, banks, and large public accounting firms in the New York City area, and a higher cost of living that pushes pay up to keep the work staffed.

The spread inside the state is wide. The bottom 10 percent of New York accountants earn $63,700 or less, while the top 10 percent clear $171,030. The 25th percentile sits at $79,760 and the 75th at $134,820. So even the entry band in New York lands close to the national median, and an experienced accountant here out-earns a typical accountant almost anywhere else in the country. The state mean of $114,070 sits above the median, which tells you the top end of the pay scale pulls the average up. That pattern is common in markets with a small number of very high earners, and in New York those earners cluster in financial services and big-firm partnerships.

One thing worth saying plainly: the statewide number is shaped heavily by the New York City metro, which holds the overwhelming majority of the state’s accounting jobs. Upstate metros pay closer to the national median, as the metro table below shows. If you’re weighing an offer, the state figure is a starting point, and your actual market is the metro you’ll work in.

Accountant salary in New York by experience

BLS reports pay by percentile rather than by years on the job, but percentiles map cleanly onto a career arc. Early-career accountants and those in lower-cost upstate markets sit near the 10th and 25th percentiles. Mid-career staff and senior accountants land around the median. The 75th and 90th percentiles capture managers, controllers, CPAs with a specialty, and accountants at large firms or in financial services. Here is the full distribution for New York.

The jump from entry to median is the steepest part of the climb. Moving from $63,700 to $102,640 is a gain of $38,940, or about 61 percent, and most accountants cover that ground in the first several years once they pass the CPA exam and take on more complex work. The step from median to the 75th percentile adds another $32,180. Getting from $134,820 to the 90th percentile of $171,030 is the hardest stretch, because it usually means a controller or director title, a partnership track, or a move into a high-paying corner of financial services. Each of those gates is real, and the pay reflects scarcity at the top.

If you’re early in your career and looking at the entry number, keep in mind that the path upward in New York is steep in your favor. The distance between the 25th and 75th percentiles here is $55,060, one of the widest in the country for this role, which means there’s a lot of room to grow without leaving the state.

It also helps to read the percentiles against the national picture. New York’s 10th percentile of $63,700 sits below the national median of $83,680, so a brand-new accountant in a lower-paying upstate market can start under the U.S. middle. But the state median of $102,640 clears that national median by $18,960, and the New York 75th percentile of $134,820 is more than $51,000 above the typical accountant nationwide. The lesson is that New York rewards experience steeply. The first job may not pay a premium, the tenth year almost certainly will. On an hourly basis the same arc runs from $30.63 at entry to $49.35 at the median and $82.23 at the senior end, so a senior accountant in New York earns nearly two and a half times the hourly rate of an entry-level peer in the same state.

Accountant salary by metro in New York

Where you work inside New York matters as much as the state line. The New York City metro pays far above the upstate markets, and it also holds almost all of the state’s accounting jobs. Here are the five largest metros for accountants, ranked by employment, with BLS OEWS 2025 medians.

The New York City metro median of $105,650 is the headline, and it runs $24,760 above Rochester, the lowest-paying of the five at $80,890. That’s a gap of about 31 percent for the same job title. The catch is that the city metro also carries the country’s highest housing and living costs, so the higher number does not translate one-for-one into a better standard of living. An accountant in Albany at $84,660 or Buffalo at $82,120 keeps more of their pay after rent than the raw salary comparison suggests.

Notice the employment column. The New York City metro lists 111,930 accountants, which is more than the statewide total because the metro spills across the New Jersey line. The four upstate metros combined employ fewer than 17,000. If you want the deepest job market and the highest pay, the city is where the work is. If you want a lower cost of living and a shorter commute, the upstate metros pay close to the national median while costing far less to live in. Both are legitimate choices, and the right one depends on what you want your money to do.

The upstate metros are tightly clustered in pay. Albany leads them at $84,660, then Syracuse at $82,230, Buffalo at $82,120, and Rochester at $80,890, a spread of just $3,770 from top to bottom. That tells you something useful: across upstate New York, the accounting market is fairly uniform, and a move between these cities won’t change your salary much. What changes is the cost of living, which is why an accountant comparing Albany and Rochester should weigh housing and commute far more heavily than the salary line. Albany’s slightly higher median likely reflects the concentration of state government work and the firms that serve it. The much larger gap is the one between any upstate metro and the New York City metro, where the same job pays $20,000 to $24,000 more in raw terms. That premium is the price the city pays to staff a finance economy, and it’s also why almost 92 percent of the state’s accounting employment sits in or around the city.

Take-home pay after taxes in New York

Gross salary is the headline. Take-home is what lands in your account. New York taxes income at the state level, and on top of federal income tax and FICA, that shaves a meaningful slice off each paycheck. The table below estimates take-home at four points on the pay scale for a single filer, using the 2026 tax year. Figures are estimates and round to the nearest dollar.

At the median salary of $102,640, a single filer keeps about $75,483 a year, or $6,290 a month, after federal tax, FICA, and New York state tax. That’s an effective combined rate near 26.5 percent. The rate climbs as you earn more: a senior accountant at $171,030 keeps $118,438, an effective rate of about 30.7 percent, because both federal and state brackets are progressive.

The progression is worth tracing across the whole table. An entry-level earner at $63,700 keeps $50,300, an effective rate near 21 percent, the lowest of the four. By the 75th percentile of $134,820, take-home reaches $95,862 with an effective rate close to 28.9 percent. So as gross pay roughly doubles from entry to senior, the share lost to tax rises by almost ten percentage points. In dollar terms, the entry earner pays about $13,400 in combined federal, FICA, and state tax, while the senior earner pays about $52,600. The state portion alone climbs from $2,898 at entry to $9,214 at the senior level. None of this is a reason to earn less, the higher earner still nets far more, but it does mean the marginal raise is worth less than the gross number suggests once you cross into the upper brackets.

Here’s the comparison that matters most if you’re deciding where to build your career. Take that same New York median earner and drop them into Texas, which has no state income tax. The New York accountant nets $75,483. The identical earner in Texas nets $80,593. That’s a gap of $5,110 a year, the exact amount New York collects in state income tax at this salary, going to Texas’s take-home instead. Over a decade, that difference adds up to more than $51,000 before any raises. New York’s higher median pay closes part of the gap, but the state tax is a permanent line item that no-tax states simply don’t have.

The number that actually decides your standard of living is net pay minus local housing. A $6,290 monthly take-home in Manhattan, where rent can swallow half of it, buys a very different life than the same take-home in Buffalo or Syracuse. Before you compare two offers in different markets, subtract the housing cost in each, then look at what’s left. That residual is the real number. Run your own salary, filing status, and any pre-tax deductions through the New York paycheck calculator to get a precise figure, and if you want help estimating your full tax picture or filing, TurboTax walks through New York state and federal returns step by step.

ThePayGuide may earn a commission from links on this page at no cost to you. See our editorial policy.

How to earn more as an accountant in New York

The distribution above shows where the money is. Getting from the median toward the 75th and 90th percentiles, from $102,640 up toward $134,820 and $171,030, comes down to a handful of concrete moves. Here are the ones that move pay the most in this state.

• Pass the CPA exam. New York licensure requires 150 credit hours and the CPA exam, and the credential is the single clearest line between staff pay and management pay. In the New York City market especially, the CPA is a baseline expectation for senior roles.
• Move toward the New York City metro. The city median of $105,650 sits more than $20,000 above every upstate metro. If you can absorb the cost of living, the pay ceiling is far higher there.
• Specialize where the money concentrates. Tax for high-net-worth clients, audit for financial institutions, technical accounting under complex standards, and forensic or transaction work all command premiums in New York’s finance-heavy economy.
• Step into financial services. The state’s median for related finance roles runs well above the accountant median, as the next section shows. Accountants who move into analysis or advisory work often see a step change in pay.
• Add a credential beyond the CPA. A CMA, CFA, or an enrolled-agent designation signals depth in a specialty and supports a move up the percentile ladder. Self-paced courses on Coursera cover financial modeling, advanced Excel, and accounting analytics that map directly to higher-paying work.
• Target the right employers. The large public accounting firms, the major banks, and corporate finance departments headquartered in New York carry the highest pay bands and the clearest promotion tracks. Moving firms is often the fastest way to a raise.

Job outlook for accountants in New York

New York employs 109,830 accountants, per BLS OEWS 2025, one of the largest concentrations of the role in any state. That depth matters for your career: it means a deep market for jobs, a wide range of employers, and the ability to change firms or specialties without leaving the state. The work is spread across public accounting, corporate finance, banking, government, and nonprofits, so demand isn’t tied to any single industry.

The New York City metro alone lists 111,930 accountants across the broader NY-NJ area, which makes it one of the densest accounting labor markets in the world. Steady demand for tax preparation, audit, compliance, and financial reporting keeps the field stable through economic cycles, since companies need accounting whether business is booming or tightening. When you’re ready to test the market, ZipRecruiter lists accountant openings across New York metros with salary ranges attached, which makes it easy to benchmark an offer against the percentiles above.

Related and higher-paying roles in New York

Accounting opens doors to adjacent finance roles that pay more in New York. Using BLS OEWS 2025 medians for the state, here’s how two common next steps compare to the accountant median of $102,640.

A Financial Analyst in New York earns a median of $127,930, which is $25,290 MORE than an accountant in New York. A Personal Financial Advisor earns a median of $166,400, which is $63,760 MORE than an accountant in New York. Both are realistic moves for an accountant who builds analytical or client-facing skills, and the pay gap explains why so many accountants make the jump.

Frequently asked questions

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