Compliance Officer Salary in 2027: What Government Data and Job Sites Show

The BLS reports a median compliance officer salary of $80,730 for May 2025, or $38.81 an hour. Half of compliance officers earned more and half earned less, and the middle half earned between $61,280 and $109,010. Your own pay will depend on the industry you join, the state you work in and whether you hold an analyst or a manager title.

How Much Does a Compliance Officer Make?

Compliance officers are an exact match for an official BLS occupation, so these numbers describe the job itself and not a neighboring category. The national spread for May 2025 comes from the BLS wage data for the whole country.

The wage table counted 417,070 compliance officers. The BLS shows that the median beats the $50,980 median for all occupations by a wide margin. It sits close to the $82,060 median for business operations specialists as a group, so you’re paid like a typical professional in that family.

The spread is wide. The highest tenth earned nearly three times what the lowest tenth did, so a single average can mislead you. Most of that gap comes from where you work, which the next sections break down.

What Do Compliance Officers Make by Industry?

The industry you join moves your pay more than almost anything else on your résumé. The BLS lists median pay for the industries that employ the most compliance officers.

Government is the biggest employer by a wide margin, and its median sits close to the national one, so you won’t find a pay penalty there. If you’re drawn to money laundering or fraud work, finance and insurance is the group that holds most bank jobs. Our compliance officer career guide shows what those jobs involve day to day.

Which States Pay Compliance Officers the Most?

The ones with big financial centers, government hubs and a lot of regulators. The five highest and five lowest state medians in the BLS data show the pattern.

That makes a $48,030 gap between the highest and lowest. Eight places have a median above $90,000, and only 18 of the 51 places in the table (the states and the District of Columbia) beat the national median. The state table below lists every one.

The District of Columbia also has the widest middle band of these. Its lower quarter earned up to $84,590 and its upper quarter earned $132,960 or more, so even a bottom-of-the-range job there pays more than the median in many states.

The biggest job markets tell a more useful story, because that’s where most openings are. The four states with the most compliance officers show how pay spreads inside each one.

If you live in Texas or Florida, the median is below the national one, but the upper quarter in both states is above $100,000. That’s the range you can aim for with experience.

How Much Does a Compliance Analyst Make?

Less than an officer on most job sites, though no official source splits the two for you. The BLS describes compliance officers by their duties and says job tasks vary by employer or position, so analysts fall inside the same profile and the federal data can’t tell you what they earn separately.

Job sites do publish analyst figures, with very different sample sizes. Read them as rough guides, not measurements.

The 23-profile figure is the weakest number here. A title that few people report can swing a lot, and the same site shows a higher average for a closely related title with many more profiles. When you compare offers, match the duties and not just the title.

What Does a Bank Compliance Officer Make?

The BLS doesn’t publish a bank line, so the closest official number is the median for finance and insurance, which is $82,310. That group includes insurers and other financial firms along with banks.

You’ll see a clearer picture on the regulator side. An Internal Revenue Service posting for a Bank Secrecy Act examiner lists $76,280 to $145,468 a year, depending on location. It’s open at grades 11 and 12, and it says you may be promoted without further competition as your career progresses.

The qualifications are specific. The posting accepts a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) certificate or a bachelor’s degree in accounting with at least 30 semester hours in accounting. That’s a good fit if your forensic accounting degree included a heavy accounting load.

A private bank analyst job looks different. A Centier Bank posting for a BSA and AML analyst requires a bachelor’s degree, prefers certification from the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS) and asks for 3 or more years of banking experience. Plan on getting that experience before the pay climbs.

Why Do Job Sites and the Government Disagree?

Because each one measures something different, and the gaps can be a few thousand dollars at the national level. Look at what sits behind each figure before you trust it.

Three things cause most of the difference:

Base pay versus total pay. PayScale reports base pay and total pay separately, and its total range reaches higher once bonus and profit sharing are counted. A figure labeled “salary” might leave bonuses out.

Advertised pay versus reported pay. Postings show what an employer offers you. Profiles show what people say they earn.

Place. Handshake puts the median for Washington, DC postings at $84,565. That’s well below the BLS state median of $111,030. The BLS figure covers all compliance officers in the District, including experienced staff, while postings cover only openings you could apply to.

What Do Compliance Managers and Chief Compliance Officers Make?

More, and you’ll notice the jump is bigger than the one from analyst to officer. PayScale averages $92,999 for a compliance manager. Its base pay runs from $62k to $133k across 1,386 profiles.

Robert Half’s Baton Rouge page lays out a ladder in one local market. These are its 2027 Salary Guide projections for related positions there, so use them to see the steps and not to set your own target.

At the senior end, a BarkerGilmore survey of nearly 300 chief compliance officers (CCOs) found that median salaries rose 2.7 percent in 2025 after a 5.1 percent rise in 2024. Those CCOs were paid an average cash bonus of $125,551 against a target average of $134,391.

Few compliance officers will reach that level, but it shows that bonuses become a large part of pay at the top.

What Raises a Compliance Officer’s Pay?

Five things show up in the sources, and you control more of them than you might expect:

Your industry. The BLS medians above run from $72,580 to $91,960 depending on the field. If you’re open to professional services or manufacturing, you may see a higher offer than in healthcare.

Your location. The state spread is $48,030, and big markets like California and New York pay above the national median.

Moving into management. The ladder above shows pay stepping up with each title, and PayScale’s manager figure sits well above its analyst figure.

A background in auditing or law. The BLS says some employers prefer candidates with a legal background or experience with auditing or related tasks. A forensic accounting degree builds the audit side.

Credentials. The BLS says earning professional certification may be helpful for some workers. The American Bankers Association (ABA) says many compliance job listings require or strongly prefer its Certified Regulatory Compliance Manager (CRCM). Centier lists ACAMS certification as preferred. None of these sources puts a dollar value on a credential, so treat it as access to more jobs and not a guaranteed raise.

What Does It Cost to Prepare for Compliance Work With a Forensic Accounting Degree?

It depends on the level you choose. Of the 65 programs we track, the median cost per credit is $458 for bachelor’s programs and $775 for master’s programs. Four examples of paths into compliance and financial crime work each have a strength worth knowing.

Pfeiffer University offers a fully online MBA in Financial Fraud of 33 credits at $400 each, and you can finish in 15 months.

Southern New Hampshire University offers a fully online bachelor’s in accounting with a forensic accounting concentration at $354 a credit. A bachelor’s-to-master’s option lets you take up to four graduate-level courses at the undergraduate rate.

Purdue University Global offers an online bachelor’s in accounting and analytics with a forensic accountancy concentration at $371 a quarter credit. Military tuition reductions of 55 percent for current servicemembers and 38 percent for veterans apply.

Utica University offers a fully online master’s in forensic accounting at $775 a credit, with an academic partnership with ACAMS that includes a free student membership for up to two years.

If you already hold a bachelor’s degree, the graduate certificates list has 16 programs. And if cost is your first filter, the cheapest forensic accounting degrees list has 32.

How Do You Check a Job Offer Against These Numbers?

Start with the federal table, because it’s the broadest, then narrow down.

1. Find your state median in the state table below, and note where the lower and upper quarters sit.

2. Check the industry median in the table above. A healthcare offer and a professional services offer start from different places.

3. Place the offer in the spread. An offer near $61,280 is at the lower quarter nationally. One near $109,010 is at the upper quarter.

4. Ask whether the figure is base or total pay. Bonuses can add to the number or sit outside it.

5. Compare duties, not titles. An analyst who builds cases and writes reports for a bank does different work than someone who updates policy documents, even if both carry the same title.

If an offer sits well under your state median, ask what experience the employer expects. Several postings we read, including a bank analyst job, ask for 3 or more years before they pay at the level of a full officer.

Which Related Pay Pages Should You Read Next?

Compliance pay sits near several other fraud and financial crime jobs. Read the neighbors if you’re deciding between paths.