CPA Salary in Michigan 2026,
$78,820 Median | BLS Data by City

Michigan accountants and auditors earn a median $78,820 a year, $37.89 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $63,850 and $101,030 and a full range of $52,620 to $131,080. Licensed CPAs sit toward the upper part of that band; the figure covers the whole occupation, licensed and not.

Midland at $91,790, then Jackson at $81,470, Detroit-Warren-Dearborn at $80,650, Ann Arbor at $80,040 and Lansing-East Lansing at $79,210. Midland's eleven-thousand-dollar lead over Detroit reflects a large corporate headquarters presence in a small city — corporate reporting, tax and treasury roles that would ordinarily sit in a much larger metro.

The Michigan Board of Accountancy, within LARA's Bureau of Professional Licensing, sets them: an education requirement including specified accounting and business coursework, passage of the CPA examination, qualifying experience under a licensed CPA, and continuing education at renewal. Confirm the current education pathway with the Board before planning coursework, as several states have been revising theirs.

Michigan applies a flat 4.25% state income tax at every level, which grows more favourable relative to graduated states the higher your income. Around two dozen Michigan cities levy their own on top — Detroit at 2.4% for residents and 1.2% for non-residents working there, with Grand Rapids, Lansing and others lower. Michigan's municipal tax rules are complex enough to be a practice area in themselves.

Yes, and the distribution shows why. The unlicensed end of this occupation clusters near the $52,620 tenth percentile, while manager and controller roles that require or strongly prefer the licence sit at the $101,030 seventy-fifth percentile and beyond. In Michigan the licence also opens the corporate headquarters and automotive finance roles that pay the top of the band — the kind of work behind Midland's $91,790 metro figure.

Because it hosts corporate headquarters functions in a small city. Midland's chemical and materials sector supports corporate accounting, tax, treasury and financial reporting roles of a complexity normally found in much larger metropolitan areas, and the local candidate pool is small. The result is a $91,790 metro median against a statewide $78,820 — and against a cost of living far below Detroit's. Jackson at $81,470 shows a milder version of the same small-market effect.

SOC 13-2011 is Accountants and Auditors, a close but not exact match for CPA. It pools licensed CPAs with unlicensed staff accountants and internal auditors, so the $78,820 median understates what a licensed CPA in public practice earns and overstates the entry-level end. Use the $101,030 seventy-fifth percentile as the more realistic marker for an experienced licensed CPA in Michigan.

The licence first, industry second, busy season third. Public accounting in Michigan pays overtime-heavy compensation through the January-to-April cycle that lifts effective annual earnings above base. The move from public practice into a corporate controller seat — automotive, chemicals, healthcare systems — is the classic path from the median of $78,820 to the $101,030 seventy-fifth percentile. And Michigan's automotive supplier finance sector, with its cost accounting and inventory complexity, is a specialisation that carries the last stretch toward $131,080.