CPA Salary in Seattle, WA 2026,
$99,370 Median | BLS + Market Data

Seattle CPAs earn a BLS median of $99,370/yr, or $47.78 an hour, for the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro, with a published band of $73,250 to $160,640. That is 2.9% above the Washington statewide figure and 18.8% above the US median. The estimate covers accountants and auditors as a whole, so licensed CPAs generally sit above the midpoint.

Modestly — 2.9% above the Washington statewide median. Accounting demand follows business activity, and while the Puget Sound region holds the great majority of the state's corporate finance work, licensing requirements and firm structures are identical statewide, so the rate difference is smaller than for occupations where local scarcity drives pay.

For anyone intending to progress in public accounting, it is not optional — advancement to manager is gated on it. In corporate practice the calculation is more nuanced, but the licence is what separates the upper half of this band from the lower: technical accounting, controllership and tax leadership roles almost universally require it. Washington's requirements are the standard ones, 150 semester hours plus examination plus verified experience, administered by the state Board of Accountancy.

A great deal, just unfamiliar. Washington taxes businesses on gross receipts through the business and occupation tax, with rates varying by activity classification and no deduction for costs — so classification and apportionment decisions carry real money. Seattle operates its own municipal B&O tax alongside a payroll expense tax on large employers, and the state's retail sales tax obligations are complex for anything sold across jurisdictions. Multistate practice for companies headquartered here is correspondingly demanding.

Corporate controllership and technical accounting roles at the large employers, where the problems — revenue recognition at scale, equity compensation accounting, international structures — require specialist knowledge and command the $160,640 end of the published band. Public accounting managers and senior managers follow. Entry-level public accounting and small firm practice sit lowest on rate, though the training value of the first years in public practice is what makes the later moves possible.

This occupation code counts every accountant and auditor, licensed or not, and a substantial share of the 22,100 people in it hold no CPA licence. That makes the median a poor reference point for someone weighing the licence, because it averages licensed and unlicensed practice together. The more useful reading is directional: the licence is a prerequisite for most of the roles clustered in the upper half of this band, and largely absent from the lower.

In a metro where a large share of employees at major employers receive restricted stock, accounting for equity compensation is not a niche — it is a routine and material part of financial reporting for the region's biggest companies, and a recurring individual tax planning question for their staff. Accountants who understand it well have a specialism that is in constant demand locally and is far less commonly needed in metros without a concentration of public technology employers.

The national growth rate for this occupation is modest, but the annual openings number is large because the profession is retiring faster than it is recruiting. Enrolment in accounting programmes has been soft nationally for years while the 150-hour requirement raised the cost of entry. In a metro with this much corporate finance activity, the practical effect is that qualified, licensed accountants have unusually good leverage — and that leverage is a large part of why the upper quarter of this band has held up.