How to Become an Accountant

An accountant records, analyzes, and reports on financial information for a business, a nonprofit, or a government agency. The daily work covers reconciling accounts, preparing financial statements, filing taxes, building budgets, and flagging discrepancies before they become real problems. Some specialize in tax. Others focus on financial statements, internal controls, or advising management on where the money is actually going.

Don't confuse the role with a bookkeeper's. A bookkeeper records transactions day to day, often without a degree. An accountant analyzes those records, applies accounting standards, and signs off on what they mean, which is exactly why the pay and the education requirements sit higher. An auditor, meanwhile, is a specialized role within the field, someone who examines financial records, their own employer's or a client's, to verify they're accurate and comply with regulations and the law.

Two myths worth killing early. Not every accountant is a CPA. Plenty build full careers in corporate accounting, government, or industry without ever sitting for the exam. And not every accountant does taxes. Tax is one specialty inside a field that also includes audit, forensic accounting, management accounting, and financial reporting.

Becoming an accountant comes down to five concrete steps, and the order matters.

• 1. Earn a bachelor's degree in accounting. This is the entry-level education requirement for the field, full stop. Look for bachelor's in accounting programs with AACSB accreditation, since that accreditation carries weight with employers and with state boards down the line.
• 2. Decide whether you want the CPA. Not every accounting job requires it, but it's the single biggest lever for pay and advancement, especially in public accounting. Make the call before you finish your bachelor's, because it changes how many credit hours you need.
• 3. Meet a licensure pathway. States now recognize three: the traditional 150 semester hours, your bachelor's plus 30 more, often earned through a master's, plus 1 year of experience; a graduate degree in accounting plus 1 year of experience; or a newer option, approved by AICPA and NASBA in May 2025, that pairs a standard bachelor's, 120 hours, with 2 years of experience.
• 4. Pass the Uniform CPA Exam. Since the CPA Evolution model took effect in January 2024, every candidate sits for three core sections, Auditing and Attestation (AUD), Financial Accounting and Reporting (FAR), and Regulation (REG), plus one discipline section of their choosing: Business Analysis and Reporting (BAR), Information Systems and Controls (ISC), or Tax Compliance and Planning (TCP). Each section runs four hours.
• 5. Complete your qualifying experience. Most states require 1 to 2 years working under a licensed CPA before they'll grant the license, depending on which pathway you used.

Add it up, and a realistic timeline runs 4 to 6 years from the day you start your bachelor's to the day you're a licensed CPA: about 4 years for the degree, another year if you add the 30 hours through a master's, 1 to 2 years of supervised experience, and several months of exam study layered in along the way. Skip the CPA, and you can be working in the role right out of your bachelor's program.

A bachelor's degree in accounting or a closely related field is the floor for entry-level roles. That's what the BLS lists as the standard entry requirement. But if a CPA license is the goal, most states still ask for 150 semester hours of education, 30 hours more than a typical bachelor's degree. That gap is exactly why so many aspiring CPAs go on to a master's in accounting programs: a one-year master's fills the 150-hour requirement while deepening the technical coursework that shows up on the exam.

Accreditation matters more here than in most business fields, because state boards of accountancy check it directly. AACSB accreditation is the signal employers and boards trust most, and it usually means the coursework in financial accounting, audit, tax, and accounting information systems has been vetted against a real standard rather than assembled to fill a catalog. Whichever route you take, weight your course selection toward those four areas: they're the ones that show up, directly, in the CPA exam's core sections.

No, you don't need a CPA to work in this field. Plenty of staff, government, and private-sector roles hire bachelor's-only candidates and never ask for the license. But the CPA is the single biggest lever you have over your own pay and title. It's effectively required for partner-track roles in public accounting, and it's the credential hiring managers look for when they're filling senior and management positions.

The exam itself is standardized nationally, but licensure is not. Each state board of accountancy sets its own education and experience rules on top of the exam, which is why the three pathways matter: 150 semester hours plus 1 year of experience, a graduate degree in accounting plus 1 year of experience, or the newer 120-hour-plus-2-years option that AICPA and NASBA approved in May 2025. More than 30 states have passed or changed their licensure laws since Ohio moved first in January 2025, so the rule where you live may look different than it did even two years ago. Check with your state board, and confirm current requirements directly with AICPA and NASBA.

Bottom line: if you want public accounting, or you want to run the department someday, plan for the CPA from day one. If you want a solid corporate career and you're not chasing a partner or controller title, working as an accountant without the license can work just fine.

Median pay for this occupation is $81,680 a year, about $39.27 an hour, according to BLS wage data. The bottom 10 percent earn less than $52,780, while the top 10 percent clear more than $141,420, and that spread is mostly explained by the CPA license, years of experience, industry, and geography. For the full setting-by-setting and experience-by-experience breakdown, see the accountant salary page.

The job outlook is solid without being explosive. The BLS projects 5 percent employment growth from 2024 to 2034, faster than average, with about 124,200 openings projected per year over the decade, driven mostly by the need to replace people who retire or change careers. That's a lot of turnover in a field that isn't shrinking, which is a better setup than plenty of white-collar careers can claim right now.

This work rewards people who are detail-oriented and comfortable with structure. If you like closing out a task list, catching the one number that doesn't tie out, and working inside clear deadlines instead of ambiguous ones, the day-to-day will suit you. If you need constant novelty, or spreadsheets feel tedious after an hour, be honest with yourself before you commit four years and real tuition dollars to the degree.

The upside is real. Steady demand, 124,200 openings a year is nothing to dismiss, a clear ladder from staff to senior to manager to controller, and a CPA license that travels with you across employers and, with some extra paperwork, across state lines. The downside is real too. Public accounting runs brutal hours during tax season and audit deadlines, the CPA exam is a genuine grind, four exams, each four hours, stacked on top of a full-time job for most candidates, and some corners of the work, particularly routine bookkeeping-adjacent tasks, can feel repetitive year after year.

If the trade-offs still sound reasonable, the next concrete step is picking a program. Start with accredited accounting degree programs ranked by outcomes, not just name recognition, and decide early whether you're building toward the CPA, since that decision shapes which bachelor's and master's programs make sense for you.