CPA Salary in Indiana 2026,
$77,720 Median | BLS Data by City

The BLS row that covers this occupation is Accountants and Auditors, and it publishes an Indiana median of $77,720 a year, or $37.36 an hour, per OEWS May 2025 — 7.1% below the national median of $83,680. That row counts licensed CPAs and unlicensed accountants together, so it is not a CPA-only figure. Licensed CPAs sit disproportionately in the upper half of the band, which runs to $100,120 at the 75th percentile and $125,880 at the 90th.

The licence. Anyone can work as an accountant; only a person licensed by the Indiana Board of Accountancy, inside the Indiana Professional Licensing Agency, may hold out as a certified public accountant or issue audit and attest reports. The licence requires 150 semester hours of education with specified accounting and business content, all sections of the Uniform CPA Examination, documented qualifying experience verified by a licensed CPA, and continuing professional education at renewal.

Indianapolis-Carmel-Greenwood at $79,290, then Columbus $78,740, South Bend-Mishawaka $77,940, Lafayette-West Lafayette $77,740 and Kokomo $77,520 — a spread of under two thousand dollars across the state. Accounting is portable, corporate departments pay on consistent scales, and remote work has flattened the map further. Employer type and licensure move an Indiana accountant's pay; geography barely does.

For anyone intending a career in the field, yes. It is the gate to attest work, it is close to standard at manager level and above, and it is the credential that distinguishes candidates in a market where the wage row otherwise blends licensed and unlicensed professionals. The national CPA pipeline is also shrinking while retirements continue, which supports the licence's value. The costs — 150 hours of education, the examination, and ongoing continuing professional education — are real and should be confirmed against what an employer will fund.

Partly composition and partly cost of living. A location quotient of 0.86 says accounting is employed slightly below the national rate here, and Indiana has proportionally less of the financial services, private equity and large public-company work that lifts accounting wages in the biggest markets. Set against that, Indiana's flat 3.05% state income tax and low housing costs mean the net gap is considerably smaller than the 7.1% gross gap suggests.

SOC 13-2011 covers accountants and auditors as a single occupation, which pools several quite different jobs: a staff accountant processing transactions in a corporate department, an internal auditor, a public-practice tax or audit professional working toward the licence, and a licensed CPA managing engagements. Indiana's 25,660 positions on this row are dominated numerically by the corporate and staff end. That is why the median of $77,720 sits well below where a licensed CPA at manager level is actually paid, and why the band stretches to $125,880 at the 90th percentile. Anyone using this page to price a role should identify which of those jobs it is first — the row's median is a poor proxy for any of them individually.

Nationally, the number of accounting graduates completing the 150-hour requirement and sitting the Uniform CPA Examination has been falling, while the licensed population continues to retire. The result is a shrinking supply of newly licensed CPAs against steady demand for attest work, which by law only licensed professionals can perform. For a candidate in Indiana this is straightforwardly good news: it strengthens the negotiating position of anyone who completes the licence, particularly in public practice where the licence is a legal requirement rather than a preference, and it is part of why firms increasingly fund examination costs and study time. It also means the gap between the licensed and unlicensed halves of this wage band is more likely to widen than to close.

As a trade between pace and ceiling, with the licence relevant to both. Public practice — audit and tax at a firm — is where the CPA licence is a legal necessity, where progression is structured and reasonably fast, and where the busy-season workload is severe. Industry roles in Indiana's substantial manufacturing, pharmaceutical, insurance and logistics base offer more predictable hours and a route toward controller and finance director positions at the $125,880 ninetieth percentile, but progression depends on openings above you. The common pattern, here as elsewhere, is a few years in public practice to obtain the licence and the training, then a move into industry. Indiana's flat 3.05% tax makes the promotions on either path unusually efficient, since no step up crosses a bracket.