5.28 Lakh Active Chartered Accountants in India: Is the Profession Facing Oversupply in 2025?

The chartered accountant (CA) community is in the middle of a fresh debate over whether the profession is facing an oversupply after a widely circulated social media post highlighted the sharp rise in the number of CAs over the decades.

The discussion was triggered by a post on X (formerly Twitter) by CA Dhanesh Gianani, who shared a “Progress Chart of Chartered Accountants” showing the growth of the profession since 1950. As per the info in the chart, India had only 1,689 CAs as on April 1, 1950 - three years since independence.

This number steadily rose across decades to 96,392 in 2001, 1.70 lakh in 2011, 3.27 lakh in 2021, and now stands at over 5.28 lakh as of December 1, 2025.

The post quickly gained traction within the professional community, prompting discussions on employability of the graduates, training quality and whether the expanding numbers have diminished the value of the qualification.

The debate was furthered when CA Club India shared a screenshot of Gianani’s post on its Instagram page, attracting hundreds of sharply divided comments from members, students and recruiters who argued that the challenges to the profession emanated less from numbers and more from limited diversification of skills.

One commenter said that for over seven decades, CAs have largely confined themselves to taxation and auditing, without adequately expanding their skillset to tap into the wider finance ecosystem despite growing opportunities in areas such as corporate finance, valuation, risk management and financial strategy.

Another person remarked that while CAs are often technically stronger than many MBA graduates, weak alumni networks and limited institutional engagement with corporates have affected placement outcomes. Others compared the CA ecosystem with management education, pointing out that far more MBAs qualify each year than CAs, yet even Tier-2 management institutes are able to secure placements for most students.

Concerns were also raised about training standards following the reduction of the mandatory articleship period from three years to two years - leading to anguish from some recruiters who expressed that the quality of fresh CAs had declined, making hiring difficult, and cautioned that the qualification risked losing its distinctiveness if extensive training would continue to be reduced.

At the same time, several voices defended the profession, some noted that the CA profession, unlike engineering colleges, does not admit students through donations or without adequate infrastructure; the CA pathway is uniform for all and examination-oriented, preserving its credibility.

50 Lakh Chartered Accountants by 2050

Earlier this year, ICAI President Charanjot Singh Nanda stated that India would require 50 lakh new chartered accountants by 2050 to support the country’s expanding economy. Speaking at a national conference in Vadodara, Nanda said that India currently has around 4.85 lakh registered CAs and that demand for qualified professionals would rise significantly with economic growth.

The ICAI president also highlighted the institute’s recent digital initiatives to increase their competence in the Artificial Intelligence era.

While ICAI remains optimistic about long-term demand, the online discourse is indicative of unease within the profession about employability, skill and knowledge and institutional support.

Essentially, the question should be less about the number of CAs and more about how effectively the profession evolves to meet the changing demands of India’s growing and increasingly complex economy.

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