If you own the business you run, “how much should a small business CEO be paid?” isn’t a question about the market. It’s a question about you. You set the number, you sign the cheque, and you live with the tax and cash-flow consequences on both sides. That makes it one of the trickiest financial decisions an owner-operator makes, and one where the obvious instinct (pay yourself as little as possible and leave the rest in the business) can quietly cost you money, retirement contributions, and in some cases an audit.

This guide is for the founder or owner-CEO deciding what to pay themselves, not the board hiring an outside executive. (If you’re recruiting a CEO, see our companion piece on what it costs to hire a CEO for a small company.) It covers how owner pay actually works, the reasonable-compensation rules in the US and UK that constrain your choices, and how to arrive at a defensible number.

Why Owner-CEO Pay Is a Different Question Entirely

A hired CEO negotiates one number: total compensation. An owner-CEO faces a fork the employee never sees, because the money can leave the business in two forms with very different tax treatment. You can pay yourself a salary, which is taxed as employment income and carries payroll taxes. Or you can take company profit as a distribution (a dividend in the UK, a shareholder distribution in the US), which is generally taxed at a lower rate and escapes payroll taxes entirely.

That gap is the whole game. It creates a powerful incentive to pay yourself a tiny salary and take everything else as distribution, and it’s exactly why tax authorities in both countries have rules to stop you going too far. Understanding those rules is what separates a defensible pay decision from an expensive one.

The US Picture: Reasonable Compensation and the S-Corp Split

If your business is an S-corporation, the salary-versus-distribution split is the central tax decision you make each year. Salary (W-2 wages) is subject to the 15.3% self-employment tax: 12.4% Social Security plus 2.9% Medicare. Distributions are not. So every dollar you move from salary to distribution saves roughly 15 cents in payroll tax.

The catch is the reasonable compensation rule. The IRS requires that an S-corp shareholder who works in the business must pay themselves a reasonable salary, defined as what you’d pay someone else to do your job, before taking distributions. You cannot pay yourself $10,000 and take $200,000 in distributions simply because it saves tax. The IRS actively audits this pattern, and courts have consistently sided with the IRS: in the well-known Watson case, a CPA who paid himself $24,000 while taking $203,000 in distributions had a large chunk of those distributions reclassified as wages, with back payroll taxes, penalties, and interest.

A few things worth knowing about how the IRS judges “reasonable”:

• There is no official ratio. The popular “60% salary / 40% distributions” rule of thumb is industry shorthand, not IRS guidance. No revenue ruling or court case establishes it, and the IRS evaluates each case on its facts.
• Zero salary is a guaranteed red flag. Paying yourself nothing while taking large distributions is the single most reliable way to trigger scrutiny, and courts have uniformly ruled against it.
• The factors are the job, not your needs. The IRS weighs your training, experience, duties, time spent, and comparable wages, not your personal living expenses. A useful method for owners who wear several hats is to break your role into functions (say, strategy, sales, and delivery) and assign each a market rate.

Set the salary too low and you invite reclassification and penalties. Set it too high and you overpay payroll tax, forfeiting the very benefit the structure exists to provide. The goal is a defensible market-rate figure you can document, and documentation matters, since a written compensation memo with market data is the strongest evidence if the IRS ever asks.

The UK Picture: Salary Plus Dividends

UK owner-directors face a structurally similar choice with different mechanics. The standard approach is a low salary topped up with dividends. Salary carries income tax and National Insurance; dividends carry neither National Insurance nor employer NI, and are taxed at lower dividend rates, which is what makes the combination more efficient than salary alone.

For the 2026/27 tax year, the personal allowance is £12,570 and the tax-free dividend allowance is £500. Dividend tax rates rose by two percentage points from 6 April 2026, to 10.75% at the basic rate and 35.75% at the higher rate. Most guidance now points to an optimal director’s salary of £12,570 (the full personal allowance) rather than the traditional £5,000 floor, because at £12,570 the Corporation Tax relief on the salary typically outweighs the employer NI cost. A director on a £12,570 salary can then draw dividends up to roughly £37,700 before hitting the higher-rate threshold.

Two important caveats for UK owners. First, the optimal salary genuinely depends on whether your company qualifies for the Employment Allowance; sole-director companies with no other employees do not, which changes the maths. Second, a very low salary can drop you below the Lower Earnings Limit (£6,708 for 2026/27), which is the threshold for earning a qualifying year toward your State Pension. Saving a little tax today by underpaying yourself can quietly cost you pension entitlement, one of several reasons the lowest possible salary is rarely the smartest one.

Note: tax thresholds and rates change most years, and both the US and UK figures above are specific to 2026. Treat this as orientation, not personal tax advice. The right structure depends on your full financial picture, and a qualified accountant should confirm your specific numbers.

A Note on the Rest of Europe

The salary-versus-distribution tension exists across most of Europe, but the specifics vary sharply by country. Many jurisdictions impose their own version of a reasonable-salary or minimum-remuneration rule on owner-managers precisely to prevent profit being dressed up as dividends to dodge social contributions. Germany, France, and the Netherlands each treat managing-director compensation differently, and social-security treatment in particular differs from the Anglo-American model. If you operate outside the US or UK, the principle (pay yourself a defensible salary before distributing profit) still holds, but the thresholds and rules are local. Local advice is essential.

How to Actually Set Your Number

Cutting through the jurisdictional detail, a sound owner-CEO pay decision follows the same logic anywhere:

• Start with market rate, not survival rate. Ask what you’d have to pay someone to do your actual job, all of it. That figure anchors your salary and is the number a tax authority will test against. Your personal budget is a separate question.
• Layer distributions on top, not instead. Once a defensible salary is set, taking further profit as distributions or dividends is where the genuine tax efficiency lives, legitimately, and without the audit risk of a suspiciously low salary.
• Don’t sacrifice the long term for a small saving. Underpaying yourself can erode retirement contributions (US) or State Pension qualifying years (UK), and can weaken your income evidence for a mortgage. The lowest-tax option and the best option are not always the same.
• Revisit it annually. Thresholds move, and your profit moves. A number that was optimal last year may not be this year, and both countries’ rules changed for 2026.
• Document your reasoning. A short written rationale with the market data you relied on is cheap insurance in both jurisdictions.

The Bottom Line

Small business CEO pay isn’t really a single number. It’s a structure. The salary portion answers to the tax authorities and should reflect what your role is genuinely worth; the distribution portion is where owners capture legitimate tax efficiency. Get the split backwards, with a token salary and outsized distributions, and you trade a modest saving for real risk. Get it right, and you pay yourself fairly, stay defensible, and keep more of what the business earns.

The owners who handle this well treat their own compensation with the same rigour they’d apply to hiring someone else for the job: a market-rate salary they can justify on paper, profit taken sensibly on top, and a quick annual review to keep pace with changing rules. It’s less about extracting the absolute minimum and more about building something that holds up: to the tax authority, to your future self, and to the business’s cash-flow needs.

Looking to recruit your next C-suite leader? CEO Worldwide specializes in international executive recruitment, connecting businesses with top C-level talent across 183 countries in as little as 7 to 10 days. Contact us to learn more about our executive recruitment services.

Last Updated: March 04, 2026

What do you believe the typical CEO’s salary is? Several million? Or even a few dozen million? If you’re like most Americans, you’re probably estimating way below the mark. That is because the majority of workers believe CEOs make around $1 million each year.

However, the true figure is often ten times higher — or more. In 2024, CEO pay at S&P 500 companies averaged $18.9 million in total compensation, a 7% increase from the previous year. Executive salary has become an increasingly controversial topic, with the CEO-to-worker pay ratio now standing at a staggering 285-to-1. Some high earners, such as Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, have famously accepted little or no salary at all.

So, how much does a CEO make in 2026? Read on to find out!

How Much Do CEOs of Startups Earn in 2026?

Early-stage businesses mostly have a limited budget, notably before raising major venture capital. Moreover, startup Chief Executive pay can be difficult to evaluate, especially when CEOs set their own salaries. But how much a startup CEO makes mostly depends on several factors. Here are some of them.

• Company Stage. CEOs of seed-stage startups usually earn less than those at Series A or Series B companies. In 2025, seed-stage CEOs averaged $147,000, while Series A CEOs earned $203,000.
• Funding and Cash Flow. Firms that have raised more capital or had already begun to generate a profit may afford to pay their executive more. The boom in AI startup funding has played a significant role in driving CEO salary increases in recent years.
• Location. Salary levels are often higher in locations with a high cost of living, such as San Francisco, New York City, or London. But this dynamic continues to evolve with the ongoing shift toward remote work and distributed teams.
• Industry. The industry you are working in will influence how much funding you can raise. For instance, AI and biotech founders typically command higher compensation than those in more traditional sectors like agriculture.
• Company culture. There are startup CEOs who choose to be paid a minimal salary to set a good example for the firm and foster a culture of lean efficiency.

So, after taking all that into account, how much does a CEO make at a startup? According to Kruze Consulting’s 2025 Startup CEO Salary Report — the longest-running startup CEO salary study based on anonymized payroll data from over 450 startups — the average startup CEO salary rose to $161,000 in 2025, up more than 14% from $141,000 in 2024. This rebound reflects an improved fundraising climate, with PitchBook projecting U.S. venture fundraising to grow to $90–110 billion by 2026.

When broken down by stage, seed-stage CEOs earned an average of $147,000 (up from $132,000), Series A CEOs earned $203,000 (up from $179,000), while Series B CEO salaries actually declined to $214,000 from $227,000, reflecting investor caution at later stages. Venture capitalist Peter Thiel’s famous estimate that a seed-stage CEO should earn between $100,000 and $125,000 still holds relevance, though the average has crept above that range.

ZipRecruiter reports the average income for a startup CEO position at around $82,000 per year, though this figure varies widely — from $54,500 at the 25th percentile to $100,000 at the 75th percentile, with the 90th percentile reaching $132,000.

How Much Does a CEO Make in a Small and Medium Company?

When checking a small or medium company’s Chief Executive pay, there are some important compensation components to keep in mind.

• Risk and Reward. Pay for performance is the common compensation approach that links executive pay to the firm’s success.
• Bonuses. CEOs usually get bonuses based on the company’s success to motivate them to work harder and make better decisions for investors. For private company CEOs, the median performance bonus in 2024 was $100,000.
• Stock Options. Companies give CEOs stock options to connect Chief executives’ financial interests with those of the shareholders.
• Equity Ownership. The median private company CEO owns approximately 9% of their company’s equity, valued at around $1.5 million.

So how much does a CEO in a small or mid-sized company earn? According to Chief Executive Group Research, the median base salary for private U.S. company CEOs in 2024 was $325,000, with an expected increase to around $335,725 by 2026. This is significantly lower than the $1.2 million median salary for S&P 500 CEOs.

However, when adjusted for inflation, private company CEO pay has actually declined by 2.8% since 2020. While average U.S. wages grew 26% from 2020 to 2025, CEO base salaries increased only 18% over the same period — meaning their purchasing power has effectively fallen behind. ZipRecruiter puts the average small business CEO salary at approximately $123,000 per year, ranging from $75,000 at the 25th percentile to $167,500 at the 75th percentile.

Large Corporations and Massive CEO Compensation Packages

Chief Executives of international conglomerates and large American enterprises continue to have the highest earnings among all CEOs. Even though there aren’t many people in this group, they dramatically shift the CEO pay scale toward the seven-figure or eight-figure level.

In 2024, the median total compensation for S&P 500 CEOs reached $17.1 million, a 9.7% increase from the previous year. The average was even higher at $18.9 million. Stock awards remain the dominant component, making up approximately 71.6% of the median pay package. In 2024 alone, the median value of stock awards rose 14.7% to $10.3 million.

One notable trend is the sharp increase in security-related perks, which surged 21.5% in 2024 to a median of $286,343 — largely in response to heightened safety concerns for top executives.

The highest-paid CEO in 2024 was Patrick W. Smith of Axon Enterprise, whose total compensation package reached $164.5 million — nearly twice as much as the second-highest earner, H. Lawrence Culp Jr. of GE Aerospace, who was awarded $87.4 million. Other notable packages included Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol at approximately $96 million and Apple’s Tim Cook at $74.6 million.

To put the CEO-to-worker pay gap in perspective: the Economic Policy Institute reports that from 1978 to 2024, top CEO compensation surged a remarkable 1,094%, while a typical worker’s pay grew just 26% over the same period. The median CEO pay ratio among S&P 500 companies stood at 192-to-1 in 2024.

Who Are the Famous CEOs with the Lowest Pays?

Not every CEO collects a massive paycheck. Some of the most well-known business leaders have famously accepted minimal salaries. Elon Musk, for instance, does not collect a traditional base salary from Tesla and instead relies entirely on performance-based stock options tied to ambitious company milestones. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg took a $1 annual salary for several years starting in 2013 to focus on long-term platform growth.

Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, has maintained a modest $100,000 salary for decades despite being one of the world’s richest individuals. Similarly, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin each took $1 salaries during their active tenures as executives.

Having said that, these individuals were already affluent before accepting such low compensation. Their true wealth comes from equity ownership and stock appreciation, not base salaries. Still, it sets a good example for the rest of the firm, fosters a cash efficiency culture, and demonstrates a founder who prioritizes the company before themselves.

Top Countries with the Highest Chief Executive Wages

The United States remains the best place to be working as a CEO, at least salary-wise. U.S. executives continue to dominate the global pay scale, often earning in the hundreds of millions annually when equity is included. Within the U.S., New York reclaimed the top spot for highest-paid S&P 500 CEOs in 2024 at $21.7 million median compensation, followed by Florida at $20.8 million and Indiana at $20 million. California remains home to the most S&P 500 CEOs at 43, followed by Texas (33) and New York (31).

Globally, CEO pay varies significantly by region. In Europe, median CEO compensation among top companies was estimated at around €4.15 million in 2024, with Germany leading, followed by Sweden and France. European packages tend to feature a more balanced mix of salary, stock, and ESG-linked incentives compared to U.S. packages, which lean heavily toward equity. Other countries with notable CEO salaries include the United Kingdom, Australia, India, Switzerland, Canada, the Netherlands, and China. Australia stands out for particularly high compensation in the mining, healthcare, and logistics sectors, while India’s executive pay continues to rise rapidly alongside the globalization of IT services.

CEO Pay by Industry: Where Do the Biggest Paychecks Go?

Industry plays a major role in determining CEO compensation. In 2024, the communication services sector led all S&P 500 industries for the sixth consecutive year, with a median CEO compensation of $25.2 million. Healthcare followed at $20.2 million, technology at $19.3 million, and financial services at $18.8 million. The utilities sector consistently ranks lowest, with median CEO pay of $12.2 million.

The arts, entertainment, and recreation sector posted the highest average CEO pay at over $35.2 million and the most extreme pay ratio at 1,924-to-1. Understanding these industry-level differences is crucial for anyone evaluating a CEO position or negotiating an executive compensation package.

Key Trends Shaping CEO Compensation in 2026

Several important trends are reshaping how CEOs are paid:

• Performance-based stock awards continue to dominate, representing about 60% of long-term incentive packages, with Relative Total Shareholder Return (rTSR) being the most common performance metric.
• The gender pay gap is narrowing. Among S&P 500 CEOs, the 27 women featured in 2024 earned a median total compensation of $20 million — 17.4% above the overall median. In the startup world, the gender pay gap has shrunk from $45,000 in 2020 to just $11,000 in 2025.
• Security perks are rising sharply. Following heightened concerns about executive safety, security-related perquisites have become a growing component of CEO compensation.
• Diversity-linked incentive measures have declined significantly — from 65% prevalence among S&P 500 companies in 2023 to 35% by 2025 — as companies shift focus toward financial and strategic performance metrics.

So, How Much Does a CEO Make and Is It Worth It?

From startup founders earning $161,000 to S&P 500 executives commanding $18.9 million on average, CEO compensation spans an enormous range. The answer to “how much does a CEO make” depends heavily on company size, industry, location, and stage of development.

What’s clear is that CEO pay continues to outpace worker compensation growth. Since 1978, top CEO pay has increased over 1,000%, while typical worker wages have grown just 26%. Whether this gap is justified by the experience, responsibility, and value creation required of top executives remains one of the most debated questions in modern business.

Looking to hire your next CEO? CEO Worldwide specializes in international executive recruitment, connecting businesses with top C-level talent across 183 countries in as little as 7 to 10 days. Contact us to learn more about our executive recruitment services.