California had 108,447 licensed CPAs on June 30, 2025, according to the California Board of Accountancy: 66,662 in active status, 21,221 inactive, 14,949 delinquent and 5,615 retired. The Board’s licensee page, last updated in January 2026, shows 69,929 active, which is about one in ten of the 650,667 actively licensed CPAs that NASBA counts nationally. The Board registers 4,275 accountancy corporations and 1,257 accountancy partnerships; a sole proprietor does not have to register as a firm, so the Census Bureau’s count is the better guide to the number of practices. County Business Patterns counts 7,542 offices of CPAs with paid employees in California in 2023, with 70,116 employees and $7.57 billion of annual payroll, and 5,189 of those offices, 68.8%, had fewer than five employees. Nonemployer Statistics adds 3,969 CPA offices with no employees at all in 2024. Los Angeles County holds 2,526 of the employer offices, one in three. A quarter of the state’s active and inactive CPAs are 60 or older. Ownership is fixed by Business and Professions Code 5079: licensees must make up the majority of the owners and hold more than half the equity and the majority of the votes, and a nonlicensee owner must be a person who works in the firm. That is why private equity investment in California firms usually takes the form of an alternative practice structure, in which investors own the non-attest business and CPAs keep the attest firm.
Everything below is taken from the Board’s November 2025 report on long-term licensing data and its licensee page, the Census Bureau’s 2023 County Business Patterns and 2024 Nonemployer Statistics files (the latest each program has published), the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ May 2025 occupational wage estimates, the 2026 INSIDE Public Accounting 500 ranking, and the statutes, each read October 21, 2026 and linked at the end. The renewal rules behind the licensee counts are in California CPA license renewal, the tax-only side in CTEC registration and renewal, and what a practice is worth in how much CPA firms sell for.
- 01Licensees: 108,447 California CPAs on June 30, 2025, of whom 66,662 (61%) were active. About 14% of active licensees reside outside California, and 54% of active licenses carry attest authority.
- 02Registered firms: 4,275 accountancy corporations and 1,257 partnerships on June 30, 2025, about 15% of them headquartered out of state. The number has fallen nearly 2% since 2022-23. Sole proprietors are not required to register.
- 03Offices: 7,542 offices of CPAs with paid employees in 2023, employing 70,116 people at $7.57 billion of payroll; 86.3% have fewer than ten employees. Another 3,969 had no employees in 2024. Tax preparation services add 3,958 employer offices and 14,543 without employees.
- 04Where: Los Angeles County 2,526 employer offices (33.5%), Orange 970, San Diego 664, Santa Clara 363. San Francisco’s 225 offices average 40 employees each, the most of any county.
- 05Owners: under BPC 5079 licensees hold the majority of owners, equity and votes, and nonlicensee owners must be natural persons who work in the firm. Private equity invests through alternative practice structures; CFO Brew counted about 24 of the top 100 US firms with PE owners in April 2026.
How many CPAs are there in California?
The Board of Accountancy reports its licensee population each November, by status, as of June 30. Active status is the one that allows a CPA to practice public accountancy. A delinquent license has expired and is cancelled by operation of law after five years. Inactive and retired are statuses a licensee elects; what each allows is in the renewal article.
| Status, June 30 | 2021-22 | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | 2024-25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active | 65,968 | 65,123 | 61,035 | 66,662 |
| Inactive | 22,540 | 22,048 | 24,012 | 21,221 |
| Delinquent | 13,015 | 14,213 | 15,438 | 14,949 |
| Retired | 3,853 | 4,406 | 4,906 | 5,615 |
California Board of Accountancy, Report on Long-Term Licensing Data Trends, Table 3 (November 20-21, 2025 meeting). The four statuses sum to the Board’s total CPA population of 108,447 for 2024-25.
The population has grown from 91,530 in 2014-15 to 108,447 in 2024-25, with a 3% rise in the last year, when the Board approved 3,774 new CPA licenses: 2,995 to people licensed for the first time anywhere and 779 to people previously licensed in another state, in California before a cancellation, or upgrading from general to attest authority. About 14% of active licensees reside outside California and 2% outside the United States, and 54% of active licenses carry the authority to sign attest reports, against 46% with general authority. The Board’s licensee page, last updated January 8, 2026, shows 69,929 active CPAs and 41,655 not active, a category that combines inactive, delinquent and retired.
Nationally, NASBA’s Accountancy Licensee Database counted 650,667 actively licensed CPAs on August 27, 2026, from 53 of the 55 licensing jurisdictions (Hawaii and New Mexico are missing). California’s active count is about 10% of that.
How many CPA firms are there in California?
There are three official counts, and they measure different things. The Board counts the firms it registers, which are accountancy corporations and partnerships. A CPA practicing alone under his or her own name is not required to register as a firm, so the Board’s firm count leaves out every sole practitioner. The Census Bureau counts establishments, meaning physical offices, classified by industry from its surveys and from tax records. County Business Patterns covers offices with paid employees; Nonemployer Statistics covers businesses with no payroll and at least $1,000 of receipts. The Census definition of an office of CPAs (NAICS 541211) is an establishment of accountants certified to audit and attest, which may also prepare taxes and payroll. Tax preparation services (NAICS 541213) are establishments other than CPA offices that prepare returns without also providing accounting, bookkeeping or payroll.
CPA and tax offices by county
Pick a county and an industry. The figures are the Census Bureau’s, for California and its thirteen counties with the most CPA offices, unchanged except for rounding.
Offices with paid employees
Share with fewer than five employees
Employees, mid-March
Annual payroll
Offices with employees, employment in the pay period including March 12, annual payroll and the size classes are from the Census Bureau’s 2023 County Business Patterns; offices with no employees are from its 2024 Nonemployer Statistics; both are the latest each program had published on October 21, 2026. An office is a physical location, so a firm with five offices counts five times. Employment and payroll carry noise the Bureau adds to protect confidentiality, under 2% for most of the cells shown. For tax preparers, mid-March falls inside the filing season, which raises the employee count against the annual payroll.
Set side by side, the counts look like this.
| Count | Source and date | Number | What it covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Registered accountancy corporations and partnerships | Board of Accountancy, June 30, 2025 | 5,532 (4,275 corporations, 1,257 partnerships) | Active and delinquent registrations; about 15% headquartered outside California; corporations are 77% of the total |
| Accounting firms on the Board’s licensee page | Board of Accountancy, page updated January 8, 2026 | 6,535, plus 1,193 fictitious name registrations | The figure on the Board’s licensee page; the Board does not explain how it relates to the June figure |
| Offices of CPAs with paid employees | Census County Business Patterns, 2023 | 7,542 | Physical offices in NAICS 541211, including sole proprietors with staff and every office of a multi-office firm |
| Offices of CPAs with no paid employees | Census Nonemployer Statistics, 2024 | 3,969, average receipts about $94,100 | Businesses filed in NAICS 541211 with no payroll and receipts of $1,000 or more |
| Tax preparation services | Census, 2023 and 2024 | 3,958 with employees; 14,543 without | NAICS 541213: return preparers that are not CPA offices; average receipts of those without employees about $40,800 |
The registered firm count peaked at 6,247 in 2017-18 (4,665 corporations and 1,582 partnerships) and stood at 5,532 in 2024-25. The Board approved 267 new corporations and 65 new partnerships in 2024-25, and the total still fell, from 5,640 in 2022-23.
Legal form tells the same story from the Census side. Of the 7,542 employer offices, 3,988 (52.9%) are S corporations averaging 3.9 employees each, 1,257 (16.7%) are sole proprietorships with 2,847 employees between them, and 1,096 are C corporations. The 1,200 partnerships, 15.9% of the offices, employ 43,288 people, 61.7% of all CPA-office employment, and pay 71.2% of the payroll. Employment sits in the partnerships; the typical office is a small S corporation.
How big is a typical California CPA firm?
The average office of CPAs with employees in California has 9.3 people, and 68.8% have fewer than five.
| Employees per office | Offices | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Fewer than 5 | 5,189 | 68.8% |
| 5 to 9 | 1,321 | 17.5% |
| 10 to 19 | 585 | 7.8% |
| 20 to 49 | 256 | 3.4% |
| 50 to 99 | 102 | 1.4% |
| 100 to 249 | 62 | 0.8% |
| 250 to 499 | 12 | 0.2% |
| 500 to 999 | 8 | 0.1% |
| 1,000 or more | 7 | 0.1% |
Offices of CPAs (NAICS 541211) in California with paid employees, by employment in the pay period including March 12, 2023. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns.
Six offices in seven have fewer than ten employees. Counting the 3,969 offices with no employees in 2024 alongside the 2023 employer offices, about four in five California CPA offices have fewer than five employees, and the nonemployer offices report average receipts of about $94,100 a year. Employment runs the other way. The 5,189 offices with fewer than five employees employ 8,559 people, 12.2% of the total, while the 89 offices with 100 or more employ 30,182, 43.0%. Average annual payroll per employee across all employer offices is $107,945.
Where are California’s CPA firms? Los Angeles and the large counties
Four counties hold 60% of the state’s CPA offices with employees: Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego and Santa Clara. The table lists the thirteen counties with the most offices.
| County | Offices with employees | Share of state | Employees | Fewer than 5 employees | Payroll per employee | Offices with no employees (2024) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles | 2,526 | 33.5% | 21,182 | 72.7% | $108,680 | 1,180 |
| Orange | 970 | 12.9% | 8,675 | 72.7% | $106,024 | 528 |
| San Diego | 664 | 8.8% | 5,708 | 69.1% | $100,962 | 373 |
| Santa Clara | 363 | 4.8% | 7,360 | 61.4% | $132,534 | 161 |
| Riverside | 243 | 3.2% | 1,098 | 66.7% | $56,120 | 147 |
| Contra Costa | 239 | 3.2% | 2,384 | 65.3% | $106,043 | 159 |
| San Francisco | 225 | 3.0% | 9,043 | 58.2% | $147,014 | 80 |
| Sacramento | 217 | 2.9% | 1,838 | 64.1% | $85,009 | 124 |
| Ventura | 205 | 2.7% | 983 | 71.2% | $83,270 | 137 |
| Alameda | 193 | 2.6% | 1,023 | 67.9% | $84,844 | 144 |
| Fresno | 185 | 2.5% | 1,151 | 64.3% | $76,399 | 51 |
| San Bernardino | 183 | 2.4% | 1,171 | 66.7% | $68,198 | 107 |
| San Mateo | 158 | 2.1% | 1,062 | 63.9% | $108,725 | 90 |
Offices of CPAs (NAICS 541211). County Business Patterns 2023 except the last column, Nonemployer Statistics 2024. Payroll per employee is annual payroll divided by mid-March employment.
Los Angeles County. The county has 2,526 offices of CPAs with employees, 21,182 employees and $2.30 billion of annual payroll, plus 1,180 CPA offices with no employees. Its offices are smaller than the state average, 8.4 employees each. Tax preparation is a second, larger population of small businesses: 1,111 tax preparation offices with employees and 4,492 without. Someone looking for an accounting firm in Los Angeles is choosing mostly among small practices, since 72.7% of the county’s CPA offices have fewer than five employees, while at least 20 have 100 or more.
San Francisco and Santa Clara. These two counties have the largest offices. San Francisco has only 225 CPA offices but 9,043 employees, 40.2 per office, and the highest payroll per employee in the state, $147,014. Santa Clara has 20.3 employees per office and $132,534 per employee. Inland, Riverside offices average 4.5 employees and $56,120 per employee, and San Bernardino 6.4 and $68,198. The Bureau places each office by its physical address and assigns its industry from its own surveys and from tax records, so a county count reflects where offices are and how they filed.
How many accountants work in California, and what are they paid?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts jobs by occupation in every industry, which makes its figures a different measure from the Census office counts. An accountant employed by a manufacturer is in the BLS count and not in the CPA-office count. The May 2025 estimates, released May 15, 2026, are the latest.
| Area, May 2025 | Accountants and auditors (SOC 13-2011) | Annual mean wage | Annual median wage |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 1,449,500 | $94,750 | $83,680 |
| California | 175,360 | $103,760 | $97,050 |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metro area | 70,640 | $99,740 | $94,360 |
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025.
The Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metro area holds 40.3% of the state’s accountant and auditor jobs. California also counts 10,270 tax preparers (SOC 13-2082), with a median wage of $70,030, of whom 3,250 work in the Los Angeles metro area. The median California accountant earns 16% more than the national median. Pay for the senior people in a practice, the ones who sign or review returns, runs well above these medians; the 2026 range for a Los Angeles tax manager and what it means for a sale are in what happens to your staff when you sell.
Which are the largest CPA firms headquartered in California?
INSIDE Public Accounting ranks US firms each August by net revenue, self-reported in its practice management survey. In the 2026 IPA 500, 50 firms give a California headquarters, eleven of them in the top 100.
| IPA 2026 rank | Firm | Headquarters | Net revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17 | Andersen | San Francisco | $838.7 million |
| 21 | Armanino Advisory LLC | San Ramon | $699.7 million |
| 29 | Holthouse Carlin & Van Trigt LLP | Los Angeles | $291.7 million |
| 32 | BPM LLP | San Francisco | $255.2 million |
| 33 | Novogradac & Company LLP | San Francisco | $254.7 million |
| 37 | Frank Rimerman + Co. LLP | San Jose | $238.4 million |
| 65 | SingerLewak LLP | Los Angeles | $111.8 million |
| 76 | Sensiba LLP | San Jose | $92.9 million |
| 84 | Gursey Schneider LLP | Los Angeles | $81.2 million |
| 88 | Miller Kaplan | Burbank | $75.0 million |
| 95 | GHJ | Los Angeles | $70.3 million |
INSIDE Public Accounting, The 2026 IPA 500, read October 21, 2026. Firms headquartered elsewhere, including the four largest and the national firms with large California offices, are ranked under their headquarters city and are not in this list.
The next California firms in the ranking are Windes of Long Beach (106, $56.5 million) and Hutchinson & Bloodgood of Glendale (119, $49.0 million). The IPA ranking stops at about $6 million of net revenue; the Census tables above cover everyone else, 7,542 employer offices, most of them under five people. The ranking does not show who owns the firms.
Who owns California CPA firms? The licensee-majority rule and private equity
Business and Professions Code 5079 lets a California CPA firm have owners who are not licensed, within limits. Licensees must make up a majority of the owners (a two-owner firm may have one nonlicensee) and must hold more than half the equity capital and the majority of the voting rights. A nonlicensee owner must be a natural person, or an entity whose every ultimate beneficial owner is a natural person, who materially participates in the firm, meaning activity that is regular, continuous and substantial; the interest reverts to the firm when participation stops. A CPA must have ultimate responsibility for every attest and compilation engagement, nonlicensee owners may not hold themselves out as CPAs, and a person convicted of a crime involving dishonesty or fraud may not be one without the Board’s permission. For accountancy corporations, section 5154 requires every director, shareholder and officer to be licensed, subject to the same section 5079 exception.
| Owner | California CPA firm (the attest firm) | Non-attest company in an alternative practice structure |
|---|---|---|
| CPA licensed in California or in good standing in another state | Yes; licensees together hold the majority of owners, more than half the equity and the majority of votes | Yes |
| Nonlicensee who works in the firm | Yes, as a minority owner who materially participates; the interest reverts when participation stops | Yes |
| Passive investor, including a private equity fund | No; every ultimate beneficial owner must be a natural person who materially participates | Yes; this is where outside capital goes |
Private equity reaches California firms through an alternative practice structure, or APS. The Board’s staff described the model in a September 2025 agenda item: the attest firm keeps CPA ownership and performs audit and assurance work, a separate non-attest entity provides tax, consulting, management and advisory services and may be owned by CPAs, the attest firm’s partners and private equity, and the two are bound by an administrative services agreement under which the non-attest entity supplies staff, technology, marketing and office administration. California does not define an APS in its own law; it requires compliance with applicable professional standards under 16 CCR 58, and the Board holds that the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct is one of them. The Board’s executive officer sits on NASBA’s Private Equity Task Force, whose October 2025 white paper notes that at least 44 jurisdictions require nonlicensee owners to be individuals actively engaged in the firm and that Hawaii and the Northern Mariana Islands require 100% CPA ownership. The AICPA’s ethics committee agreed at its August 2026 meeting to continue work on a second exposure draft on these structures, expected for public comment later in 2026.
Nationally, CFO Brew reported in April 2026 that private equity funds have taken ownership of around 24 of the top 100 US CPA firms since 2021, including at least 10 of the top 30. Among California-headquartered firms, Armanino took a minority investment from Further Global Capital Management in October 2024 and split into Armanino LLP, a licensed CPA firm wholly owned by individual CPAs, and Armanino Advisory LLC, which performs the non-attest work; the IPA ranks the advisory entity. Sensiba described itself as independent and partner-owned in its August 2026 announcement of its IPA ranking. For any other firm, the place to look is the foot of its website; the Board’s staff noted in 2025 that APS firms typically disclose the structure there, often in small print.
How old are California’s CPAs?
The Board publishes the age of its active and inactive licensees, 88,565 people in the 2025 report. The median age is 48.
| Age | Active and inactive CPAs | Share |
|---|---|---|
| 20 to 29 | 5,267 | 6% |
| 30 to 39 | 21,138 | 24% |
| 40 to 49 | 21,578 | 24% |
| 50 to 59 | 17,826 | 20% |
| 60 to 69 | 14,931 | 18% |
| 70 to 79 | 6,469 | 7% |
| 80 to 89 | 1,270 | 1% |
| 90 to 99 | 86 | Under 1% |
California Board of Accountancy, Report on Long-Term Licensing Data Trends, Table 6 (November 2025). Shares as published, rounded.
22,756 active and inactive CPAs, 25.7%, are 60 or older, and 7,825 are 70 or older. Retired status rose 14% in a year, to 5,615. The inflow is smaller and uneven. California had 3,444 first-time CPA exam takers in 2024, down 42% from 5,982 in 2023, a jump the Board attributes to candidates testing before the new exam launched in January 2024; 2,063 California candidates passed in 2024. First-time exam applications received fell 7% in 2024-25, and the Board’s report says licensure applications may decline in the coming years as a result. The same report cites the AICPA’s 2025 trends report: accounting enrollments rose 12% in 2024, which may lift exam numbers later.
What the numbers mean if you own a California practice
Most California practices look like the median office in the Census tables: fewer than five employees, organized as an S corporation or a sole proprietorship, and registered with the Board as a firm only if it is a corporation or a partnership. Three figures above bear on what happens to such a practice when its owner steps back. 37% of the state’s active and inactive CPAs, 32,757 people, are between 50 and 69, and 22,756 are 60 or older, against 3,774 new licenses issued in 2024-25. The large firms are partnerships or APS platforms, and a platform acquires through its non-attest company, so a sale of a tax and accounting practice to a platform is usually a sale to that company, while any attest work has to stay with a CPA-owned firm. And the price of a small practice is set by its fees and by how many clients stay after the sale, which how much CPA firms sell for and the practice valuation calculator work through.
Wilshire Intelligence Network buys established CPA and tax practices across California and pairs each one with a practicing CPA who becomes its owner. The firm keeps its name, its office and its people. The steps of a sale, from the first call to the client notice, are in how to sell a CPA practice.
Sources
- California Board of Accountancy, Report on Long-Term Licensing Data Trends and the AICPA’s 2025 Trends Report, CBA Item 5.F., November 20-21, 2025: CPA population, status table, attest and general shares, firm population, new licensees, exam data, age table. CBA Licensees page, last updated January 8, 2026: licensee counts by type. Read October 21, 2026.
- California Board of Accountancy, Discussion and Possible Action Regarding Alternative Practice Structures, CPC Item 6, September 18-19, 2025. NASBA, Alternative Practice Structures and Private Equity white paper, October 24, 2025. AICPA, Alternative Practice Structures (PEEC August 2026 status). Hunton Andrews Kurth, Forming an Accounting Firm Alternative Practice Structure (February 27, 2024): the attest business stays with the CPA firm, including in later tuck-in acquisitions. Read October 21, 2026.
- Business and Professions Code 5079 (nonlicensee owners, as amended by AB 474, operative January 1, 2023) and 5154 (accountancy corporations). Read October 21, 2026.
- U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023 datasets (state, county and US files) and CBP methodology (establishments, March 12 employment, legal form, noise flags); Nonemployer Statistics 2024 datasets and About the Nonemployer Statistics Program; 2017 NAICS definitions of 541211 and 541213. Downloaded and read October 21, 2026.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (released May 15, 2026), series for SOC 13-2011 and 13-2082, United States, California and the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metropolitan area, retrieved through the BLS public data API October 21, 2026.
- NASBA, How Many CPAs Are There? (650,667 as of August 27, 2026). INSIDE Public Accounting, The 2026 IPA 500 and Armanino Latest Firm to Take PE Deal, but a Minority Investment (October 21, 2024). CFO Brew, Accounting enters its private equity ‘flip’ era (April 30, 2026). Sensiba, Sensiba Named 2026 Top 100 Firm by Inside Public Accounting (August 12, 2026). Read October 21, 2026.
This article is general information for California practice owners and is not legal, tax or investment advice. Counts are as published by each source on the dates given and will change; check the Board’s licensee lookup for any individual license and the governing documents of any firm for its ownership.
Denis is a practicing tax and accounting professional and the principal of VistaTax, a practice serving individuals and closely held businesses: individual and business tax preparation, tax planning, bookkeeping, financial reporting and payroll. As WIN’s founding CPA he anchors the licensed side of the structure and sits at the table for every transition. More about WIN’s team.