Discover how accountants in tier 2/ tier 3 Indian cities are breaking free from local salaries to earn 2000$ + monthly serving US clients. Learn the exact skills and strategies to create this 10x income transformation.
Yesterday, I was reading some of the issues professionals had about job opportunities that left me quite disturbed.
When we asked about the biggest career pain points, the answers painted a troubling picture:
- “Low growth despite hard work”
- “Services are not valued in India”
- “Revenue is less compared to efforts”
- “Extra workload & less growth with less earnings”
- “Getting clients and then being underpaid”
The chat was flooded with frustration from skilled professionals trapped in what you can call the “geographic income prison.”
Here’s what struck me the most. These weren’t complaints from incompetent people. These were qualified professionals, many with CA, CS, and CMA backgrounds, some with years of experience, all stuck earning ₹25,000-50,000 monthly for work that commands $2,000-3,000 internationally.
If you’re an accountant in a tier 2 or 3 city, you know this reality too well.
Locally, you will get paid ₹13,000-20,000 for monthly bookkeeping. The same work for US BPO or client can earn you $500-2000 (₹44,000- 1,65,000)
That’s 3x-5x difference for identical services
The problem isn’t your competence. It’s your market.
In a typical small town, you may be competing for 50-100 businesses that need professional accounting services. Since everyone knows everyone, price becomes the only differentiator.
But what if I told you there’s a market where over 30 million businesses need accounting support and they’re actively looking for skilled professionals from anywhere in the world who will be compensated in international rates?
And especially because their youth hate accounting work and they are running out of accountants as the old ones retire out?
That market is the US, and it’s more accessible for Indian talent today than ever before.
Trump can throw tantrums, but he cannot find US businesses 3 lakh new accountants they desperately need. That is the inevitable truth.
Three years ago, Jayesh Bhanushali was stuck in the same cycle most of us know too well. A qualified CA from Jamnagar, working long hours, earning barely enough, watching his peers in metros make 3x more for similar work.
Jayesh was a qualified CA, technically competent, but geographically constrained. He was stuck fighting for assignments priced at a fraction of what he could be making in a metro city as he was stuck with local traders and small manufacturers.
But in international markets there are millions of businesses with a severe shortage of qualified accounting professionals.
But here’s what changed everything for Jayesh. He realized the problem wasn’t his skills, it was his market.
If you keep a shark in an aquarium it will never become big. You need to put it in the ocean and then you will see what happens.
When Jayesh learned US accounting systems, something remarkable happened. Geography became irrelevant.
A startup in San Francisco doesn’t care if their bookkeeper is in Mumbai or Jamnagar. They don’t want accountants who went to IIM. They don’t even know who is a CA or CS. They care about:
- Clean & accurate books
- Timely month-end closings
- Proper compliance
- Strategic financial insights
Suddenly, Jayesh wasn’t competing with 500 CAs in Jamnagar for 50 local opportunities. He was one of maybe 1,000 qualified Indian professionals competing for more than 100,000 US opportunities.
The skills that made this possible weren’t rocket science. These are core US accounting skills that opened global markets for Jayesh:
- US GAAP fundamentals (different from Indian Accounting Standards)
- QuickBooks, Xero, Wave proficiency (cloud-based systems US businesses use)
- Basic US tax compliance (1099s, W2s, quarterly filings)
- Corporate structuring for LLCs and C-Corps
- E-commerce accounting for Shopify/Amazon businesses
- Startup financial modeling and investor reporting
Within 30 days of creating his Fiverr profile with these skills, Jayesh landed his first US client for Delaware franchise tax filing. USD 80 for 2 hours of work – more than he earned in a day locally.
Here’s the beautiful irony. Once Jayesh started serving international clients, being in Jamnagar became a massive advantage.
Take a look at the cost of living in Jamnagar for one person:
He makes about USD 1,800-2,000 (₹1.58- 1.76 lakh) per month. If I do the math right, he can easily save 84.2% of what he makes.
What Jayesh discovered applies to every tier 2 and tier 3 accounting professional:
Your local market limits you to local opportunities and local pricing. International skills give you access to global opportunities and global pricing.
The same monthly bookkeeping work that fetches:
- ₹4,000 in Jamnagar
- ₹15,000 in Mumbai
- USD 800 in New York
You can deliver the New York quality service from any city you live in, at competitive pricing and still earn 10-15x more than local rates. And as your experience grows, you can charge more.
After hearing all this, you might wonder “why would a business in the US hire me, a professional from India?”
Post-COVID, global businesses, especially the ones from the US, became comfortable hiring remote Indian talent. Mostly because of the cost advantage they get. They could pay a fresher Indian CA 2000 USD/ month and get the job done.
But the starting salary of a fresher chartered accountant in the US would be between 5.8K – 8.3K.
And for a fresher CA in India, especially if they are from tier 2/ tier 3 cities, this is exponentially more than what they will make domestically.
So it’s a win-win situation.
But this advantage is temporary. As more professionals discover this opportunity, competition will increase. Early movers like Jayesh establish themselves as trusted partners before the market gets saturated.
The opening is still here though. You need to act now.
The question isn’t whether this opportunity exists, but how quickly you can position yourself to capture it.
The geographic trap that’s kept talented professionals underpaid in tier 2 and tier 3 cities has a solution. The only question is whether you’re ready to learn it.
Would you like to explore how this applies to your situation?
Join our free 3 day LIVE only bootcamp, happening this weekend (20th – 22nd September 2025, 7-10 pm IST).
No recordings will be available, so set your reminders & I’ll see you there.
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