If you’ve tried to hire an experienced CPA in the last year or two, you already know something is different. Searches that used to take six weeks are now stretching to three or four months. Qualified candidates are fielding multiple offers. And the pool of experienced tax professionals actively looking for new roles feels smaller than it’s ever been.
That’s not just your firm’s experience. It’s the market.
The CPA shortage is real, it’s structural, and it’s not going away anytime soon. If your firm is planning to hire accounting or tax talent in 2026, understanding what’s driving the shortage — and adapting your hiring strategy accordingly — isn’t optional anymore. It’s a competitive necessity.
How Bad Is the CPA Shortage, Really?
The numbers tell a clear story.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects more than 120,000 accounting and auditing job openings every year. Meanwhile, according to the AICPA 2025 Trends Report, only around 55,000 accounting degrees are awarded annually — and not all of those graduates enter the profession or pursue CPA licensure.
The gap between supply and demand has been widening for years, but several converging forces are making 2026 especially challenging:
The retirement wave isn’t slowing down. Approximately 75% of current AICPA members reached retirement age by 2020. As experienced CPAs exit the workforce, they take decades of institutional knowledge with them — and there simply aren’t enough professionals coming up behind them to fill the gap.
The talent pipeline is shrinking. The number of candidates sitting for the CPA exam has declined by more than 30% since 2016, hitting its lowest level since 2006 in recent years. Accounting degree completions have also fallen roughly 20% since 2014. Fewer students entering the field today means fewer experienced professionals available five and ten years from now.
Tax talent is the hardest to find. Research published in The CPA Journal found that the decline in new accounting hires is concentrated almost entirely in tax and advisory services — not audit. If your firm is hiring for tax roles specifically, you’re competing in the tightest segment of an already constrained market.
Experienced professionals have options. CPAs with five or more years of experience are increasingly leaving traditional public accounting for private industry, wealth management, and boutique advisory firms — or going out on their own. The firms that can offer something beyond a traditional public accounting path are winning the talent competition.
The result: CPA roles now take an average of 73 days to fill nationally — 41% longer than comparable roles without the credential. And that number is expected to increase 5–8% year over year through at least 2026.
What This Means for Your Firm’s Hiring Strategy
The firms that will successfully hire in this environment are the ones that stop treating this like a temporary disruption and start treating it like the structural reality it is. Here’s what that looks like in practice.
Start Hiring Earlier Than You Think You Need To
The biggest mistake I see firms make is waiting until a need is urgent before starting a search. In a normal market, that might work. In this one, it doesn’t.
If you anticipate needing a CPA in the next six months, start the process now. Build in time for a longer search, a thoughtful candidate evaluation, and a competitive offer process. Firms that start early have access to the full candidate pool. Firms that wait often end up choosing from whoever is left.
Broaden What You’re Looking For
One data point from the research stood out to me: firms that opened their requirements to “CPA-eligible” candidates — those licensed or close to it — reduced their time-to-fill by 22% with no meaningful difference in performance outcomes.
That doesn’t mean lowering your standards. It means being thoughtful about which requirements are truly essential and which ones are simply habits from a different hiring environment. If a candidate has the experience, the mindset, and the right trajectory, rigid credentialing filters may be costing you great hires.
Enrolled Agents (EAs) are a strong example of this. For many tax-focused roles — especially in advisory, wealth management, and corporate tax functions — an experienced EA brings a depth of tax knowledge directly comparable to a CPA’s, often with even more specialized federal tax expertise. Yet many firms reflexively filter them out simply because the credential isn’t a CPA license.
In a market this tight, that’s a costly habit. Expanding your search to include highly experienced EAs can meaningfully widen your candidate pool without compromising on the quality or capability you need.
Compete on More Than Salary
Starting salaries for tax professionals are rising — according to the Robert Half 2026 Salary Guide, the midpoint for a Senior Tax Associate is now projected at $95,250, up significantly from just a few years ago. But compensation alone isn’t winning the best candidates.
The CPAs most in demand right now are motivated by leadership opportunity, flexibility, meaningful work, and the chance to build something — not just a bigger paycheck. Firms that can articulate a compelling vision for what a candidate will build and become are consistently outperforming firms that lead with salary alone.
Think Seriously About Remote Hiring
Geography is no longer a real constraint in accounting and tax hiring. The best candidate for your role might not live in your city — and in a tight market, limiting your search geographically means limiting your access to talent.
Firms that are open to remote or hybrid arrangements are drawing from a national candidate pool. That’s a significant structural advantage right now. Learn more about how Accountingfly approaches remote CPA hiring and what to look for in a remote tax candidate.
Partner with a Specialist, Not a Generalist
The CPA shortage has made accounting and tax hiring specialized work. The candidates you’re looking for — experienced, credentialed, entrepreneurially minded tax professionals — are rarely on the open job market. They’re not sending their resumes to generic job boards. They’re being recruited through relationships.
Working with a recruiter who specializes in accounting and tax means accessing candidates who aren’t actively looking but might be open to the right opportunity. In a tight market, that’s often the difference between a successful search and a six-month vacancy.
What This Means for Wealth Management and Advisory Firms Specifically
For wealth management and financial planning firms building in-house tax departments, the CPA shortage adds a layer of complexity to an already specialized hiring challenge. (If you’re exploring this path, our recent post on why wealth management firms are building in-house tax departments is a good place to start.)
You’re not just looking for a technically strong CPA. You’re looking for someone with the entrepreneurial mindset to build a practice, the advisory skills to work alongside financial planners, and the tax expertise to serve high-net-worth and business clients. That’s a rare profile in any market. In this one, it requires a deliberate and patient approach.
The good news: these roles are genuinely compelling to the right candidates. Experienced tax professionals who are ready to leave traditional public accounting are drawn to the opportunity to build something meaningful without taking on the full risk of going out on their own. If your firm can offer that story clearly and credibly, you have a real competitive advantage.
What This Means for Public Accounting and CPA Firms Specifically
Public accounting firms are feeling the CPA shortage differently than other employers — and in many ways, more acutely. You’re not just competing for talent. You’re also one of the primary sources other firms are recruiting from.
The departure of experienced Senior Managers and Directors to industry, advisory, and wealth management roles has accelerated. These are often your highest-performing people — the ones clients trust, the ones who train junior staff, and the ones you were counting on for your next round of leadership promotions. When they leave, the cost isn’t just the open seat. It’s the institutional knowledge, the client relationships, and the mentorship capacity that walk out the door with them.
What’s driving the exits? More often than not, it comes down to three things: workload, trajectory, and culture. The professionals leaving aren’t always chasing a dramatically higher salary. They’re looking for better work-life integration, a clearer path to meaningful leadership, and an environment where they feel like more than a billing number.
For CPA firms competing to retain talent — and to attract experienced hires from peer firms — the strategy has to go beyond compensation adjustments. The firms winning the retention battle right now are the ones that can articulate a genuinely differentiated employee experience: flexible structures, defined growth paths, real leadership opportunities, and a culture that respects professionals’ lives outside of work.
On the hiring side, the tight market means that passive sourcing — waiting for candidates to come to you — is no longer a viable strategy for most mid-sized and regional firms. The experienced CPAs you want aren’t browsing job boards. Proactive, relationship-driven recruiting is the only reliable way to access that talent pool consistently.
What This Means for In-House Accounting, Audit, and Tax Teams Specifically
For corporate finance and accounting teams, the CPA shortage is showing up as a capacity and continuity problem. Roles that used to fill in 30–45 days are taking twice as long. Teams are running lean, and when a key person leaves, the ripple effect on workload and morale can be significant.
The challenge is compounded by the fact that in-house accounting roles are often competing against both public accounting firms and each other for the same limited pool of credentialed professionals. And unlike public accounting firms, many corporate finance teams don’t have a dedicated recruiting infrastructure built for this level of competition.
A few things are working well for in-house teams navigating this environment:
Leading with the lifestyle pitch. Corporate accounting roles often offer better hours, more predictable workloads, and a clearer separation between work and personal time than public accounting. For CPAs who have spent years in the grind of busy season, that’s a genuinely compelling offer — but only if you make it explicit. Don’t assume candidates know. Tell them.
Investing in development. Experienced CPAs considering a move to industry want to know there’s a path forward, not just a more comfortable plateau. Firms that can speak clearly to how a candidate will grow — what skills they’ll build, what leadership opportunities exist, how the role can evolve — consistently attract stronger candidates.
Acting quickly when a strong candidate is identified. In-house hiring processes can move slowly, with multiple rounds of interviews and committee approvals. In this market, that pace is a liability. The best candidates have options, and a prolonged process sends an unintentional signal about how decisions get made inside the organization. Streamlining your evaluation and offer process is one of the highest-leverage changes you can make right now.
For audit and tax functions specifically — where the talent gap is most acute — building a relationship with a specialist recruiter before you have an urgent need is one of the smartest investments a finance leader can make in 2026.
Common Questions We’re Hearing From Firms Right Now
“Should we wait for the market to improve?” The shortage is projected to persist through at least 2029, and potentially longer. Waiting is not a strategy — it’s a delay that compounds the problem.
“We’ve been searching for months with no success. What are we doing wrong?” Usually one of three things: the search started too late, the candidate profile is too narrowly defined, or the firm is relying on passive sourcing channels where the best candidates aren’t looking. A specialist recruiter can diagnose quickly.
“How do we compete with larger firms on compensation?” Offer what large firms can’t: autonomy, leadership opportunity, a more collaborative culture, and the chance to build something. Those factors matter enormously to the candidates you want most.
“Can we hire remotely for a senior tax role?” Yes — and many of the most successful placements we’ve made in the past year have been remote. The key is finding candidates with the communication skills and self-direction to thrive in that environment, and being intentional about how you integrate them into the team.
How Accountingfly Can Help
At Accountingfly, we specialize in recruiting accounting and tax professionals for modern firms — including wealth management and financial planning firms building in-house tax teams, CPA firms looking for experienced tax leaders, and advisory firms navigating the CPA shortage in real time.
We work differently than a generalist staffing firm. We maintain active relationships with experienced CPAs who aren’t on the open market — professionals who are open to the right opportunity but aren’t actively applying to job boards. That means when you engage us, you’re accessing a candidate pool that most firms simply can’t reach on their own.
Whether you’re hiring your first tax leader or expanding an existing team, we can help you think through the search strategy, set realistic expectations for the current market, and connect you with the right talent.
The CPA shortage is a real constraint. But firms that approach it strategically — starting early, thinking creatively, and working with the right partners — are still making great hires.
Ready to Build Your Tax Team?
If your firm is planning to hire a CPA or build out an internal tax function. Don’t wait until the need is urgent. The earlier you start, the better positioned you’ll be to find the right person.
Explore our accounting and tax jobs or learn more about our CPA recruiting services to get started. We’d love to help.
Accountingfly specializes in recruiting accounting and tax professionals for modern firms.
