Personal Financial Advisor Salary in Illinois: Pay by Experience, City & Take-Home

A personal financial advisor in Illinois earns a median of $120,130 a year, or about $57.75 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Most advisors in the state land between $73,010 at the 25th percentile and $175,680 at the 75th, and the top earners clear $328,650. That median sits roughly $15,000 above the national figure, which makes Illinois one of the stronger states for this career.

How Illinois compares to the national pay

Start with the gap. The national median for personal financial advisors is $105,070, per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Illinois pays a median of $120,130. That’s $15,060 more a year, or about 14% above the typical advisor anywhere in the country. For a role where pay swings hard with your book of business and your firm, a state baseline that runs five figures ahead of the national number is worth paying attention to.

The mean tells an even louder story. Illinois advisors average $158,450, well above the $120,130 median. When the average sits that far above the middle, it means a thick tail of high earners is pulling the average up. You can see it in the percentiles: the 90th percentile in Illinois hits $328,650, which is more than six times the 10th-percentile figure of $51,820. Few professions stretch that wide. The spread tells you the ceiling in this state is high, and that where you sit inside the range depends almost entirely on the clients and assets you bring in.

One more number that frames the rest of this page: Illinois employs roughly 9,760 personal financial advisors. That’s a deep market by national standards, concentrated heavily in and around Chicago, which gives advisors here real room to move between firms without leaving the state.

Personal financial advisor pay by experience in Illinois

Pay in this field tracks your client base more than your years on the calendar, but experience and a built book usually move together. The BLS percentile points give you a clean map of where Illinois advisors sit as they grow. Treat the 10th percentile as a realistic entry figure, the median as a mid-career mark, and the 75th and 90th as what a strong, established advisor with a full book can reach.

The jump from entry to median is the steepest part of the curve in percentage terms. An advisor at the 10th percentile earns $51,820. Reach the median and you’re at $120,130, which is more than double. That early climb usually comes from passing licensing exams, surviving the first few years of prospecting, and inheriting or building enough accounts to cover a real fee or commission base.

The move from median to the 75th percentile adds another $55,550, taking you to $175,680. That’s the stretch where advisors typically earn a credential like the CFP, specialize, or join a team that hands them a larger book. The final leg, from $175,680 to $328,650 at the 90th percentile, is the widest dollar gap on the table at $152,970. Almost nobody walks into that tier. It belongs to advisors who have spent years compounding assets under management, often at a wirehouse, a registered investment advisor, or their own practice, where a percentage of a large book turns into the kind of income that pulls the state average up to $158,450.

Personal financial advisor salary by Illinois metro

Where you practice inside Illinois changes the median more than you might expect, and the smaller markets throw a surprise. Here are the metro areas the BLS reports for this role in the state, ranked by what they pay.

Springfield leads at $154,370, which is more than $41,000 above Chicago’s metro median. That looks odd until you remember how thin the Springfield market is, just 100 advisors. With a small sample, a handful of high-net-worth practices serving the state capital and its professional class can push the median way up. The figure is real, but it rests on a small base, so read it as a sign that the right seat in a small market can pay extremely well, not as a guarantee.

Chicago-Naperville-Elgin is the engine of the state. With 8,370 advisors, it holds the overwhelming majority of the 9,760 advisors working in Illinois. Its metro median of $113,210 sits below the statewide $120,130, which tells you the high end of the state range is being set by the densest concentration of large firms, family offices, and private banks in the Midwest. Chicago’s median understates the opportunity, because the 75th and 90th percentile incomes that lift the state numbers are overwhelmingly earned here.

Rockford at $110,850 and Peoria at $108,930 round out the picture. Both pay close to six figures at the median and offer a meaningfully lower cost of living than Chicago, which can make the take-home math work in your favor even when the gross number is a little lower. We’ll come back to that housing point in the take-home section, because it’s the part most salary pages skip.

It’s worth putting the metro spread in perspective. The distance between the lowest reported metro, Peoria at $108,930, and the highest, Springfield at $154,370, is $45,440. That’s a wide band for a single state, and it comes down to sample size and client mix rather than cost of living. The two big lessons hold across all four metros. First, the dense Chicago market gives you the most seats and the most room to grow a book, even if its median of $113,210 looks modest. Second, a smaller market can deliver an outsized median when a few high-value practices dominate the local sample, as Springfield shows. Neither pattern is unique to Illinois, but the gap here is large enough to plan around when you choose where to set up shop.

Take-home pay after tax in Illinois

Gross pay is the headline. Take-home is what funds your life. Illinois uses a flat state income tax, so every advisor pays the same state rate on taxable income regardless of how much they earn, which is unusual and matters a lot at the top of this profession. Here’s what the four career-stage figures look like after federal tax, FICA, and Illinois state tax, using 2026 tax-year estimates for a single filer.

At the Illinois median of $120,130, an advisor keeps about $86,915 a year, or $7,243 a month, after federal, FICA, and state tax. That works out to an effective tax rate near 27.6%. Move up to the experienced level at $175,680 and net pay rises to $122,134, with the effective rate climbing to about 30.5%. The senior figure of $328,650 nets $216,216, but the effective rate jumps to 34.2%, because the federal brackets bite hard at the top while FICA flattens out. The flat 4.95% state rate keeps Illinois from punishing high earners the way a progressive state would, which is part of why the top of this profession does well here.

Now the cross-state comparison most pages won’t give you. Take an advisor at the Illinois median, $120,130, and drop them into Texas, a state with no income tax. In Illinois that advisor nets $86,915. In Texas the same gross nets $92,862. That’s a gap of $5,947 a year kept by the Texas advisor, purely because Texas levies no state income tax while Illinois takes its flat 4.95%. Over a decade, that difference is close to $60,000 in nominal dollars before any raise or compounding. It’s the clearest single illustration of what the Illinois flat tax costs a median earner relative to a no-tax state.

That gap is real, but it isn’t the whole decision. Net pay minus local housing is the number that actually matters, and it’s the one to run before you let a tax headline move you. A $5,947 tax advantage in Texas disappears fast if the equivalent home or rent in your target market costs more than it does in Peoria, Rockford, or Springfield. The advisor who nets $86,915 in a lower-cost Illinois metro can easily end up with more discretionary income than a Texas advisor in a pricier suburb, even after the tax gap. Always subtract housing from net pay before you compare two states, because that’s the figure you live on.

To see your own number against the official figures, run your salary through the Illinois paycheck calculator. If you want help estimating quarterly taxes on commission income or modeling deductions, TurboTax walks self-employed and commission-based advisors through the math.

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How to earn more as an advisor in Illinois

The range in this field is enormous, $51,820 at the bottom to $328,650 at the top, which means the ladder is steep and the rungs are real. Here’s how Illinois advisors move up the percentiles.

• Earn the CFP, then a specialty credential. The Certified Financial Planner mark is the baseline that separates the median earners from the 75th-percentile crowd. After it, designations like the CFA for investment-heavy work or the CPWA for high-net-worth planning open doors to bigger books. You can build the coursework through Coursera, which offers financial planning and CFP-aligned programs you can finish around a full client load.
• Get into the Chicago market. With 8,370 of the state’s 9,760 advisors, Chicago-Naperville-Elgin is where the large firms, family offices, and private banks cluster. The metro median of $113,210 understates it, because the high-percentile incomes that push the state mean to $158,450 are concentrated here. Proximity to assets is how you grow a book.
• Shift from commission to fee-based AUM. Advisors who manage a percentage of assets rather than chasing transaction commissions tend to build recurring income that compounds. Growing assets under management is the single biggest lever between the $120,130 median and the $175,680 experienced level.
• Move toward high-net-worth and business-owner clients. The jump to the 90th percentile of $328,650 almost always involves serving fewer, wealthier households. Estate, equity-compensation, and business-succession planning command the fees that fund top-tier income.
• Build a referral engine. Centers of influence, CPAs, and estate attorneys send the clients that fill a book faster than cold prospecting. In a dense market like Chicago, an established referral network is worth more than any marketing budget.
• Consider going independent. Many top Illinois earners eventually launch or join a registered investment advisor, where they keep a far larger share of the revenue their book generates instead of splitting it with a wirehouse.

Job outlook for financial advisors in Illinois

The BLS reports roughly 9,760 personal financial advisors employed in Illinois, with the clear majority, 8,370, working in the Chicago metro. That’s a large, established market, which matters for mobility. When a state has this many seats concentrated in one region, advisors can change firms, renegotiate splits, or move from a bank to an independent shop without relocating. Demand for financial planning has been driven for years by an aging population moving into retirement and by the steady shift of households toward fee-based advice, both of which favor advisors who build lasting client relationships rather than chasing transactions.

The smaller metros tell a complementary story. Peoria has about 200 advisors, Springfield and Rockford have 100 and 90 respectively. Those are thin markets, but thin markets can mean less competition for the high-net-worth families that anchor a profitable practice, which is part of why Springfield’s median runs so high. If you’re scoping the market or comparing firm openings, ZipRecruiter lists advisor and planner roles across Illinois metros.

Related and higher-paying roles in Illinois

If you’re weighing this career against nearby finance roles in the same state, here’s how the median pay stacks up against the $120,130 a financial advisor earns in Illinois, using BLS figures for each.

A financial analyst in Illinois earns a median of $101,180, which is $18,950 less than a financial advisor in Illinois. An accountant earns $80,230, which is $39,900 less than a financial advisor in Illinois. Both are stable, respected careers, but the personal financial advisor median runs ahead of both, largely because advisor pay scales with assets and clients in a way salaried analyst and accountant roles usually don’t. The trade-off is variability: the advisor floor of $51,820 sits below where many accountants and analysts start, so the higher ceiling comes with a wider, riskier range.

Illinois financial advisor salary FAQ

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