Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerk Salary (2026), outlook and how to become one

Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks earn a median of $50,670 a year (BLS OEWS, May 2025), close to the $50,980 median for all US occupations. That works out at $24.36/hr. The middle half earn between $43,520 and $61,470. The top 10% earn $74,550 or more.

The median hourly wage for bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks is $24.36 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). On a full-year basis the $50,670 annual median works out to about $4,220 a month before tax.

BLS does not publish a starting salary. The nearest measure is the low end of the pay range: the lowest-paid 10% of bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks earn less than $36,000 a year and the bottom quarter less than $43,520 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). New workers often start near that end, but where a particular job starts depends on the employer, the state and the credentials you bring, so read these as the bottom of the range rather than a guaranteed entry wage.

Rarely. Even the 90th percentile is $74,550, so fewer than 10% of bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks earn $100,000 or more (BLS OEWS, May 2025). No state's median reaches $100,000; the highest is District of Columbia at $65,180.

The highest state medians for Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks are District of Columbia ($65,180), Connecticut ($59,970), Massachusetts ($59,830) (BLS OEWS, May 2025).

BLS does not split bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks' pay by specialty or employer, but its range shows how far the top end runs: the highest-paid 10% earn more than $74,550, against a median of $50,670 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). Location moves pay the most in the published data: the best-paying states are District of Columbia ($65,180), Connecticut ($59,970), Massachusetts ($59,830). BLS also counts a specialty career inside this occupation (royalty analyst), which shares its federal pay figures.

Not necessarily. BLS lists "some college, no degree" as the typical entry-level education for Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks. BLS also lists moderate-term on-the-job training as typical on-the-job training. In O*NET's survey of people already doing the job, 40.9% hold high school diploma or the equivalent (such as a ged).

No. BLS projects employment to fall 5.6% over 2025–2035, a loss of 85,600 jobs (BLS EP, 2025–2035). BLS still projects about 144,100 openings a year, mostly from workers retiring or moving to other work.

Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks compute, classify, and record data to help organizations keep complete and accurate financial records. A core O*NET task: operate computers programmed with accounting software to record, store, and analyze information. Employers most often ask for Accounting software, Data base user interface and query software, Document management software.

Yes, for most. In O*NET's survey of people in the job, 15% of bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks usually work more than 40 hours a week, 68% work exactly 40 and 17% work fewer. 100% say their schedule is regular and 0% irregular. Source: O*NET 31.0 Database, Work Context.

O*NET scores Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks highest on the Conventional interest area, which means organising, following procedures and working precisely with data. On NueCareer's MBTI-to-interest mapping the closest types are ISTJ, ESTJ, ISFJ. Personality is a fit signal, not a gate. The free NueCareer quiz scores your own profile against all 1,731 careers in the bank.

No required programme. Clerks are trained after they are hired. The delay, where there is one, is experience rather than schooling: AIPB wants 2 years of full-time or 3,000 hours of part-time bookkeeping work, and NACPB wants one year (2,000 hours) under a qualified supervisor. Employers generally prefer some college accounting coursework, which is a matter of a few courses rather than a degree.

Not a state license. No state licenses this occupation, and there is no state board, no reciprocity question and no scope-of-practice statute to check. The only thing that reliably confuses people is vocabulary: NACPB issues what it calls a Certified Public Bookkeeper "license", renewable annually and expiring on 31 December, but it is a private credential from a membership association rather than a government licence, and losing it does not stop you working. AIPB is explicit that its Certified Bookkeeper designation is a voluntary certification.

The CB exam (AIPB Certified Bookkeeper Examination) and the CPB exam (NACPB Certified Public Bookkeeper Licence Examination). A four-part national examination covering adjusting entries, error correction, payroll, depreciation, inventory, and internal controls and fraud prevention. The passing grade is 75 percent on each part. Passing alone does not confer the designation: the experience evidence and the signed Code of Ethics are separate requirements.

Women make up 82.7% of bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks, against 47.1% of all employed people: a female-dominated occupation. 40.0% are 55 or older (23.2% across all jobs), so a larger-than-usual share of the workforce reaches retirement age over the next decade. Those exits are counted in the BLS openings figure. The median worker is 49.8 years old (all workers: 42.1). Source: BLS Current Population Survey, 2025 annual averages.