CPA Salary in Massachusetts 2026,
$99,460 Median | BLS Data by City

The published Massachusetts figure for this wage row is $99,460 a year, or $47.82 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025 — 18.9% above the national median of $83,680. But SOC 13-2011 covers accountants and auditors generally, licensed and unlicensed together, so it is not a CPA-specific figure. Licensed CPAs typically sit above the median, toward the $128,560 seventy-fifth percentile and the $160,100 ninetieth.

Boston-Cambridge-Newton at $100,150, then Barnstable Town $96,110, Worcester $94,070, Springfield $92,010 and Pittsfield $84,640. More than fifteen thousand dollars separates the top from the fifth, and the gap tracks where financial services, asset management, private equity and life sciences finance are concentrated — all sectors that pay accountants above general corporate work.

No, and the distinction matters. The wage row covers all accountants and auditors, including the substantial population working in accounting roles without the licence. The CPA credential is what permits issuing audit, review and other attest opinions to the public, and that reservation is the economic point of the licence. In practice the unlicensed population clusters around the $79,370 twenty-fifth percentile while licensed CPAs occupy the upper half of the band.

Through the Massachusetts Board of Public Accountancy, within the Division of Occupational Licensure. The requirements are 150 semester hours of education, passage of the Uniform CPA Examination, and a period of qualifying experience verified by a licensed CPA, followed by continuing professional education at renewal. The 150-hour requirement in particular is a significant commitment — it typically means a fifth year of study — and it is widely discussed as a factor in the profession's shrinking candidate pipeline.

Sector mix. Massachusetts has a large asset management and financial services industry, a substantial private equity and venture capital presence, a dense life sciences sector with complex revenue and R&D accounting, and a major higher education sector with its own reporting demands. All of them need technically strong accountants, and all pay above general corporate accounting. A location quotient of 1.36 on 46,230 people confirms the concentration — this is not a shortage premium so much as a composition premium.

Because it reserves work. Only a licensed CPA may issue audit, review or other attest opinions to the public, which means an entire category of engagement — and the fee income attached to it — is closed to unlicensed accountants. That reservation gives the licence real economic value rather than symbolic value, and it is why the band from $79,370 at the twenty-fifth percentile to $128,560 at the seventy-fifth spans what is effectively a legal boundary as much as a skill one. In industry the licence functions differently, as a signal of technical depth rather than a permission, but it still tracks the pay.

Partnership income. Public accounting partners are not employees in the ordinary sense and their distributions are not wages, so the top of the Massachusetts profession is under-represented in this data — the $160,100 ninetieth percentile is closer to a senior salaried figure than to a partner's income. Bonus is a second omission at the senior end, particularly in financial services accounting. And the category's breadth means the median describes a boundary between two populations rather than either one.

The licence first, since it is a legal gate to attest work and maps onto the upper half of the band. Then sector: financial services, asset management, private equity and life sciences all pay above general corporate accounting in this state, and that is much of the distance from the median to the $128,560 seventy-fifth percentile. Then technical specialisation — complex revenue recognition, investment company accounting, R&D and clinical trial accounting are all scarce skills here. And then the move into partnership or finance leadership, which is where the profession's real income sits.