What an accountant costs in the US
The wage BLS measured across 1,449,500 jobs, what an employer pays on top of it, the pay in every state, and which of the job's core tasks already show up in AI use.
Medians for the whole US. Your own cost depends on where you hire, the benefits you offer and the hours worked.
- Median wage
- $83,680
- Hourly wage
- $40.23
- Loaded per hour
- $50.11
- Middle half earns
- $67,020 to $109,810
- Jobs in the US
- 1,449,500
Wage × 1.2455 for benefits and payroll taxes, from BLS.
An accountant in the US is paid a median $83,680 a year, $40.23 an hour, across 1,449,500 jobs. With benefits, a small employer pays about $104,220. Of its 10 core tasks, 5 showed up in Claude.ai conversations in May 2026, and in 4 of those Claude mostly did the task rather than assisting.
The work, task by task
The 10 core tasks O*NET lists for accountants and auditors, most important first, and how each showed up in Claude.ai conversations in May 2026. The bar splits those conversations between Claude doing the task and Claude helping a person do it.
- 01Prepare, examine, or analyze accounting records, financial statements, or other financial reports to assess accuracy, completeness, and conformance to reporting and procedural standards.Claude.ai: 58% did the task, 42% helped · API: 97% did the task
- 02Process invoices for payment.
- 03Review accounts for discrepancies and reconcile differences.
- 04Prepare adjusting journal entries.Claude.ai: 54% did the task, 46% helped · API: 96% did the task
- 05Compute taxes owed and prepare tax returns, ensuring compliance with payment, reporting, or other tax requirements.API: 93% did the task, 7% helped
- 06Inspect account books and accounting systems for efficiency, effectiveness, and use of accepted accounting procedures to record transactions.
- 07Prepare, analyze, or verify annual reports, financial statements, and other records, using accepted accounting and statistical procedures to assess financial condition and facilitate financial planning.Claude.ai: 53% did the task, 47% helped · API: 98% did the task
- 08Prepare detailed reports on audit findings.Claude.ai: 57% did the task, 43% helped
- 09Collect and analyze data to detect deficient controls, duplicated effort, extravagance, fraud, or non-compliance with laws, regulations, and management policies.
- 10Review data about material assets, net worth, liabilities, capital stock, surplus, income, or expenditures.Claude.ai: 49% did the task, 51% helped · API: 99% did the task
5 of 10 tasks appear in the Claude.ai sample of the Anthropic Economic Index for May 2026, and 1 more only in its sample of API traffic, where businesses run Claude inside their own software. A task without a row had too few conversations for Anthropic to publish, which is not the same as none. Shares are of all sampled Claude.ai conversations, so small figures are normal: 0.12% of every conversation that month was about this occupation.
Pay by state
The median annual wage in each state and DC, and the same wage fully loaded. District of Columbia pays the most, $111,530; Arkansas the least, $66,330.
| State | Median wage | Fully loaded | Middle half | Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | $74,880 | $93,260 | $60,840 to $95,870 | 24,300 |
| Alaska | $83,460 | $103,950 | $72,230 to $102,460 | 2,190 |
| Arizona | $79,970 | $99,600 | $64,990 to $103,640 | 27,410 |
| Arkansas | $66,330 | $82,610 | $52,570 to $88,950 | 7,870 |
| California | $97,050 | $120,880 | $75,810 to $125,850 | 175,360 |
| Colorado | $97,030 | $120,850 | $74,900 to $127,270 | 35,410 |
| Connecticut | $97,550 | $121,500 | $78,020 to $123,670 | 16,770 |
| Delaware | $95,020 | $118,350 | $74,270 to $120,450 | 6,570 |
| District of Columbia | $111,530 | $138,910 | $83,050 to $156,730 | 9,810 |
| Florida | $79,250 | $98,710 | $62,730 to $103,140 | 91,000 |
| Georgia | $81,900 | $102,010 | $64,830 to $109,110 | 44,020 |
| Hawaii | $74,500 | $92,790 | $60,710 to $92,870 | 4,670 |
| Idaho | $74,730 | $93,080 | $61,150 to $93,400 | 5,570 |
| Illinois | $80,230 | $99,930 | $66,290 to $102,270 | 54,930 |
| Indiana | $77,720 | $96,800 | $62,370 to $100,120 | 25,660 |
| Iowa | $77,440 | $96,450 | $62,090 to $98,150 | 13,210 |
| Kansas | $79,000 | $98,390 | $62,960 to $100,650 | 13,610 |
| Kentucky | $75,270 | $93,750 | $61,040 to $96,780 | 11,930 |
| Louisiana | $73,810 | $91,930 | $59,960 to $91,830 | 14,050 |
| Maine | $77,480 | $96,500 | $63,920 to $98,700 | 3,860 |
| Maryland | $89,370 | $111,310 | $73,100 to $116,420 | 26,170 |
| Massachusetts | $99,460 | $123,880 | $79,370 to $128,560 | 46,230 |
| Michigan | $78,820 | $98,170 | $63,850 to $101,030 | 41,460 |
| Minnesota | $81,600 | $101,630 | $68,190 to $105,020 | 30,530 |
| Mississippi | $68,100 | $84,820 | $57,550 to $93,640 | 7,350 |
| Missouri | $76,590 | $95,390 | $60,370 to $99,580 | 28,000 |
| Montana | $75,810 | $94,420 | $61,690 to $97,320 | 4,730 |
| Nebraska | $72,080 | $89,780 | $59,990 to $90,660 | 10,340 |
| Nevada | $81,600 | $101,630 | $68,190 to $103,640 | 6,930 |
| New Hampshire | $83,470 | $103,960 | $71,360 to $105,160 | 7,000 |
| New Jersey | $100,830 | $125,580 | $80,320 to $129,280 | 42,250 |
| New Mexico | $78,580 | $97,870 | $63,290 to $99,090 | 6,300 |
| New York | $102,640 | $127,840 | $79,760 to $134,820 | 109,830 |
| North Carolina | $82,050 | $102,190 | $65,120 to $108,090 | 49,270 |
| North Dakota | $75,730 | $94,320 | $60,960 to $95,780 | 4,430 |
| Ohio | $79,320 | $98,790 | $63,020 to $102,230 | 50,440 |
| Oklahoma | $79,370 | $98,860 | $59,990 to $104,240 | 16,720 |
| Oregon | $85,800 | $106,860 | $74,350 to $104,150 | 14,920 |
| Pennsylvania | $79,000 | $98,390 | $62,330 to $99,990 | 54,290 |
| Rhode Island | $95,820 | $119,340 | $76,400 to $120,280 | 6,570 |
| South Carolina | $76,560 | $95,360 | $62,100 to $99,080 | 15,270 |
| South Dakota | $78,880 | $98,250 | $66,970 to $97,920 | 5,820 |
| Tennessee | $76,840 | $95,700 | $62,430 to $94,790 | 27,340 |
| Texas | $80,920 | $100,790 | $65,560 to $103,760 | 116,470 |
| Utah | $79,990 | $99,630 | $61,910 to $104,140 | 15,490 |
| Vermont | $78,890 | $98,260 | $66,190 to $97,100 | 2,630 |
| Virginia | $93,290 | $116,190 | $74,250 to $123,510 | 47,100 |
| Washington | $96,550 | $120,250 | $79,180 to $122,480 | 34,740 |
| West Virginia | $73,320 | $91,320 | $59,260 to $91,660 | 4,900 |
| Wisconsin | $79,400 | $98,890 | $65,000 to $100,800 | 25,100 |
| Wyoming | $77,620 | $96,680 | $60,470 to $100,560 | 2,670 |
The same benefits ratio applies in every state, because BLS does not publish benefit costs by business size for each state. The middle half is the 25th to 75th percentile wage.
Where the numbers come from
Every figure is copied from a public file. The only arithmetic is the loaded cost: the wage times 1.2455.
- Wages
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, occupation 13-2011 (Accountants and Auditors). Annual figures are the hourly wage times 2,080 hours, as BLS computes them, so they already include pay for paid leave.
- Fully loaded
- BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026 (2026 Q2), private businesses with 1 to 49 workers: $37.64 an hour in total compensation over $27.88 in wages plus $2.34 in paid leave gives 1.2455. Paid leave sits in the denominator because the annual wage already pays it.
- Tasks
- O*NET 31.0 core tasks for 13-2011.00, the ten most important by their importance rating. A few occupations list fewer core tasks.
- AI use
- Anthropic Economic Index, release of June 2026, conversations from May 2026. "Did the task" is Anthropic's automation share, where the user directs Claude to do the work; "helped" is augmentation, where the user works with Claude to learn, check or iterate.
- Not measured
- What a particular business pays, and whether an AI system can do a task well. The AI figures count conversations about a task, not jobs replaced.
This page includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. AI use data from the Anthropic Economic Index by Anthropic, under CC BY. Wage and benefit data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
What would an AI system cost for this work?
Put $104,220 beside the running cost of a system doing the tasks above, with the build counted in year one.
BLS wages May 2025 · O*NET 31.0 · Anthropic Economic Index