CA Salary in India 2027: Fresher, Per Month, Big 4 | BootcampGuide

By Deepak Sharma, Marketing Manager at BootcampGuide and Content Lead at TestMu AI. B2B SaaS content strategist, certified in Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, Appium, Automation Testing and KaneAI. Published 2026-11-13. 13 min read. Human edited.

Topics: CA, Salary, Finance and Accounting, India, Original Research

By Deepak Sharma, BootcampGuide. Every salary figure below was read from the source's own page on 13 November 2026, with the sample size and update date it shows. ICAI's campus placement figures come from ICAI's placement websites; where a figure is only available from a news report, we say so. We quote each source separately and do not blend them. Take-home pay is our own arithmetic under the new tax regime for FY 2026-27, with the assumptions shown. See sources.

The average salary of a newly qualified CA in India is ₹13.30 lakh a year, according to ICAI's latest published campus placement (April to May 2026), where 2,570 candidates got offers and the highest domestic package was ₹27.50 lakh. That works out to about ₹97,000 a month in hand. Across all CAs, PayScale puts the median base salary at ₹13.96 lakh (1,765 profiles), rising from ₹8.86 lakh in the first year to ₹15.37 lakh at five to nine years and ₹26.47 lakh at ten to nineteen years.

The headline "highest CA salary" figures you see in news reports are real but rare. The highest domestic offer at ICAI's December 2025 to January 2026 campus was ₹32.33 lakh. Most CAs who do not go through campus placement start lower, at ₹6 lakh to ₹10 lakh, depending on the firm and city.

Key takeaway: a CA fresher's salary is set mostly by where you start: a campus offer from a bank, consulting firm or large company pays ₹12 lakh to ₹14 lakh on average, while a small CA firm may pay half that. After that, your role decides your pay: finance controllers earn a median of ₹25 lakh and CFOs about ₹45 lakh.

CA salary in India at a glance

In-hand figures are our estimates for that CTC; see the monthly pay section for the method.

ICAI campus placement: CA fresher salary by year

ICAI runs campus placement programmes for newly qualified CAs after each exam result, at about 29 centres. They are the best single measure of CA fresher pay, because they cover thousands of offers in one season. These are the most recent programmes:

The 63rd and 64th figures are from ICAI's own placement pages. The 57th, 60th and 62nd figures are from news reports of ICAI's announcements, because ICAI's older placement pages are no longer online. Results of the 65th programme (August to September 2026) had not been published on 13 November 2026.

Three things stand out. The average has barely moved, from ₹12.45 lakh in 2023 to ₹13.30 lakh in 2026, so many CA salary pages that quote a ₹7 lakh to ₹8 lakh "average" are well out of date on the low side. The highest package swings from drive to drive, so do not plan around it. And the campus figures describe only the CAs who took part and got an offer: ICAI said in April 2026 that the 64th drive had 8,911 vacancies for 5,834 participating CAs, but only 2,570 received offers.

Banking and financial services was the largest recruiting sector at the December 2025 to January 2026 drive, followed by consulting, IT services and consulting, other financial services, infrastructure and energy conglomerates, and audit firms, according to ICAI's placement page.

CA fresher salary in India

Outside campus placement, CA freshers' pay varies more. PayScale's figures for CAs in their first year:

• ₹8,86,272 median base on PayScale's CA certification page (88 profiles), with the 10th to 90th percentile running from ₹4.9 lakh to ₹11.7 lakh.
• ₹7,30,413 median total pay on PayScale's "Chartered Accountant" job title page (259 salaries), which counts people working with that job title, often in practice or small firms.

Put together with the campus data, a realistic range for a CA fresher in 2026 is about ₹7 lakh to ₹14 lakh, with campus offers from banks, consulting firms and large companies at the top and small and mid-size CA firms at the bottom. Business Standard's April 2026 explainer gives a similar ₹6 lakh to ₹13 lakh range for entry-level CAs.

Big 4 CA salary

Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC are among the largest recruiters of CA freshers, but none of them publishes pay, and no reliable source reports their fresher packages. The firm-level data that exists has small samples:

Number of profiles in brackets. Both sources cover CAs at all levels of experience, not freshers only. Levels.fyi includes bonus and covers all accounting roles, not only CAs.

Many unsourced figures for Big 4 fresher pay circulate online. Our reading of the available data is that Big 4 audit and tax roles pay CA freshers broadly in line with the campus average, and that the Big 4's advisory, transaction and valuation teams pay more. The bigger advantage of a Big 4 start is the jump in the second job: CAs who move from a Big 4 audit team to industry after two or three years typically see their largest pay rise there.

CA salary by experience

Source: PayScale, Chartered Accountant (CA) certification page for India, updated 10 July 2026, 1,765 people reporting.

CA salary after 5 years

At five to nine years, the median CA earns about ₹15.4 lakh in base pay, and the top tenth earn ₹29 lakh or more. This is where career paths split. CAs who move into finance manager and controller roles in companies pull ahead of those who stay in audit practice: PayScale's median for CAs working in a company is ₹15.5 lakh, against ₹11.1 lakh for those in a private practice or firm.

CA salary after 10 years

From ten years on, the median rises to ₹26.5 lakh, and the top tenth earn about ₹48.5 lakh. By twenty years the median is ₹48.6 lakh, with the top tenth at about ₹97 lakh, which is where CFO and partner roles sit.

CA salary per month: what you actually take home

Most CA salary pages divide the annual package by 12. The amount that reaches your bank account is lower, after provident fund, income tax and professional tax. Under the new tax regime, anyone with taxable income up to ₹12 lakh pays no income tax, so the ICAI campus average of ₹13.30 lakh is still tax-free after the standard deduction and provident fund.

Our arithmetic. Assumes basic pay is 50% of CTC, employer and employee provident fund are each 12% of basic, professional tax of ₹2,500 a year, and the new tax regime: slabs from ₹4 lakh, ₹75,000 standard deduction, no tax up to ₹12 lakh of taxable income, and 4% cess. Budget 2026 left these slabs unchanged for FY 2026-27. If your employer caps PF at ₹1,800 a month, your in-hand pay is higher; a variable bonus paid once a year makes the monthly figure lower.

CA salary by job role

After the first few years, your job title predicts your pay better than your qualification. PayScale's CA certification page shows the median base for CAs in each role:

For comparison, PayScale's pages for these titles across all holders, CA or not, show lower medians: ₹13.1 lakh for a finance manager, ₹19.6 lakh for a financial controller, ₹20 lakh for a tax manager and ₹38.7 lakh for a CFO. In each role, the CAs in PayScale's data earn more than the role's overall median.

CA in practice vs a job

There is no reliable public data on what practising CAs earn, because a practice's income depends on its clients, partners and city, and is not reported to salary sites. PayScale's small sample of self-employed CAs (13 people) has a median of about ₹9.8 lakh. A practice is usually a slower start and a higher ceiling: established practitioners with audit, tax and advisory clients can earn well above salaried CAs, but the first few years often pay less than a campus job.

CA salary by city

Source: PayScale, CA certification page. Medians cover CAs at every level of experience in each city.

Mumbai has by far the most CAs in PayScale's data, as the base of most banks, financial services firms and large company head offices. Delhi NCR and Bengaluru pay higher medians, helped by consulting firms and global capability centres. Smaller cities pay less in salary but cost less to live in, which often evens out the difference.

Highest salary of a CA in India

The highest campus offers for newly qualified CAs in the last two years were ₹32.33 lakh (December 2025 to January 2026) and ₹27.50 lakh (April to May 2026). ICAI's April 2026 letter to a newspaper also referred to domestic packages "beyond ₹36 lakh" and international offers "exceeding ₹50 lakh", without naming the programme.

Later in a career, the top tenth of CAs with 20 or more years of experience earn about ₹97 lakh a year in base pay on PayScale's data, and CFOs of large listed companies, whose pay is disclosed in annual reports, often earn several crores including bonus and stock. So yes, a CA can earn ₹1 crore a year, but that is a CFO or senior partner's pay after two decades, not a typical outcome.

CA salary abroad

The Indian CA is respected abroad, especially in the Gulf, where many Indian CAs work in finance and audit, and ICAI has chapters in many countries. But overseas pay depends on the local market, your visa and whether you hold a local licence, so the CA alone does not set a figure. Many CAs who plan to work in the UK, Europe or with multinationals add ACCA, which grants a qualified CA exemptions from nine of its thirteen papers; our ACCA fees guide prices that route.

CA salary vs CFA, CMA and ACCA

On published data, CA freshers out-earn CMA freshers slightly and CFA holders early in their careers, but the comparison is rough: the CA and CMA figures are campus averages for newly qualified people, while the CFA figures cover everyone who lists the qualification. The CFA salary in India guide explains why CFA figures range from ₹6 lakh to ₹66 lakh.

Is CA worth it for the salary?

ICAI charges ₹84,500 for the whole CA course, and with coaching most students spend about ₹1.7 lakh to ₹2.8 lakh in all, as our CA course fees guide works out. The two-year articleship pays a stipend that covers part of that. Against the ₹13.30 lakh campus average, the money is recovered within the first year of work.

The real cost of CA is time and the pass rate. The course takes four to five years after Class 12 at best, and many students take longer. If you clear it, the data says your pay roughly doubles between your first job and ten years in, and the route to finance controller and CFO roles opens up. If you are choosing coaching, see our guide to the best CA coaching in India, or compare CA coaching by level, mode and city.

How to increase your salary as a CA

• Use campus placement. ICAI's drives give you access to banks, consulting firms and large companies that rarely hire freshers any other way, at an average above ₹13 lakh.
• Move from audit to industry after two or three years. PayScale's data shows CAs in companies earning about 40% more than those in practice or firms.
• Build skills that pay. On PayScale's CA job page, financial analysis and financial reporting skills carry higher medians than tax compliance or SAP FICO.
• Add a second qualification only if it fits your goal: CFA for investment roles, ACCA for international accounting.

Sources and how we checked

1. ICAI Placement Directorate, 65th campus brochure, with 64th programme highlights, read 13 November 2026.
2. ICAI Committee for Career Counselling, campus placement page (63rd programme highest salary and top sectors).
3. TaxGuru, ICAI's letter of 27 April 2026 on CA salary data.
4. Taxscan, 62nd campus placement, 60th campus placement and earlier programmes.
5. Business Standard, ICAI declares 65th placement drive, 27 July 2026, and CA salary explainer, 20 April 2026.
6. PayScale, Chartered Accountant (CA) certification salary in India, updated 10 July 2026, 1,765 people reporting.
7. PayScale, Chartered Accountant job salary in India, updated 20 September 2026, 421 profiles.
8. PayScale India job pages: finance manager, financial controller, CFO, tax manager.
9. Levels.fyi, accounting salaries in India at Deloitte, EY and PwC.
10. ICAI articleship stipend: ICAI prospectus and the June 2026 draft amendment.
11. Moneylife, Budget 2026-27: no change in income-tax slabs; slabs from the Income Tax Department.
12. Not used: AmbitionBox, Glassdoor and Naukri block automated reading, and Indeed India has no CA-specific salary page (it redirects to "accountant"), so we did not quote them.