2026 Edition · An annual reference on what work pays

Accountants and Auditors

Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV metropolitan area. Estimated employment 41,470.

Data released May 2025 BLS OEWS · SOC 13-2011
Fig. 1 — The wage rule

Where you sit in the distribution

Drag the marker, or type a figure
$102,140 · 50th
$67,53010th
$79,99025th
$102,14050th
$133,43075th
$170,98090th

That is the medianhalf of accountants and auditors in Washington earn more.

Table 1 — Adjusted

$102,140 in Washington buys what $93,800 buys across the country as a whole.

Washington's regional price parity is 108.9 — well above the national average — a dollar here buys noticeably less than in the US as a whole. Adjusted figures for other metros are in the nearby-metros table below.

Fig. 2 — The ladder

What comes next

Median offered base pay by seniority for Accountants and Auditors in Washington, classified from job titles on visa filings.

Entry
$65,998
Mid
$90,000
Senior
$100,000
Lead
$102,500
Table 2 — Employers

Who pays what

Median offered salary from visa filings, which disclose employer, title and exact figure. Government wage surveys never publish at this level.

EmployerMedian offerRangeFilingsvs. metro
PWC US Tax$161,000$103k – $215k7+57.6%
Ernst Young U S$128,468$90k – $237k45+25.8%
Forvis Mazars$125,700$75k – $185k6+23.1%
Amazon Com Services$112,970$85k – $150k14+10.6%
KPMG$96,100$83k – $132k7−5.9%
Deloitte Touche$85,322$66k – $156k17−16.5%
Deloitte Tax$85,322$66k – $170k38−16.5%

Offer ranges and filing counts are in the full table on wider screens.

Fig. 3 — Five-year trend

Nominal against real

The same median, once as published and once restated in 2025 dollars.

90k100k110k120k 20212022202320242025
Nominal, as published Real, in 2025 dollars US$ thousands

Published pay rose 6.5% over the five years to 2025. Adjusted for inflation it fell 10.3% — prices rose faster than pay since 2021. The two lines meet at the right edge by construction, since 2025 is the base year.

Sources

How this page was made

Wage data
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 release. Public domain.
Price parity
Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Price Parities, 2024.
Employer pay
Department of Labor, Labor Condition Application disclosures, FY 2025. The table draws on 134 certified filings across 7 employers.
Career ladder
Seniority classified from job titles on the same visa filings; levels shown only with five or more filings each and a strictly rising progression.
Inflation
Real figures deflate by CPI-U annual averages (BLS, all items, US city average).
Employment
41,470 employed in this occupation in the metro (BLS estimate; excludes the self-employed).
Occupation
SOC 13-2011, Accountants and Auditors. Mapped to our taxonomy as accountants-and-auditors.

Percentiles are reported exactly as released and are never interpolated between published values. Visa filings record offered base salary at time of application, exclude equity and bonus, and skew toward larger employers — treat the employer table as a floor, not an average. We take no payment from employers, recruiters or anyone else for how any figure is presented.