CPA Salary in Florida 2026,
$79,250 Median | BLS Data by City

The published Florida median for accountants and auditors is $79,250 a year, $38.10 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $62,730 and $103,140 and a full range of $50,280 to $131,930. BLS publishes no CPA-only wage row, so read the licensed tier as sitting in the upper part of that distribution — and note that Florida takes no state income tax out of any of it.

Naples-Marco Island at $84,570, then North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota at $81,090, Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach at $80,920, Jacksonville at $79,960 and Crestview-Fort Walton Beach-Destin at $79,510. About five thousand dollars covers the whole table, which makes Florida one of the flatter states geographically for this occupation.

Through the Florida Board of Accountancy, within the Department of Business and Professional Regulation. You meet the education requirement including 150 semester hours with specified accounting and business coursework, pass the Uniform CPA Examination, and complete the verified work experience the Board requires before licensure. Florida licences renew on a set cycle with continuing education including an ethics component.

Not state personal income tax returns, because there are none. Florida practice runs to federal returns, entity structuring and corporate income tax, sales and use tax and tangible personal property tax, estate and trust work for a wealthy older population, residency and domicile planning for clients moving from high-tax states, and inbound international structuring in South Florida. It is a genuinely different mix from practice in an income-tax state.

Better than the nominal figure suggests. A 5.3% shortfall against the national median disappears once you account for no state income tax, and Florida also levies no state estate or inheritance tax and offers a homestead exemption with Save Our Homes assessment caps. Housing and insurance costs in the coastal metros are the counterweight and have risen sharply.

Because its accounting work is broad rather than deep. Florida's business base is heavily small and closely held — real estate, hospitality, construction, professional services — served by small and mid-sized practices doing compliance and advisory work at fairly uniform rates statewide. It lacks the concentration of large corporate headquarters and capital markets work that lifts medians in other big states, which is why Naples-Marco Island at $84,570 and Jacksonville at $79,960 are only four thousand dollars apart.

It is not one. SOC 13-2011 makes no licensure distinction, and across about 91,000 Florida accountants a large share are unlicensed. The $62,730 twenty-fifth percentile is a staff accounting figure, not a licensed one. What the licence changes in Florida is access to the estate, trust and international advisory work that occupies the $103,140 seventy-fifth percentile and above.

It is the single biggest driver of high-value work here. Clients relocating from high-tax states need residency and domicile planning, trust restructuring and multistate compliance during the transition; businesses relocating need entity restructuring and nexus analysis. Combined with an older wealthy population needing estate work and South Florida's inbound international client base, that is what makes the Florida 90th percentile of $131,930 reachable in a state with an otherwise modest median.