Bookkeeping and other accounting services in Chicago, IL

The Chicago metro has 1,407 bookkeeping and accounting firms employing 8,067 people. Average pay is $58,190 — 3% above the national average.

Who actually keeps the books in Chicago

Bookkeeping is not a credentialed profession. The IRS registers CPAs, enrolled agents and attorneys; nobody registers bookkeepers, so no public roster of them exists and any directory claiming to be complete is guessing at it.

What does exist is the IRS register of credentialed practices — and in practice small-business books are kept by the small ones, by the same person who then files the return. Below are the Chicago practices with three or fewer credentialed staff, one from each postal area of the city. The full roster, large firms included, is on the tax preparation page.

The table is a sample: even the 746 small practices alone would be 300 KB of markup on one page. The full Chicago list — all 1,027 credentialed practices of every size, with credentials, phone and website — is a CSV.

A credential is worth checking before the price. Someone who is not a CPA, an enrolled agent or an attorney cannot represent you before the IRS if a return is questioned — they can keep the books perfectly well, but you will be on your own in the letter exchange.

What it costs

Local practices quote per client and publish nothing, so there is no honest local column to put here. What can be priced is the national online alternative, and it gives you a number to hold a local quote against. Both figures below are list prices from the provider’s own page on September 2, 2026.

Neither link earns us anything. If that ever changes, this line will say so.

So the working anchor for straightforward monthly books is roughly $250 to $399 a month. A local quote well above that is not automatically wrong — it usually means the work includes something the flat-fee services leave out, most often payroll or the tax return itself. Ask which, before you compare.

Two more things worth knowing before you call. Books kept monthly are almost always cheaper than the same year reconstructed in March. And the 1,818 CPA firms in Chicago are the other realistic starting point, if you would rather have the bookkeeping and the filing under one roof.

The Chicago market in numbers

At 5.7 employees per establishment against 5.3 nationally, Chicago is about the national average. In absolute terms that is a market of small practices. That tells you who you will be dealing with rather than what you will pay: where practices are one- and two-person shops you talk to the person doing the work, and where they are bigger you are likelier to get an account manager and cover through filing season.

What this code actually counts. Census counts bookkeeping together with billing and other accounting services in one code, so this figure is broader than bookkeeping alone.

Cite this page

CountingFirms, “Bookkeeping and other accounting services in Chicago, IL”, countingfirms.com/bookkeeping/chicago-il, data as of September 1, 2026. Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2022; IRS Return Preparer PTIN listing, released under FOIA.

Bookkeeping services in other metros

• New York, NY — 3,295 firms
• Los Angeles, CA — 2,607 firms
• Miami, FL — 2,161 firms
• Dallas, TX — 1,168 firms
• Atlanta, GA — 1,120 firms
• Houston, TX — 1,037 firms
• Washington, DC — 879 firms
• Phoenix, AZ — 838 firms

Other accounting services in Chicago

• CPA firms — 1,818 firms
• Tax preparation — 786 firms
• Payroll services — 146 firms

Questions

Where can I find a bookkeeper in Chicago?

There is no public register of bookkeepers — the IRS credentials CPAs, enrolled agents and attorneys, but nobody licenses bookkeeping, so no complete list exists. In practice the work is done by the same small practices that file the returns. The table on this page lists Chicago practices with three or fewer credentialed staff, one from each postal area, with the phone number on IRS record; the full city list is linked underneath it as a CSV.

What do accountants earn in Chicago, IL?

Average annual pay in this category is $58,190 across Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN Metro Area, against $56,378 nationally. Pay is a rough proxy for what a market charges: firms in expensive cities bill more because they pay more.

How do I check that an accountant is actually licensed?

The IRS publishes a directory of credentialed preparers, and every state board of accountancy runs a license lookup. The listings on this page come from the IRS record, which shows a credential — it does not say anything about the quality of the work, and this site does not rank firms.

Firm list: IRS Return Preparer PTIN listing, released under the Freedom of Information Act, February 2026. Market figures: U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2022. We publish firm-level records only — no individual names or street addresses. Last updated September 1, 2026.