Who buys CPA practices in California in 2026.

Five kinds of buyer purchase CPA and tax practices in California in 2026, and the size of the practice decides which of them will make an offer. Below about $2 million to $3 million in fees the usual buyer is an individual CPA or EA, or a small firm, paying 0.85x to 1.15x annual revenue; in the typical sale of a $400,000 to $1 million practice, 20% to 40% is paid in cash at closing and the rest over five to seven years against client retention, according to CT Acquisitions. Above that line private equity backed firms price on 4x to 7x EBITDA, with earnouts and rollover equity, and they buy more in California than anywhere else: the CPA Trendlines PE Deal Tracker counted 53 deals in the state by mid-2026. Current, the Thrive Holdings platform formerly called Crete Professionals Alliance, takes stakes in larger firms that keep their brands and buy smaller practices. Local and regional firms merge practices into their offices. WIN buys established practices across California and pairs each one with a practicing CPA who becomes its owner. All of them work under the same California rules: a written nondisclosure agreement before client information is shared (BPC 5063.3), licensed CPAs holding the majority of any CPA firm (BPC 5079), and written notice to each client with a 90-day objection window before files move (16 CCR 54.3).

The deal list comes from the CPA Trendlines tracker and the firms’ announcements, the ownership rules from the Business and Professions Code and the California Board of Accountancy, the SBA rules from SOP 50 10 8.1, and prices from CT Acquisitions and two California brokers’ pages, each read October 21, 2026 and linked at the end. The multiples are in how much CPA firms sell for, the payment terms in holdbacks and earnouts, and the number of firms in the state in California CPA firms by the numbers.

Who is buying CPA practices in California right now?

CFO Brew counts private equity ownership of about 24 of the top 100 CPA firms in the United States since 2021, including at least 10 of the top 30, and those firms now buy smaller ones. In the CPA Trendlines tracker’s June to July 2026 update California led with 53 tracked deals, ahead of New York with 38 and Texas with 32. The pace has eased since the start of the year; the October 2026 edition counts 37 acquisitions in the United States and Canada in the third quarter, against 58 in the first.

Below the platform threshold the broker market continues. Accounting & Tax Brokerage describes a network of more than 3,500 buyers, CPAs, EAs and firm owners, and more than 300 closed transactions. Business Brokerage, Inc. reports more than 1,800 practices brokered over 40 years, and its listings dated October 21, 2026 run from $44,895 to $2.8 million in gross fees.

Which buyer fits your practice

Four answers rank the five buyer types by the size bands and terms quoted in this article. The ranking does not predict what any one buyer would offer.

Which private equity backed firms have bought California practices?

California acquisitions in the tracker’s monthly log from May 2025 through March 2026, newest first, with the backer the log names.

CPA Trendlines PE Deal Tracker, monthly log through May 2026 (updated October 8, 2026) and February 2026 update. Sorren’s own release of February 25, 2026 confirms Connected Accounting; it does not name the backer.

Behind the list is an anchor firm first, then smaller firms folded into it. Ascend entered California with PP&Co. of San Jose and LevitZacks of San Diego in early 2024 and Lucas Horsfall of Pasadena that October, and later merged Lew Adams and Gettleson Witzer & O’Connor into Lucas Horsfall. EisnerAmper bought Krost of Pasadena, a Top 100 firm with about $71 million in revenue, in August 2024. Platform Accounting Group added four California firms on one day in January 2023.

What does a private equity buyer pay, and for what?

CT Acquisitions puts the platform threshold at about $3 million in revenue and prices above it at 4x to 7x normalized EBITDA. The selling partner usually takes 20% to 40% of the consideration as rollover equity in the buyer’s holding company, vesting over three to five years with a one-year cliff, and many deals add an earnout of 20% to 30% paid over three years against client revenue retention of 90% or more in the first year. The cash and rollover pay for the advisory business; the attest work moves to a CPA-owned firm, so a firm with a large audit share sees a lower headline price and separate consideration for the attest side.

The rollover is worth what the next owner pays. CFO Brew reports that private equity funds usually hold for three to five years, and that when Citrin Cooperman changed hands from New Mountain Capital to Blackstone in January 2025, Blackstone paid about 15x EBITDA against the 11x New Mountain had paid. A lower multiple at the next sale, or no sale, is a risk the cash at closing does not carry. The name also depends on the platform: CPA Trendlines describes Ascend as letting firms such as Gettleson Witzer & O’Connor keep their local identity, and Aprio and Citrin Cooperman as rebranding acquisitions over time.

Can a private equity fund own a California CPA firm?

A fund cannot own one directly. Business and Professions Code 5079 allows owners who are not licensees only if licensees make up a majority of the owners and hold more than half of the equity and the voting rights, and only if each nonlicensee owner is a natural person, or an entity owned by natural persons, who materially participates in the firm. A CPA must have ultimate responsibility for every attest and compilation engagement.

The deals above therefore use an alternative practice structure, which the California Board of Accountancy described in its September 2025 meeting materials. The firm separates into an attest firm, which performs audit and assurance work and stays owned and controlled by CPAs, and a nonattest entity, which performs tax, consulting and advisory work and may be owned by CPAs and private equity. An administrative services agreement has the nonattest entity supply staff, technology, marketing and office administration to the attest firm. The Board requires compliance with the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct, whose interpretation 1.810.050 governs it.

For a seller this means your tax and advisory clients go to the entity the investors own and any compilation, review or audit clients to the CPA-owned firm, and the client sees two firms where there was one. Adeptus, a Current partner firm, discloses that Adeptus Partners LLC is the licensed CPA firm that provides attest services and that Adeptus Advisors Group LLC, which provides the tax and consulting services, is not a licensed CPA firm. The Board’s staff has noted that clients may not understand which entity they are engaging, since disclosures often sit in small print.

Buyers with offshore teams meet one more rule. BPC 5063.3(b) requires written notice to the client and the client’s written permission before confidential information is disclosed to anyone outside the United States in connection with the services. Current lists global delivery among its services, and the tracker records Springline Advisory buying an offshore delivery firm in India in 2025, so ask any buyer where the returns will be prepared.

What about the AI roll-ups?

The largest technology-led buyer with California firms is Current, which until June 2026 was Crete Professionals Alliance. Thrive Holdings backs it, and Thrive and its partner OpenAI have placed AI engineers inside it. Its June 2, 2026 announcement gives more than 2,000 employees at almost 30 firms, more than $500 million in annual revenue, and a Tax AI pilot that processed 7,000 returns for the 2025 tax year with an average 31% saving in preparation time.

Current’s partner firms keep equity in their own business, their leadership and their local brand, and its chief executive calls the holding period “effectively forever”. The partner firms are large: RRBB, the first, joined in August 2023 with about $20 million in revenue, and Adeptus had about $40.5 million when it joined in 2025. Smaller practices come in through them; RRBB’s five tuck-ins added between $2 million and $8 million in revenue each, and Adeptus, which has offices in California, made its third acquisition of 2026 in August with Shapiro Villalobos & Associates of Burbank. Current’s own California firms include Cutler Advisors of San Diego and Levy Erlanger of San Francisco, which joined at its launch in May 2024, and Cabrillo Advisors and Advisent of San Diego, which joined in 2025. For a smaller practice the questions are those of any tuck-in: whose name the clients will see, who signs the returns, whether the price is cash or a share of the partner firm, and where the work is done.

Do local California firms still buy practices?

CT Acquisitions lists other CPAs and regional firms as the core buyers between $500,000 and $2 million in fees, with regional consolidators joining from $2 million to $10 million. In September 2026 Withum, a top 20 national firm based in Princeton, New Jersey, added Farber Hass Hurley of Chatsworth, whose three partners and about 30 team members joined Withum’s Los Angeles office. In January 2024 Duffy Kruspodin of Woodland Hills merged in the advisory and tax practices of Michael Khalil & team of San Diego, which continue under the DK name in DK’s San Diego office.

The clients move to the buyer’s name and often, when the lease ends, to its office, and staff whose roles the buyer already fills are at risk, as covered in what happens to your staff. CT Acquisitions describes partner-owned acquirers as offering more cash, less rollover equity and longer earnouts than platforms. If you take an equity interest in the combined firm, the client notice changes too, because 16 CCR 54.3 applies when the seller will keep no ownership in the practice; the letters for each case are in letters for selling a CPA practice.

Who are the individual buyers, and how do they pay?

Individual buyers are CPAs and EAs buying a first practice or adding an office. CT Acquisitions describes the typical sale of a $400,000 to $1 million practice as one to a younger CPA across town at 0.8x to 1.1x trailing revenue, with 20% to 40% in cash at closing and a five to seven year payout against retention. Business Brokerage, Inc. states that all its listings include a guarantee of the gross revenue, seller financing and the seller’s transitional assistance, and some of its October 2026 listings require a CPA buyer or one who keeps the seller’s office for the first year. Accounting & Tax Brokerage offers buyers SBA pre-qualification help. What a broker charges for this is in selling without a broker.

A buyer who borrows through the SBA 7(a) program brings its rules into the deal, and those rules changed when SOP 50 10 8.1 took effect on October 1, 2026 for every application given an SBA loan number from that date. As summarized by WBD, an SBA 504 lender, the ones that reach a seller are these.

• Down payment. The buyer of a first practice must inject at least 10% of total project costs, with no reduction allowed. A buyer adding a practice to one in the same industry owned for at least two full fiscal years may qualify as a business expansion, where the injection can be reduced.
• Your note. Seller debt counts toward that injection only if it is on full standby for the life of the loan, with no principal or interest until the bank is repaid, and such sources may make up no more than half of the 10%.
• Your role. In either case the seller generally must exit and may stay as a consultant for up to 24 months in aggregate, up from 12.
• The price. An independent valuation prepared for the lender is required for every change of ownership and caps the total debt, including seller debt not on full standby; a price above it is funded with more buyer equity.

So the lender’s valuation sets the ceiling on what an SBA-financed buyer can pay, the part of your note that helps the buyer qualify pays you nothing for years, and an owner who wants to stay three seasons can do so only as a consultant for 24 months.

How the five buyers compare

Individual, local and private equity terms: CT Acquisitions, page updated October 16, 2026. SBA terms: SOP 50 10 8.1 as summarized by WBD. Current: its own announcements. WIN: our practice owners page.

What are the alternatives to selling to a roll-up?

A roll-up pays a higher multiple on a larger practice and a possible second payment through rollover equity, and asks for three to five years of your time, a separate home for any attest work and, at some platforms, its name and systems. Outside it there are four routes.

• An individual buyer. The most common buyer under $2 million. Most of the price is paid over time against retention, an SBA loan limits your role to 24 months as a consultant, and the firm usually takes the buyer’s name.
• A merger with a local or regional firm. A larger firm nearby, and possibly a partnership interest in place of part of the price, which keeps you an owner. The firm takes the other firm’s name and, usually, its office.
• A minority platform such as Current. You keep equity, leadership and the brand if your firm is large enough to be a partner firm; a smaller practice joins one as a tuck-in.
• A buyer that installs a CPA owner. WIN buys the practice and a practicing CPA becomes its owner, so the firm keeps its name, its office and its staff without becoming a branch of a larger firm.

An internal successor, where one exists, is a fifth route, covered in succession planning when there is no successor. The preparation every buyer scores is in the 24-month checklist.

The California rules every buyer works under

How to run the 90-day notice without clients hearing early is in selling a CPA practice in California confidentially.

Where WIN fits among California buyers

Wilshire Intelligence Network buys established CPA and tax practices across California and pairs each one with a practicing CPA who becomes its owner. WIN is a management-services organization and is not a licensed public accounting firm; the regulated work is performed by independently operated CPA firms that are majority-owned and controlled by licensed CPAs, in line with BPC 5079. The equity capital is committed before we make an offer, so there is no SBA loan and no financing contingency, and terms follow the deal: cash at closing, a retention-linked holdback or a seller note where the deal calls for one, and optional rollover equity. There is no commission, the practice is never listed or shopped around, and your clients and staff hear about the sale from you, when you decide. The firm keeps its name, its office and its people. You stay two or three seasons at meaningful compensation and introduce your successor client by client, or step back sooner. The first step is one call with our CPA team; we send a written valuation, with terms, within 24 hours of it, and the call commits you to nothing.

Sources

• CPA Trendlines Research, CPA PE Deal Tracker: monthly log through May 2026 (June 9, 2026, updated October 8, 2026): California deals, buyers and named backers, platform and sponsor counts; February 2026 update: Ascend and local identity, Aprio and Citrin Cooperman rebranding, Mercer Advisors and Beach Freeman Lim & Cleland, Springline Advisory’s offshore acquisition, Richey May; June to July 2026 update: California 53 tracked deals, New York 38, Texas 32; October 2026 edition: 37 acquisitions in the third quarter. Read October 21, 2026.
• CFO Brew, Accounting enters its private equity ‘flip’ era (April 30, 2026): about 24 of the top 100 firms, hold periods, Citrin Cooperman at about 15x against 11x EBITDA.
• CT Acquisitions, CPA Firm Valuation in 2026 (updated October 16, 2026): size bands, 0.85x to 1.15x revenue below $2 million to $3 million, 4x to 7x EBITDA, rollover, earnouts, attest consideration, partner-owned acquirers.
• Current: Crete Professionals Alliance rebrands as Current (June 2, 2026); RRBB adds fifth tuck-in firm (July 9, 2026); Adeptus completes third acquisition (August 20, 2026), including its alternative practice structure disclosure.
• Sorren, Connected Accounting joins Sorren (February 25, 2026); CPA Practice Advisor, Withum adds Farber Hass Hurley in California (September 1, 2026); Duffy Kruspodin merges in Michael Khalil & team (January 9, 2024).
• Accounting & Tax Brokerage (buyer network, transactions, SBA support) and Business Brokerage, Inc. (practices brokered, listing terms, listings as of October 21, 2026).
• SBA, Information Notice 5000-880695, Issuance of SOP 50 10 8.1 (published August 14, 2026, effective October 1, 2026); WBD, SOP 50 10 8.1 reshapes change-of-ownership lending: equity injection, standby seller debt, seller consultant period, valuation, debt service coverage, quality of earnings.
• Business and Professions Code 5079, 5060, 5063.3 and 16601; 16 CCR 54.3, operative April 1, 2024.
• California Board of Accountancy, Discussion and possible action regarding alternative practice structures (CPC Item 6, September 18 to 19, 2025); AICPA, Alternative practice structures (ET 1.810.050).

This article is general information for California practice owners and is not legal, tax or investment advice. Buyer names, backers and deal dates are as reported by the sources listed and may have changed; the structure of any sale, the attest arrangements, SBA eligibility and the client notice should be settled with counsel admitted in California before you sign.

About the author Denis Shulga, CPA, EA

Denis is a practicing tax and accounting professional and the principal of VistaTax, a practice serving individuals and closely held businesses: individual and business tax preparation, tax planning, bookkeeping, financial reporting and payroll. As WIN’s founding CPA he anchors the licensed side of the structure and sits at the table for every transition. More about WIN’s team.