Accountant & Auditor Salary Range: Compliant Bands (SOC 13-2011)

Why Your Accountant Job Posting Needs More Than a Number

It is Wednesday afternoon. Your controller just resigned, you need to post the role by Friday, and your state enacted a pay-transparency law six months ago. You open a job-seeker salary-estimator site, see a ballpark figure, type it into the posting — and your employment attorney's next email asks: "What methodology supports that range, and where is your documentation?"

That is the moment this guide is designed to prevent.

For accountants and auditors under SOC 13-2011 — one of the most commonly posted finance roles at mid-market and growing companies — a defensible accountant salary range is not a single number. It is a minimum, a midpoint, and a maximum grounded in a named, dated wage dataset, sized to the geography where the work is performed, and formatted to satisfy the disclosure requirements of every state where your posting is visible. This guide walks through the data, the methodology, and the compliance overlay you need to post with confidence.

---

What BLS OEWS Tells You About Accountant and Auditor Pay

The Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (BLS OEWS) program produces wage estimates annually for more than 800 occupations, constructed from a sample of approximately 1.1 million establishments (BLS, May 2025). It is the authoritative, publicly available dataset behind most defensible salary-range methodologies — and it is free at bls.gov/oes.

For Accountants and Auditors (SOC 13-2011), the national figures from the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH), May 2024 reference period, are:

Percentile	Annual Wage
10th percentile	$52,780
50th percentile (median)	$81,680
90th percentile	$141,420

Source: BLS OOH, Accountants and Auditors (SOC 13-2011), May 2024 national estimates. Confirm the current figures at bls.gov/oes before using in a posting.

A percentile is the wage below which a given share of workers in that occupation and geography earn. The 50th percentile (the market median) means half of all U.S. accountants and auditors earned less than $81,680, and half earned more, in the May 2024 survey period. The 10th and 90th percentiles anchor the realistic floor and ceiling across the full working population in that occupation nationally.

These are national figures. The OEWS program also publishes state-level and metropolitan-area-level estimates for SOC 13-2011 — and those figures can differ substantially from the national median depending on cost of labor in your market. Before you post, pull the state or metro row for your location directly from the OEWS tables at bls.gov/oes. The national median is a useful benchmark and a starting anchor; it is not a substitute for geography-specific data. For a deeper explanation of how to navigate the OEWS tables, see our guide to reading BLS OEWS data, and for how geography shifts the numbers, see our piece on geographic pay differentials.

---

Building a Compliant Accountant Salary Range from OEWS Data

A salary posting range is not the same thing as the percentile spread. The range spread — how wide the band is, expressed as a percentage of the band's midpoint — is a design choice you make, informed by your internal pay philosophy, the seniority of the role, and the level of variation typical for that occupation.

Here is how to build a three-point band from a OEWS anchor. This is a worked example using the national median; substitute your state or metro figure when you pull it from bls.gov/oes.

Worked example — Accountant I (entry-level), national anchor:

• Anchor (midpoint): $81,680 (BLS OOH national median, SOC 13-2011, May 2024)
• Chosen range spread: 50% (a moderate spread appropriate for a relatively well-defined, credential-gated role)
• Formula: min = midpoint ÷ 1.25; max = midpoint × 1.25
  • Min: $81,680 ÷ 1.25 = $65,344
  • Max: $81,680 × 1.25 = $102,100
  • Band: $65,344 – $102,100

The midpoint is the target pay for a fully proficient employee performing at standard expectations. The minimum is the entry point (new hire, developing proficiency). The maximum is the ceiling for long-tenure employees fully mastered in the role — beyond which a reclassification or promotion conversation is appropriate.

A wider spread (say, 80%) suits a senior accountant or audit manager role where there is more legitimate variation in scope, specialization (tax, audit, FP&A), and seniority across candidates. A narrower spread (40%) suits a tightly scoped staff accountant role with a clear grade. There is no universal correct answer — the spread is a judgment your organization owns and documents.

What matters for compliance is that the spread is intentional and documented: you chose it, you can name the methodology, and you can show an employment attorney or a state labor agency how you got from the BLS figure to the posted range. That audit trail is what separates a defensible range from a number pulled from a job-seeker estimator site.

For a full walkthrough of the range-building process — including how to handle multi-location postings and grade-level differentiation — see our guide to building a salary range from scratch.

---

Pay-Transparency Requirements That Affect Accountant Postings

Accounting roles are posted everywhere — headquarters, remote, multi-state. That means a single posting for an accountant or auditor role can simultaneously trigger disclosure obligations in several jurisdictions. Below is a summary of the requirements most relevant to this occupation, drawn from the verified-data library. Always confirm the current rule — thresholds, effective dates, and penalty figures change — with the issuing authority or with employment counsel before posting.

Colorado — The Equal Pay for Equal Work Act requires employers with at least one Colorado employee to include a salary range in every posting. Fines run $500–$10,000 per violation, with each non-compliant posting treated as a separate violation (Colorado General Assembly, SB19-085; Colorado CDLE). Verify the current rule at the Colorado CDLE.

California — SB 1162 (Labor Code §432.3) requires employers with 15 or more employees (at least one in California) to include a pay range in postings, effective January 1, 2023. Civil penalties are $100–$10,000 per violation, and each posting on each platform can be treated as a separate violation. §432.3 also requires employers to maintain job-title and wage-rate history records (Employment Law Aid, 2026). Verify the current rule with the California DIR.

New York State — Labor Law §194-B requires private employers with four or more employees to include a salary or salary range in postings for jobs performed at least in part in New York, effective September 17, 2023. Penalties escalate to a maximum of $3,000 per violation (SixFifty / Trusaic, 2026). Verify the current rule with the NY State DOL.

New York City — In effect since November 1, 2022, with civil penalties up to $250,000 per violation, enforced by the NYC Commission on Human Rights (Trusaic, 2025). Verify with the NYC Commission on Human Rights.

Washington State — Employers with 15 or more employees must disclose a wage scale or salary range plus a general description of benefits, effective January 1, 2023. As of July 27, 2025 amendments, statutory damages run $100–$5,000 per applicant, plus attorney fees (Epstein Becker Green, 2025). Verify the current rule with Washington L&I.

Illinois — Effective January 1, 2025, employers with 15 or more employees must include a pay scale and benefits in postings. Penalties escalate $500 / $2,500 / $10,000 for first, second, and third-or-subsequent violations, and employers must retain the pay scale and posting for each position for five years (Greenberg Traurig / Illinois DOL, 2024). Verify the current rule with the Illinois DOL.

New Jersey — The Pay and Benefit Transparency Act, effective June 1, 2025, requires employers with 10 or more employees to include pay ranges in postings. Civil penalties are $300 for a first violation and $600 for each subsequent violation (Ogletree Deakins, 2025). Verify the current rule with the New Jersey DOL.

Massachusetts — Effective October 29, 2025, employers with 25 or more Massachusetts employees must disclose pay ranges. Penalties escalate from a warning through $500, $1,000, and up to $25,000 for repeat offenses (Mintz, 2025). Verify the current rule with the Massachusetts AGO.

Washington, D.C. — Effective June 30, 2024, employers of any size with at least one D.C. employee must disclose minimum and maximum projected pay in all postings. Civil fines are $1,000 / $5,000 / $20,000 for first, second, and subsequent violations (Cooley LLP / Mercer, 2024). Verify the current rule with the D.C. Office of Human Rights.

As of 2026, 16 states plus Washington D.C. mandate salary disclosure in job postings, with Delaware joining in 2027 (Paycor / Nesco Resource, 2026). Accountant and auditor roles — frequently multi-state and remote — are among the highest-exposure postings because the occupation crosses nearly every industry sector subject to these mandates.

For a broader overview of how these laws interact when you post a single role in multiple states, see our Occupation Salary Guides hub.

---

The Documentation Your Range Must Survive

Posting a range is the visible act. Defending it is the test. When a state labor agency reviews a complaint — or when an employment attorney asks for your compensation methodology — the question is not just "did you post a range?" It is "how did you arrive at that range, and can you show your work?"

Minimum defensible documentation for an accountant salary range includes:

1. The data source — dataset name, geography, and reference/release year (e.g., "BLS OEWS, SOC 13-2011, national, May 2024").
2. The anchor percentile — which OEWS percentile you used as the midpoint anchor and why (e.g., 50th percentile = market median, national; adjusted to [state] metro using the OEWS state table).
3. The spread decision — what range spread percentage you applied and the rationale (e.g., "50% spread, consistent with our grade-level policy for defined-scope staff roles").
4. The grade or level — which internal grade this posting maps to, and how the OEWS data maps to that grade's scope.
5. The date — when the analysis was performed and which OEWS release it used, so a reviewer knows the vintage of the data.

A timestamp, a named methodology, and a named data source — documented in a shareable format — are what distinguish a defensible range from one assembled in 15 minutes the morning a posting went live.

---

Build Your Accountant Range in Minutes, Not Hours

If you are building ranges manually — pulling OEWS tables, mapping SOC codes, applying spreads in a spreadsheet, formatting state-specific outputs — you already know the process works. The friction is in the repetition: every new posting, every location variant, every grade refresh pulls the same sequence of steps.

Salary Range Builder automates that sequence for SOC 13-2011 and 800+ other occupations: pull the OEWS data for your state or metro, set your spread, generate a formatted, dated, methodology-documented range PDF in the output your state requires. You can explore the full feature set and try the platform free for 14 days — no credit card conversation, no onboarding call.

If you prefer to build ranges manually and want a structured framework to do it consistently, the Salary Range Builder Workbook is a single-purchase Excel template that walks through the BLS OEWS anchor → spread → band → documentation workflow for any occupation, including SOC 13-2011.

Either way: a documented accountant salary range, grounded in BLS data, is a 20-minute exercise when you have the right structure. The cost of a missing range — or an indefensible one — is measured in per-violation penalties and attorney time. The math is not close.

Start your 14-day free trial at Salary Range Builder and have your first compliant accountant posting range ready before Friday's deadline.