How Much Does a CPA Charge to Do Taxes? 2026 CPA Fees

A CPA charges an average of $280 to prepare a base Form 1040 with Schedules 1 through 3, according to the 2025 NATP Fee Study. Add a Schedule C and a state return and a typical self-employed CPA bill lands between $400 and $600. CPAs who bill by time average $182 an hour, with half of all preparers charging between $129 and $250. Business entity returns start higher, with an average minimum fee of $634.

How much does a CPA charge to do taxes?

The honest answer is that there is no single number, but the profession surveys itself every year and the ranges are tighter than most people expect. The 2025 NATP Fee Study, which polls working tax professionals across the country, is the most useful public benchmark, and it puts a base individual return at $280 for a CPA.

What matters is that $280 is a starting point, not a total. Almost every preparer in the survey prices per form, so your bill is a base fee plus a line for each schedule your return needs, plus the state.

Then the add-ons. These are the survey averages for the schedules most people actually need:

So a freelancer with one Schedule C is looking at roughly $280 plus $130, or about $410 federal, before the state return. Since 54% of preparers bill the state separately and only 18% include it, the realistic total for that return is $450 to $500. Add a Schedule D because you sold some stock and you are near $550.

One more figure changes the picture at the bottom end. Half of preparers set a minimum fee for individual returns of $150 to $350, which means a genuinely simple W-2 return does not get a small proportional price. It gets the minimum. If your return is one W-2 and a standard deduction, you will often pay a CPA $200 to $300 for maybe forty minutes of work.

How much does a CPA charge per hour?

The average is $182 an hour, up from $179 in 2023, and half of all preparers fall between $129 and $250 an hour. Hourly billing is less common than per-form pricing for individual returns, but it shows up for anything non-routine: unpicking a messy year, responding to an IRS notice, tax planning, or an entity question.

Hourly is also where a surprise bill comes from. Per-form pricing has a ceiling you can roughly predict from your own documents. Hourly does not, and the meter runs on organizing your paperwork exactly as fast as it runs on tax strategy. If a CPA quotes you hourly for a straightforward return, ask what they expect the total to be and what would push it higher.

How much does an accountant charge to do taxes?

Less than a CPA, usually, because accountant is not a protected title the way CPA is. The $185 average for a non-credentialed preparer in the survey covers a lot of people who describe themselves as accountants or tax preparers, and the work on a routine return can be identical.

The distinction that actually costs money is representation rights. CPAs, enrolled agents and attorneys have unlimited rights to represent you before the IRS. A non-credentialed preparer generally does not, even for a return they prepared. For most people that never matters. If you get a notice, it matters a great deal.

Enrolled agents are the underrated option in that table. They are federally licensed specifically in taxation, they carry the same unlimited representation rights as a CPA, and they average about $52 less on a base return.

How much does a CPA charge to do business taxes?

More, and it starts from a floor rather than a schedule. The survey found an average minimum fee of $634 for a business return, with most minimums falling between $350 and $850. Real-world S corp and partnership returns commonly run $700 to $1,500, and that is a separate filing from your personal 1040, not a line on it.

The reason is not that the forms are harder to type. It is that a business return depends on books that have to be right first. If your bookkeeping is a bank feed nobody has reconciled, the CPA is doing bookkeeping at tax preparation rates. Handing over a clean set of year-end figures rather than raw transactions is the difference between a $700 engagement and a $1,400 one, and if your records live in a spreadsheet export you can turn that export into a proper profit and loss statement before the appointment rather than paying someone $182 an hour to do it in April.

Single-member LLCs are a special case worth flagging, because a lot of owners over-buy here. A single-member LLC with no S corp election is a disregarded entity: it does not file its own federal return at all. Its income goes on Schedule C of your personal 1040, which is a $123 to $135 add-on, not a $634 minimum. If you are being quoted a business return price for a single-member LLC, ask which form is actually being filed. Our LLC tax filing page covers which returns each structure owes.

Is a CPA worth it for taxes?

Sometimes clearly yes, sometimes clearly no, and the dividing line is whether your return requires judgement or just accurate data entry.

A CPA earns the fee when there is a decision to make. Rental property, investment sales with basis questions, cryptocurrency, foreign accounts, an S corp election, multi-state allocation, an inherited retirement account, a business you are buying or selling, or an IRS notice sitting on your desk. In all of those, the right answer is not printed on a form, and $500 spent on someone who knows the answer routinely saves more than $500.

A CPA does not earn the fee when the return is mechanical. A W-2, some 1099 income, a Schedule C with ordinary expenses and the standard deduction involves no professional judgement at all. Every figure comes off a document, and the software the CPA is using does the arithmetic. Paying $450 for that return is paying for typing.

That is the case TaxFile is built for. Upload your W-2s and 1099s, the AI reads them and fills the forms, it sweeps the deductions and credits you qualify for, and you review every figure before anything is filed. It is $39 for a simple federal return, $89 for self-employed with Schedule C, and $19 per state. Being straight about the limits: it handles current-year federal and state returns covering W-2, 1099-NEC, 1099-K and 1099-MISC income, Schedule C and Schedule SE. It does not do capital gains, rental income, crypto, foreign income, prior-year returns or amended returns. If your return has any of those, hire the CPA.

How can you lower what a CPA charges?

Four things move the number, and the first one is the big one.

Show up organized. If your preparer bills $182 an hour and spends two hours sorting receipts and chasing a missing 1099, that is $364 of your fee spent on clerical work. Categorized expense totals, a mileage number and a single income summary genuinely change the invoice.

Go in February, not April. Many firms are full by late March and some charge a rush fee on top. The same return costs less and comes back faster when it is not competing with three hundred others.

Ask what the state return costs. A quote is usually federal only. If you moved or worked across state lines, two or three state filings at $50 to $90 each quietly becomes a bigger line than you budgeted for. If that is your situation, multi-state tax filing explains which returns you actually owe.

Consider an enrolled agent. Same unlimited representation rights, tax-specialist training, and about $52 less on a base return. For a tax problem specifically, an EA is often the better match anyway.

One thing not to count on: deducting the fee. Tax preparation fees were a miscellaneous itemized deduction subject to the 2% floor, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act suspended that category, and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act made the suspension permanent in July 2025. Individuals cannot deduct what they pay to have a personal return prepared. The exception is the self-employed, who deduct the Schedule C portion of the fee as a business expense under legal and professional services, which is a good reason to ask for an itemized invoice.

The short version

Budget $280 for a CPA to do a base individual return, about $410 to $500 with a Schedule C and a state return, and $700 to $1,500 for a business entity filing. Expect a minimum fee of $150 to $350 even on a simple return, and expect the state to be billed separately unless you are told otherwise in writing. If your return has genuine complexity, that money is well spent. If it is a W-2 and a Schedule C, it is worth checking what the same return costs when software reads the documents for you.

For the full picture across every filing route, including storefront chains and DIY software, see tax preparation fees, or the breakdown of how much it costs to file taxes online.