Bookkeeper Salary in Texas: Pay by Experience, City & Take-Home

A bookkeeper in Texas earns a median of $48,910 a year, or about $23.52 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Most of the field lands between $33,480 at the 10th percentile and $72,810 at the 90th. Texas charges no state income tax, so more of that paycheck stays with you than in most of the country.

How Texas bookkeeper pay compares to the national median

The national median for bookkeepers, accounting, and auditing clerks is $50,670 a year, per the BLS (2025). Texas comes in at $48,910, which is $1,760 below the national figure, or about 3.5 percent lower on paper. That gap is real on the W-2, but it disappears once you account for tax. Texas has no state income tax, while the median bookkeeper in most other states surrenders a few thousand dollars a year to the state before the first dollar reaches their checking account.

The state mean, which includes the high earners who pull the average up, sits at $51,690. The spread between Texas metros is wide. Austin pays a median of $54,320, while El Paso pays $41,530. That $12,790 difference inside one state matters more for most people than the gap between Texas and the national line. Where you sit in the experience range matters even more, which is the next thing to pin down.

One number frames the whole picture: Texas employs roughly 122,400 bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks, one of the largest counts of any state. That depth of demand keeps pay competitive across metros and gives experienced clerks real room to negotiate.

It helps to read the comparison two ways. On gross dollars, a Texas bookkeeper trails the national median by $1,760. On take-home dollars, the order flips. A clerk in a state with a 5 percent income tax on $48,910 loses roughly $2,400 a year to the state, while the Texas clerk loses nothing. So the same job title that looks 3.5 percent behind on paper actually delivers more spendable income than the median bookkeeper in most income-tax states. That is the quiet advantage Texas pay carries, and it compounds every year you work here.

Bookkeeper salary in Texas by experience

Pay climbs steadily with years on the books, the software you know, and whether you handle full-cycle accounting or just data entry. The BLS percentile breakpoints are the cleanest way to read that progression. An entry-level clerk near the 10th percentile starts around $33,480. Cross into the 75th percentile and you are at $60,320, a jump of nearly $27,000 from the bottom.

The move from median to the 75th percentile, $48,910 to $60,320, is the realistic target for a bookkeeper who adds payroll, accounts payable and receivable, and month-end close to their duties. The senior tier at $72,810 usually means a full-charge bookkeeper running the books for a small business end to end, often with a QuickBooks ProAdvisor credential and several clients or a controller-track role. Hourly figures above assume a 2,080-hour year; part-time and contract work shifts the math but rarely the per-hour rate.

Look at the gaps between the rungs, because they tell you where the money is. The jump from entry to early career, $33,480 to $40,710, is $7,230 and usually comes within the first two or three years as you stop being supervised on every transaction. The next jump, early career to median, adds $8,200 and tends to arrive when you can close a month without help. The largest single step is median to experienced, $11,410, and it is the one most clerks stall on because it requires owning the full accounting cycle, not just keeping pace with it. The final climb to senior adds $12,490 and almost always means a title change to full-charge bookkeeper or a book of contract clients. Each step up the ladder is worth more than the last, so the effort you put into reaching the 75th percentile pays back faster than the effort that got you to the median.

Two other factors move you along this curve faster than tenure alone. The first is industry. Bookkeepers in oil and gas, construction, and professional services in Texas tend to sit higher in the range than those in retail or hospitality, because the books are more complex and the stakes per error are higher. The second is breadth of software. A clerk who only enters transactions in one platform earns near the median; a clerk who can set up a chart of accounts, run payroll, reconcile multiple bank and credit accounts, and produce clean financial statements earns toward the top.

Bookkeeper salary in Texas by metro

Metro pay tracks the cost of living and the density of corporate headquarters, energy firms, and accounting practices. Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth lead, while El Paso trails the state median by a wide margin. Here are the five largest Texas metro areas for this role, ranked by median pay.

Austin tops the list at $54,320, which is $5,410 above the statewide median and $12,790 above El Paso. The tech and startup base around Austin pushes demand for clerks who can run cloud accounting stacks. Dallas-Fort Worth holds the largest headcount in the state at 34,930, so even at a slightly lower median of $51,720 it offers the deepest job market and the most lateral moves. Houston, with 26,090 bookkeepers and a median of $49,460, sits almost exactly on the national line and rewards anyone with oil and gas or construction accounting experience. San Antonio at $48,150 lands just under the state median, and El Paso at $41,530 reflects its lower cost of living. If you can work remote for a Dallas or Austin employer while living in a cheaper metro, that pay-versus-cost arbitrage is the single best move a Texas bookkeeper has.

The spread is worth reading against headcount, not just pay. Austin pays the most but holds only 11,900 of these jobs, so openings are competitive and turnover is lower. Dallas-Fort Worth has nearly triple that count at 34,930, which means more entry points, more room to switch employers without relocating, and more bargaining room when you ask for a raise because a competitor down the road is hiring. Houston’s 26,090 positions give it the second-deepest market. For a clerk early in their career, the size of the Dallas and Houston markets can matter more than Austin’s higher median, because the first goal is to get hired and accumulate the close experience that moves you up the percentile table. Once you are experienced, Austin’s premium becomes the target, ideally captured remotely.

El Paso deserves a closer look because its $41,530 median looks low until you weigh it against housing. Rent and home prices there run well under the Texas average, so a clerk earning the local median often keeps a larger share of pay after housing than an Austin clerk earning $54,320. The headline gap of $12,790 between the two metros shrinks once you subtract what each metro charges to live there.

Take-home pay after tax for a Texas bookkeeper

Gross salary is the headline; take-home is the number you actually live on. Texas has no state income tax, so a bookkeeper here keeps everything after federal income tax and FICA, the 7.65 percent that funds Social Security and Medicare. The table below runs the four experience points through 2026 tax rules for a single filer taking the standard deduction.

The median Texas bookkeeper keeps $41,338 of a $48,910 salary, an effective tax rate of 15.5 percent, and brings home about $3,445 a month. At the senior level the effective rate rises to 18.1 percent as more income falls into higher federal brackets, leaving $59,608 net on $72,810 gross. The entry-level rate is the gentlest at 13.6 percent, because more of a $33,480 salary is shielded by the standard deduction and the lowest federal brackets. Notice that the state-tax column reads $0 at every stage. In most other states that column would carry a real number, and it would grow as your income climbs.

FICA is the one deduction that never shrinks as a share of pay at these income levels. It takes 7.65 percent off the top at every stage, $2,561 at entry and $5,570 at senior, and it is the same in every state. Federal income tax is what scales: $1,979 at entry, $3,831 at the median, and $7,632 at the senior level. Understanding which piece is fixed and which grows helps when you model a raise, because a $5,000 bump near the median is taxed mostly at your federal marginal rate, not your lower effective rate.

Here is the cross-state comparison that a quick search will never show you. Take the same $48,910 median salary and run it through California, a high-tax state. In Texas the net is $41,338. In California the net on identical gross is $40,158. That is a gap of exactly $1,180 a year that a Texas bookkeeper keeps purely because the state takes nothing in income tax. Over a ten-year career that single difference is nearly $12,000, before counting raises, and it is money the California clerk never sees regardless of how well they negotiate.

The number that actually matters is net pay minus local housing. A $3,445 monthly take-home stretches far in El Paso or San Antonio, where rent runs well below the Austin and Dallas markets. The same paycheck feels tight in central Austin, where housing eats a larger share. Always compare a job offer on net pay after housing in that specific metro, not on the gross figure in the listing. To see your own numbers with bonuses, 401(k), and health premiums folded in, run them through the Texas paycheck calculator. At filing time, software like TurboTax handles the federal return cleanly, and Texas filers skip the state return entirely.

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How to earn more as a bookkeeper in Texas

The path from the median to the 75th and 90th percentiles, $48,910 up to $60,320 or $72,810, comes down to a handful of concrete moves. That climb is worth $11,410 to reach the experienced tier and $23,900 to reach senior, so the steps below pay for themselves quickly. Each one is documented to lift bookkeeper pay in this state.

• Earn the QuickBooks ProAdvisor certification. It is the most-requested credential in Texas small-business job posts and signals you can run a full set of books, not just enter transactions. Certification is free through Intuit.
• Get certified through the AIPB or NACPB. The Certified Bookkeeper (CB) and Certified Public Bookkeeper (CPB) designations both push you toward full-charge work, which is where the $60,000-plus roles sit.
• Add payroll and full-cycle close. Clerks who own accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll, and month-end close earn at the 75th percentile, not the 50th. Volunteer for the close at your current job before you ask for the title.
• Learn a second platform. Knowing Xero, NetSuite, or Sage alongside QuickBooks opens roles at larger Texas employers and accounting firms that pay above the metro median. Short courses on Coursera cover the major systems and bookkeeping fundamentals.
• Move toward full-charge or controller-track roles. Running the books for a small business end to end is the senior tier. Many Texas bookkeepers reach $72,810 by managing several clients as a contractor rather than holding one salaried seat.
• Target Austin and Dallas employers, even remotely. Austin’s $54,320 median and Dallas-Fort Worth’s deep market both pay above El Paso and San Antonio. A remote role for a metro employer while living in a lower-cost area captures the high pay and the low housing cost at once.

Job outlook for bookkeepers in Texas

Texas employs about 122,400 bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks, per the BLS (2025), among the highest counts in the nation. Dallas-Fort Worth alone accounts for 34,930 of those jobs and Houston for 26,090, so the two largest metros hold roughly half the state’s positions. Nationally this occupation has been slowly shrinking as automation absorbs routine data entry, but the clerks who survive that shift are the ones who handle judgment work: reconciliations, advisory, payroll, and close. In Texas, the sheer size of the small-business base keeps steady demand for people who can run books that software alone cannot. To see live openings and pay ranges by metro, ZipRecruiter lists current Texas bookkeeper roles.

Related and higher-paying roles in Texas

Bookkeeping is a strong on-ramp to better-paid accounting and finance work in Texas. Two adjacent roles pay far more, and the gap is worth knowing before you plan your next move. Compared with the $48,910 Texas bookkeeper median:

• An Accountant in Texas earns a median of $80,920, which is $32,010 more than a bookkeeper here. The usual bridge is a bachelor’s degree in accounting and, often, the CPA track.
• A Financial Analyst in Texas earns a median of $99,150, which is $50,240 more than a bookkeeper here. This role leans on financial modeling and forecasting and typically wants a finance or accounting degree.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025; federal and FICA tax tables, 2026 tax year. Take-home figures assume a single filer with the standard deduction. Last updated 2026. See our methodology.