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Commerce route

Chartered Accountant (CA)

You train for years under a practising accountant and then sign off on whether a company's accounts are telling the truth.

First question

What does this person do?

A chartered accountant checks and certifies money. In audit you go into a company, sample its records, and decide whether its published accounts are honest — a signature only a CA is legally allowed to give. In tax you work out what a person or a company owes, file their returns, and argue their case with the tax department.

In corporate finance you build the numbers behind a company buying another company, or raising money. Inside a company you might run the accounts team, close the books every month, and tell the board what the business can afford. The training years are the hard part: you spend two years as an 'articled assistant' inside a CA firm doing real work for a very small stipend while studying for the hardest exams in the route.

Next question

What are they paid?

LPA = lakhs per annum; ₹1 lakh = ₹100,000. These are broad India market estimates across common employers and work settings—not guaranteed offers, audited statistics or the ceiling. References give context, not proof of each exact band. Historical anchors and evidence gaps remain in Sources.

  1. Entry first role

    Estimated range₹6.0–13LPA

    Broad India market estimate, not a guaranteed offer or audited statistic. Audit firms, industry finance, consulting and independent practice create a wide spread.

    Commerce estimated midpoint at this rung: ₹7.5 LPA · midpoint median across 11 editorial Commerce routes · compare all routes

    Market reference: AmbitionBox www.ambitionbox.com Estimate dated

  2. Mid about 5 years in

    Estimated range₹12–25LPA

    Broad India market estimate, not a guaranteed offer or audited statistic. Audit firms, industry finance, consulting and independent practice create a wide spread.

    Commerce estimated midpoint at this rung: ₹16 LPA · midpoint median across 11 editorial Commerce routes · compare all routes

    Market reference: AmbitionBox www.ambitionbox.com Estimate dated

  3. Senior about 10 years in

    Estimated range₹20–45LPA

    Broad India market estimate, not a guaranteed offer or audited statistic. Audit firms, industry finance, consulting and independent practice create a wide spread.

    Commerce estimated midpoint at this rung: ₹27 LPA · midpoint median across 11 editorial Commerce routes · compare all routes

    Market reference: AmbitionBox www.ambitionbox.com Estimate dated

The vertical line marks the midpoint median of the editorial estimates for this stream. Published examples are excluded. Scale: ₹ lakhs per annum.

Hiring landscape

Who hires for this work?

Examples of large employers and institutions associated with this route in India:

  • Deloitte
  • EY
  • KPMG
  • PwC

Examples, not a ranking or a promise of a current vacancy. Hiring changes; check the employer’s own careers page.

What it takes to get in

Entrance exam
CA Foundation, then CA Intermediate (two groups), then CA Final (two groups), all set by ICAI
Realistic cut-off
There is no rank or percentile cutoff — you pass or you do not. You need 40 per cent in each paper and 50 per cent in aggregate. You may register for Foundation after Class 10 but your first attempt can only come after you have sat the Class 12 exams, and you must have been registered for at least four months before the exam. The real filter is the pass rate across three levels, which is low, and most people take more than one attempt at at least one level.
How long
4.5 years
Roughly what it costs

₹49,000

ICAI registration fees are Rs 9,000 for Foundation, Rs 18,000 for Intermediate (both groups) and Rs 22,000 for Final (both groups) — about Rs 49,000 in course fees, plus exam form fees each attempt. Private coaching, which most students in Delhi use, costs a great deal more than the ICAI fees themselves and varies enormously.

Approximate, tuition only, excluding coaching and living costs unless the source text says otherwise.

Can you switch out later?
Low once you are deep in it. The two years of articleship are a full-time commitment inside one firm and the exams do not transfer anywhere else. Many students do a BCom by distance learning alongside, which keeps a degree in hand. Once qualified, however, the qualification travels well — into industry finance, banking, consulting and investment roles.

Delhi entry paths

These are the routes people in Delhi commonly take into this career. This is not a ranking of institutions and does not list cut-offs for any particular college.

  • Register for CA Foundation with ICAI directly after Class 12 — no college admission and no entrance rank is involved
  • Most Delhi students pair the CA course with a BCom (often at a Delhi University college, or by distance through DU SOL or IGNOU) so that they hold a degree regardless of how the CA exams go
  • Articleship — the compulsory two years of paid training — is served inside a practising CA firm; Delhi and Gurgaon have both the Big Four firms and a very large number of mid-size and small practices
  • The CA coaching cluster in Delhi, concentrated around Laxmi Nagar and parts of North Campus, is where a large share of North Indian candidates prepare

How this compares

Nearby routes in Commerce, ordered by mid-career pay. Ordering is not a recommendation.
RouteEntryMidSenior
Insurance officer (life and general insurance)₹7.0–13 LPA₹11–20 LPA₹17–30 LPA
Actuary (actuarial science)₹4.0–8.0 LPA₹10–22 LPA₹20–45 LPA
Bank Probationary Officer (public sector banks)₹10–15 LPA₹14–21 LPA₹18–30 LPA
Chartered Accountant (CA) (this route)₹6.0–13 LPA₹12–25 LPA₹20–45 LPA
MBA through CAT (management)₹5.0–16 LPA₹10–30 LPA₹18–50 LPA
Equity research and investment banking₹6.0–18 LPA₹12–35 LPA₹25–70 LPA

See all 57 routes side by side →

Sources

  1. Institute of Chartered Accountants of India icai-call-sahayata.icai.org

    2024-10-01: ICAI official FAQ on the New Scheme of Education and Training (launched 1 July 2023): three levels plus self-paced online modules; registration for Foundation permitted after Class 10 with the first attempt only after appearing for Class 12; minimum four-month registration period before the exam; Foundation fee Rs 9,000, Intermediate Rs 18,000 both groups, Final Rs 22,000 both groups; practical training duration two years; minimum monthly stipend rates for articled assistants of Rs 2,000–5,000 by city and year; industrial trainee minimum stipend Rs 15,000 a month from 1 July 2023.

  2. Business Standard www.business-standard.com

    2026-04-20: Reported figures for fresh chartered accountants of roughly Rs 6–13 lakh a year, with entry roles at smaller firms at Rs 6–8 lakh, and the observation that senior roles cross Rs 40 lakh. 2026-04-20: Historical published anchor for the entry rung; not validation of the displayed estimate: Two very different numbers get quoted for a fresh CA and they measure different things. ICAI's own campus placement drive reports an average around Rs 13 lakh — but that drive only covers the newly qualified CAs who go through it and the recruiters who bid there, which is the top slice, not everybody. The wider fresher range is roughly Rs 6–13 lakh, with small and mid-size firms at the lower end. Separately, do not confuse either figure with what you earn *while* training: the minimum monthly stipend ICAI sets for an articled assistant is Rs 2,000–5,000 a month depending on city and year of training, which is under one lakh a year. 2026-04-20: Historical evidence gap for the mid rung; not validation of the displayed estimate: No body publishes what a CA with about five years of experience earns. ICAI publishes only fresher campus placement data, and the salary sites that do publish mid-career numbers are self-reported and are excluded from this project. Pay at this stage also splits hard depending on whether you stayed in practice, joined industry, or moved into finance roles, so a single national figure would be misleading even if one existed. 2026-04-20: Historical evidence gap for the senior rung; not validation of the displayed estimate: Reported journalism notes that senior CA roles can cross Rs 40 lakh, but that describes the top of the distribution — partners in large firms and finance heads in big companies — not a typical ten-year figure. The spread at ten years is far wider than 2.5 times low to high, so no range is given rather than a false one.

  3. Business Standard www.business-standard.com

    2026-07-27: ICAI's 65th campus placement drive covering over 5,300 posts, with an average package of about Rs 13 lakh and a highest package of Rs 27.5 lakh in the previous cycle — establishing both the campus average and the fact that the drive covers only a few thousand of the newly qualified each year.

  4. AmbitionBox www.ambitionbox.com

    2026-08-21: Broad India market estimate, not a guaranteed offer or audited statistic. Audit firms, industry finance, consulting and independent practice create a wide spread.