— GUIDE —
CITADEL SECURITIES SALARY IN 2026
What Citadel Securities pays researchers, traders and interns, from the firm's own postings and its filings with the US Department of Labor.
UPDATED 2026-09-21 · 9 MIN READ · BY THE VARIANCE TEAM
Before any of the numbers are worth reading, one correction: Citadel Securities is the market maker, Citadel is the hedge fund, and almost every salary page blends the two.
Checked against Citadel Securities' careers site and DOL disclosure data on 21 September 2026. Every figure is labelled with where it came from. Where the firm publishes nothing, this page says so rather than filling the gap.
Citadel Securities is one of the few quant firms that prints an actual number on its intern postings, and one of the few with a filing sample large enough to mean something. That combination makes it easier to write about honestly than most of its peers, and it also makes the first thing worth saying a correction rather than a figure.
Citadel Securities is not Citadel
Citadel is a hedge fund. Citadel Securities is a market maker. Separate businesses, separate hiring, separate compensation. Almost every salary aggregator and forum thread blends them, which means a number labelled "Citadel" may describe a portfolio manager at the fund rather than a quantitative researcher at the market maker.
Everything below is Citadel Securities only, drawn from postings and filings that carry that name.
What Citadel Securities pays: base salary, 2025 filings
The firm sponsors H-1B hires, so it files a Labor Condition Application stating base salary for each role. Those filings are public. For fiscal year 2025:
| Title as filed | Median base | Filings | Locations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quantitative Trader | $262,500 | 4 | New York and Miami |
| Quantitative Researcher | $250,000 | 43 | New York and Miami |
Read those two rows differently. The $250,000 researcher median rests on 43 filings, which is a real sample. The trader median rests on four, spanning $225,000 to $275,000, which is a spread rather than a rate. Both are listed with their counts because a median over four filings and a median over 43 are not the same kind of claim.
Against peer firms on the same title and the same dataset:
| Firm | Median base | Filings | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jane Street | $300,000 | 3 filings | US DOL filing |
| Five Rings | $300,000 | 9 filings | US DOL filing |
| Citadel Securities | $250,000 | 43 filings | US DOL filing |
| Jump Trading | $250,000 | 12 filings | US DOL filing |
| Two Sigma | $235,000 | 49 filings | US DOL filing |
| Optiver | $150,000 | 15 filings | US DOL filing |
Citadel Securities sits in the middle of the group on base while carrying one of the deepest samples in it. Jane Street and Five Rings filed higher medians; Two Sigma filed lower across a slightly larger sample. None of that ranking survives contact with bonuses, which is the next section.
Intern pay: the posted range
Citadel Securities states a weekly range on its intern postings: $4,500 to $5,800 per week. The same range appears across the analyst, PhD and post-doctoral intern listings, which is itself informative — the degree does not move the posted band.
| Posted weekly range | Weeks | Base for the summer | Also provided |
|---|---|---|---|
| $4,500 – $5,800 | 11 | $49,500 – $63,800 | Housing stipend or covered accommodation, Sign-on bonus, Company-sponsored travel, Catered meals |
Corporate housing is the line most candidates underweight. In New York or Miami over a summer it is worth several thousand dollars a month, and it is the reason a posted range can beat a higher weekly rate elsewhere that leaves rent to the intern. The cross-firm comparison is in the quant intern pay guide.
Miami versus New York
Citadel Securities moved its headquarters to Miami and hires into both cities. Its filing data is the one place in this dataset where a firm's secondary office out-pays its New York one on base.
| Office | Median filed base | Filings |
|---|---|---|
| Miami, FL | $250,000 | 56 |
| New York, NY | $225,000 | 69 |
That is across all 126 of the firm's 2025 filings rather than a single title, so it describes the office rather than a role. The posted intern range, by contrast, is identical in both cities.
Then tax widens it. Florida levies no state income tax. A New York City hire pays both New York State and city income tax on the same nominal salary. Stack that on a base that is already $25,000 higher and the take-home gap is worth more than most of the salary differences candidates argue about between firms.
Base is not the package
Every figure above is base. LCA filings capture base by design, and the intern postings say weekly base. At a market maker the discretionary bonus is usually the larger half of the package, with base running 30% to 50% of total compensation.
| Filed base | If base is 50% | If base is 40% | If base is 30% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Citadel Securities, Quantitative Researcher$250,000 | $500,000 | $625,000 | $833,333 |
Read across, not down. The same base produces a wide spread of totals, which is why a base-only chart cannot rank two firms against each other.
No firm publishes a bonus schedule, so the only available shape of the curve is candidate-reported:
| Level | Years | Trader total | Researcher total |
|---|---|---|---|
| New graduate | Year 1 | $250k–$450k | $225k–$400k |
| Mid-level | Roughly years 3–6 | $400k–$800k | $350k–$700k |
| Senior | Roughly years 7+ | $600k–$1.5M+ | $500k–$1.2M+ |
Those are self-reports, not filings, and they are not specific to Citadel Securities. They describe the market this firm competes in.
How these figures were sourced
Sources are preferred in a fixed order: what the employer publishes, then what it files with the government, then named press reporting, then candidate reports. Every figure carries the label of which one it came from.
- Employer-published
- Published by the employer on its own job posting or careers site.
- US DOL filing
- Labor Condition Application disclosure data filed with the US Department of Labor ahead of an H-1B petition. Base salary only.
- Press report
- Reported by a named publication with an editorial standard.
- Candidate-reported
- Self-reported by candidates and aggregated by a third party. Unverified and prone to selection bias.
The limits of the filing data apply here as everywhere. Only sponsored hires appear, so anyone on a green card, an O-1A, or a US undergraduate pipeline is invisible to it. Record counts sit next to every figure on this page because a median over four filings and a median over 43 are not the same kind of claim, and most salary pages present them as though they were.
Where these numbers come from
Employer-published
Citadel Securities careers site, intern postings
The posting reads "In accordance with applicable law, the base salary range for this role is $4,500 to $5,800 per week." The top of the range is shown here; the same range appears across the analyst, PhD and post-doctoral intern postings. Citadel Securities' own site blocks automated checks, so re-verify against the Built In NYC mirror of the same posting: https://www.builtinnyc.com/job/quantitative-research-analyst-intern-us/10075465
Last checked 2026-09-21
US DOL filing
US Department of Labor LCA disclosure data, via h1bdata.info
Employers file a Labor Condition Application before petitioning for an H-1B. The filings are public.
Last checked 2026-09-21
Candidate-reported
Aggregated candidate self-reports via levels.fyi, Glassdoor and Wall Street Oasis
No quant firm publishes a bonus schedule and LCA filings capture base only, so total-compensation figures at every level are candidate-reported. Ranges are wide because they genuinely are.
Last checked 2026-09-21
Frequently asked questions
How much does Citadel Securities pay?
Citadel Securities filed a $250,000 median base salary for Quantitative Researcher across 43 Department of Labor filings in fiscal year 2025, covering New York and Miami. Base is typically 30% to 50% of a quant package at a market maker, so total compensation runs well above that, but the firm publishes no bonus figures.
How much do Citadel Securities interns make?
The firm's own intern postings state a range of $4,500 to $5,800 per week. Over an eleven-week summer that is roughly $49,500 to $63,800 in base pay, before corporate housing and a signing bonus. The same range appears across the analyst, PhD and post-doctoral intern postings.
Is Citadel Securities the same as Citadel?
No, and it matters for pay comparisons. Citadel is a hedge fund and Citadel Securities is a market maker. They are separate businesses with separate hiring processes and separate compensation. Salary pages and forum threads mix them constantly, so a figure attributed to "Citadel" may describe neither the role nor the firm you are applying to.
Does Citadel Securities pay more in Miami or New York?
Miami, on filed base salary. Across all 126 of the firm's fiscal year 2025 Department of Labor filings, the Miami median is $250,000 over 56 records against $225,000 over 69 records in New York. Florida also levies no state income tax while New York State and New York City both do, so the take-home gap on the same nominal offer is wider than the $25,000 headline difference.
Why does Citadel Securities have so many filings?
It sponsors heavily. The 43 Quantitative Researcher filings behind its median are one of the larger samples in the dataset, which makes the figure more reliable than the single-filing rows at other firms that get quoted as market rates. Coverage varies enormously by title, though: Hudson River Trading filed 31 records in 2025 and not one carries a Trader or Quantitative Researcher title.
Is $250,000 the offer?
No, it is the base. Labor Condition Application filings capture base salary only, and at a market maker the discretionary bonus is usually the larger half of the package. Treat the filed figure as a floor that a bonus sits on top of, not as a total.
Keep reading
- Citadel Securities trader interview guide — the process behind the offer, separating what the firm publishes from what candidates report.
- Jane Street salary — the same treatment for the firm at the top of the filing data.
- Optiver salary — the firm at the bottom of it, and why that is misleading.
- Quant salary guide 2026 — the full picture across firms, titles and levels.
- Quant pay by city — New York, Chicago, Miami, London and Amsterdam compared.