CFO Salary in Chicago, IL 2026,
$168,810 Median | BLS + Market Data

The BLS median for financial managers across the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin metro is $168,810/yr, or $81.16 an hour, with a published band from $103,490 to $321,200 — 1.3% above the US median. That row covers 41,590 people including controllers and finance directors, so a chief financial officer at a substantial employer sits at or beyond the top of this band rather than near its middle.

Slightly — the metro runs 1.8% above the Illinois statewide figure, which reflects how much of the state's corporate finance function is concentrated here. Among peer metros Chicago sits below Atlanta at $171,240, Dallas at $169,200 and Austin at $167,180, and just above Philadelphia at $166,920 and Houston at $166,910 — a tight national cluster for a senior occupation.

Everyone who directs financial activities for an organisation or a unit of one: controllers, treasurers, credit managers, finance directors, divisional finance leads and chief financial officers. That is why the count in this metro is 41,590 rather than a few hundred. The consequence for anyone benchmarking a CFO role is that the median on this page is a controller-and-director figure, and even the $321,200 at the 90th percentile describes the wage portion of senior finance pay rather than the total package at a large public company.

Financial services first — the metro's derivatives exchanges, trading firms, asset managers and banks pay finance leadership on scales set by the industry rather than by local labour markets. Large corporate headquarters follow, particularly in industries where capital intensity makes treasury and capital allocation central. Private capital-backed portfolio companies form a distinct third group, paying below headline corporate levels in cash while attaching equity that this page's figures cannot see at all.

It is common but not required, and the answer depends on the route. Finance chiefs who arrive through controllership and technical accounting almost always hold the CPA licence, issued in this state through the Illinois Board of Examiners and the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. Those arriving through financial planning, treasury, investment banking or corporate development frequently hold an MBA or CFA charter instead. No state licence governs the CFO title itself, and no examination is required to hold it.

OEWS collects wages and salaries from employer payroll records. That works well for controllers and finance directors, whose compensation is predominantly salary and cash bonus, and progressively less well as seniority rises. At chief financial officer level in a public company, restricted stock, performance share units and long-term incentives typically exceed base salary, and none of it appears here. This page is therefore an accurate description of the broad financial management market in this metro and a floor — not an estimate — for genuine CFO compensation. Proxy disclosures, not wage surveys, are the right source for the latter.

Chicago holds 4.94% of national financial manager employment, well above its share of US jobs. Corporate headquarters density explains most of it: a headquarters carries treasury, consolidation, tax, planning and investor relations functions that a plant or regional office does not. The derivatives and asset management cluster adds a second layer of finance-specific employment. For a finance professional, the practical consequence is unusual optionality — industry, financial services and private capital-backed employers all recruit here, so a career can be built without the geographic moves that a narrower market would force.

A 14.8% national growth projection is remarkable for a management occupation and deserves an explanation. It reflects the expansion of what finance functions are expected to do: regulatory and reporting complexity has increased, planning has become data-intensive, risk management has widened beyond credit and liquidity, and private capital ownership has multiplied the number of companies needing full finance leadership. In this metro, with its private capital community and its regulated financial sector, all four drivers apply. The roughly 3,690 openings a year pro-rated here is one of the larger figures on this site for a senior role.