Ask ten finance people for the difference between a fractional CFO and a part-time CFO and you will get ten answers, most of them about positioning. We wanted a source that nobody in the market controls, so we counted how US companies describe their external CFOs in the filings they make with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
When a listed company, a Regulation A issuer or a crowdfunded startup relies on an outside CFO, it often has to say so, name the person, and sometimes file the contract. Those filings are public, permanent and searchable. We searched them for fourteen fixed phrases, from 2015 to October 2026, classified 3,309 documents and checked the classification by hand. The full method and every number are on the Fractional CFOs in SEC Filings page.
The short answer: in the filings, there is very little difference in the arrangement. There is a large difference in the word.
The Word Changed Before the Job Did
In 2015, 5% of SEC filings describing an external CFO used "fractional". In 2026 it is 59%.
| Year | Fractional | Part-time | Outsourced | Contract / consulting |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 5% | 46% | 22% | 34% |
| 2019 | 14% | 30% | 27% | 29% |
| 2022 | 22% | 20% | 36% | 20% |
| 2025 | 43% | 24% | 29% | 7% |
| 2026 (to Oct) | 59% | 14% | 26% | 5% |
"Fractional" overtook "part-time" in 2022 and "outsourced" in 2023. "Virtual CFO" peaked at 6% in 2022 and has nearly disappeared. "CFO as a service", a phrase you see on many firm websites, appears in no filing at all over the period.
The change is sharpest among the companies that pay for one. In 2015, all 12 companies whose filings describe their own external CFO used "part-time", and none used "fractional". In 2026, 34 of the 43 such companies use "fractional", 7 "part-time" and 2 "outsourced".
It Is Not Just More CFO Turnover
A rising count could simply mean more companies losing their CFO. To check, we tracked a control series: filings mentioning an interim CFO, usually a full-time stand-in between two permanent hires. Those grew 60% from 2015 to 2025.
Over a shorter period, documents mentioning a "fractional CFO" went from 35 in 2019 to 251 in 2025, and 305 in 2026 before the end of October. The term is growing much faster than the turnover it could be riding on.
It has also become a line on leadership résumés. Companies whose filings include the biography of an officer or director with fractional CFO experience went from 2 in 2019 to 52 in 2026.
So, What Is the Difference?
In the filings, both words describe the same arrangement: a CFO paid by the month or by the hour for a share of their time, often through a firm. ProPhase Labs buys "25 hours of time per month at the rate of $10,000 per month". Anebulo Pharmaceuticals' part-time CFO "dedicates approximately 25% of his business time" to the company. The first is called fractional, the second part-time, and the contracts read alike.
What differs is what the word signals. "Part-time" describes a reduced version of an employee. "Fractional" describes a professional who holds the role for several companies at once. The filings show three consequences of that framing.
The title comes with a signature. In 2026, 23 companies filed a document signed or certified by an officer titled "fractional CFO": Sarbanes-Oxley certifications on quarterly reports, 10-K signature pages, crowdfunding signature blocks. Before 2018 there were none. A fractional CFO at a filer is the CFO for legal purposes, part of the week or not.
The role is used as a way in, and a way out. Lulu's Fashion Lounge appointed a fractional CFO for about 60 working days in October 2025, then announced in February 2026 that she would become its permanent CFO. urban-gro went the other way, moving its full-time CFO to a fractional role at $185 an hour.
The price moved with the name. Agreements described as "fractional" have a median monthly fee of $9,000, higher than the "part-time" ones, which are also older on average.
What Filed Agreements Pay
Fees disclosed in filings, one observation per engagement, coded by hand:
- Hourly: $125 to $400, median $200 (7 agreements, 2020 to 2025).
- Monthly: $1,250 to $15,000, median $7,500 (18 agreements, 2018 to 2026).
- Then and now: the monthly median is $5,000 for the 9 agreements dated 2022 or earlier, and $11,000 for the 6 dated 2025 or 2026.
Three companies repriced the same engagement upward: Brightline Interactive from $6,000 to $15,000 a month in June 2026, Ridepair from $5,000 to $10,000 in 2025, Clean Vision from $5,000 to $7,500 in 2023.
Read these figures for what they are. SEC filers that need an external CFO are mostly microcaps and pre-revenue companies, and the sample is small. They are not a market rate. Survey and platform figures on fractional CFO pay and client counts are collected on our fractional CFO statistics page.
What It Means if You Sell the Service
Use the word your buyers use. Companies that pay for an external CFO have chosen "fractional" in their own filings. "CFO as a service" and "virtual CFO" are words sellers use, not buyers.
Write the engagement in hours or days, not only in a title. The filings that hold up best state the time: 25 hours a month, two days a week, a quarter of the CFO's business time. It is the clause that prevents the "you are the CFO, so you are always on call" conversation.
Know what you will sign. If the client files with the SEC, or raises through crowdfunding, the title may put your name on a certification. Read what you sign, and ask how you are covered before the first quarter-end, not after.
Reprice the relationship, not just the next client. Three filed engagements were repriced by 50% to 150% within the same relationship, and the 2025-26 median is more than double the pre-2023 one. A long-running engagement priced in 2021 is probably priced below what new agreements now show.
The Limits of This Source
SEC filings show the visible part of the market. Private companies, which are most fractional CFO clients, file nothing, and nothing outside the United States is counted. Small issuers are over-represented by construction: a company that can afford a full-time CFO rarely discloses an external one. The trend is informative; the levels are not a market size.
We will rerun the count every quarter on the same frozen list of phrases, so the vocabulary shares stay comparable. The next run is due in late January 2027.
FAQ
What is the difference between a fractional CFO and a part-time CFO? In US SEC filings, the two terms describe the same arrangement: a CFO paid monthly or hourly for a share of their time. The difference is the framing. "Part-time" describes a reduced employee, "fractional" a professional serving several companies. Since 2023, "fractional" is the most used term in filings that describe an external CFO.
Is "fractional CFO" a new term? No, but its use is recent. Documents mentioning a fractional CFO in SEC filings stayed between 4 and 11 a year until 2018, reached 35 in 2019 and 251 in 2025.
How much does a fractional CFO cost? In filed agreements, a median of $200 an hour (7 agreements) and $7,500 a month (18 agreements), rising to $11,000 a month for agreements dated 2025 or 2026. These are small US public companies; private-company rates come from surveys and platforms, gathered on our fractional CFO statistics page.
What about an outsourced CFO or an interim CFO? "Outsourced" is used in filings for the same kind of arrangement, often through a firm, and holds about a quarter of mentions. An interim CFO is different: usually a full-time stand-in between two permanent hires.
The Takeaway
The market renamed itself before it changed its contracts. Companies that pay for an external CFO now call it fractional in their own filings, sign their quarterly certifications under that title, and pay more for it than they did five years ago. If you sell the service, use the buyer's word, put the hours in the agreement, and know what your title will make you sign.