CFO Salary in Florida 2026,
$153,280 Median | BLS Data by City

The published figure for this occupation code is a median $153,280 a year, or $73.69 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with a band from $79,450 at the 10th percentile to $303,790 at the 90th and quartiles at $105,440 and $207,150. That is 8.0% below the national median of $166,570 in gross terms, with no Florida income tax applying. The row is SOC 11-3031, Financial Managers, which is broader than the CFO title.

Only partly, and the caveat matters in Florida. SOC 11-3031 counts controllers, treasurers, finance directors and financial services managers alongside chief financial officers, and Florida's business population is dominated by small and mid-sized companies where the CFO title sits on a much smaller finance function than in a headquarters economy. The $153,280 median describes financial management generally; a CFO of a substantial company should be reading the $207,150 seventy-fifth percentile and above.

Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach at $164,230, then Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville $160,910, Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater $157,480, Naples-Marco Island $153,520 and Lakeland-Winter Haven $151,440. The spread is under nine percent. Florida has no single dominant financial centre — its business activity is spread across several metros of comparable weight, which is unusual for a state of this size.

No. The Board of Accountancy within the Department of Business and Professional Regulation licenses certified public accountants, but that licence governs the title and attest work rather than the management of a finance function. Many Florida CFOs hold it because they came through public accounting; many arrived through corporate finance, banking or operations and do not. No state body approves anyone for the role.

The tax position is the strongest argument. Florida levies no personal income tax while Kansas, Maryland, Oregon and Utah — all within a few percent of it on gross — do, so Florida leads that peer group net. The counterargument is company scale: a location quotient of 0.91 and a business base weighted toward small and mid-sized firms means the very large finance roles are fewer here than in a headquarters state, and the $303,790 ninetieth percentile reflects that ceiling.

Considerably, and in a Florida-specific way. In a state dominated by very large corporations, SOC 11-3031's breadth is a problem of mixing seniority levels. In Florida it is a problem of mixing company sizes: the state has an unusually high proportion of small and mid-sized businesses, and in a company of thirty employees the person carrying the CFO title is doing work a large company would call controller. That pushes a large population into the $79,450-to-$105,440 lower quartile while genuine large-company CFO roles sit above the $207,150 seventy-fifth percentile. The median at $153,280 falls between two quite different populations.

Because its growth has been distributed rather than concentrated. Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach at $164,230 leads, but only modestly over Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater at $157,480 and Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville at $160,910, with Naples-Marco Island at $153,520 and Lakeland-Winter Haven at $151,440 close behind. Florida is several regional economies — south Florida trade and finance, Tampa Bay corporate and healthcare, the Space Coast aerospace cluster, southwest Florida wealth management — rather than one metropolitan hub with a periphery. For a finance executive that means mobility within the state is easier and the geographic wage lever is weaker than in most large states.

It is real but should not be overstated. Florida's absence of an income tax has genuinely attracted finance operations and executives, particularly to the Miami and West Palm Beach corridor, and a location quotient of 0.91 suggests the state is still growing into national-average concentration for this occupation rather than having reached it. But the state's gross medians remain below the national figure across most of this unit, and property insurance costs have risen sharply enough to consume a meaningful share of the tax saving for a homeowner. The net advantage is clearest for someone at the upper percentiles who rents or holds property conservatively.