CPA Exam 2026: How It Works and How to Pass

Here is exactly how the CPA exam works, and how to pass it. Four sections, four hours each, and a score of seventy-five that is not a percentage. And if you are sitting a tax section this year, there is a July twenty twenty-six change that decides which tax law you are actually tested on. The exam is written by the AICPA, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

NASBA and your state board handle eligibility and your exam credit, and Prometric delivers the test. Since the twenty twenty-four redesign, the structure is three Core sections that everyone takes, plus one Discipline section that you choose. The Core sections are Auditing and Attestation, Financial Accounting and Reporting, and Taxation and Regulation, usually called AUD, FAR and REG. Each section is four hours, so the full exam is sixteen hours of testing.

Every section is built from five testlets: the first two are multiple choice, the last three are task-based simulations, which are short case studies where you work with documents and spreadsheets. The counts differ by section. AUD gives you seventy-eight multiple choice questions and seven simulations. FAR is only fifty multiple choice questions, but the same seven simulations.

REG has seventy-two questions and eight simulations. Now scoring, and this is the number everyone gets wrong. You need a seventy-five, but that is a scaled score on a zero to ninety-nine scale, not seventy-five percent and not a curve. Multiple choice and simulations each count for half your score in five of the six sections.

The one exception is the Information Systems and Controls Discipline, where multiple choice is sixty percent and simulations are forty. Two rules shape your whole plan. First, the clock: once you pass your first section, you get a rolling thirty-month window to pass the other three. That used to be eighteen months, and NASBA's model rule moved it to thirty, but each jurisdiction adopts it separately, so confirm the window with your own board.

Second, your Discipline choice does not brand your career. Whichever one you pass, you get the same CPA license, and your practice is not limited by it. So what is actually tested. The blueprint gives each content area a range rather than a fixed percentage, which is unusual and tells you something: the mix moves between forms.

In AUD, performing procedures and obtaining evidence is the heaviest area at thirty to forty percent, and risk assessment is right behind it. FAR splits into three areas of roughly equal size. REG is dominated by tax on individuals and tax on entities, which together can be well over half the section, while property transactions can be as little as five percent. Here is the number that should change how you study.

Every blueprint also publishes a skill allocation, and in FAR only five to fifteen percent of the section is remembering and understanding. Nearly everything else is application and analysis. AUD is the only section that tests the top skill, evaluation, at five to fifteen percent. So flashcards alone will not get you to seventy-five.

You have to work problems. Now the twenty twenty-six change, and it is the one that makes older review material dangerous. The tax act signed in July twenty twenty-five, HR one, changed a lot of the Internal Revenue Code. The AICPA Board of Examiners decided its twenty twenty-four and twenty twenty-five provisions became eligible for testing in REG and TCP starting July first, twenty twenty-six, and that provisions which were scheduled to sunset stayed testable only through June thirtieth.

So a tax section sat before that summer and one sat after are testing different law. Check the print date on your tax material, and confirm it covers the act. Let's do three real questions, one per Core section. First, auditing.

A partner in the same office as the lead attest engagement partner buys stock in one of the firm's audit clients. The amount is immaterial to that partner's net worth. Is independence impaired? Yes.

Any direct financial interest held by a covered member impairs independence regardless of materiality. Materiality only enters the analysis for indirect interests, and that single distinction decides a lot of AUD questions. Second, financial accounting. A company pays cash dividends to common shareholders and cash interest on its bonds.

How are those classified in the statement of cash flows under United States GAAP? Dividends paid are financing, and interest paid is operating. It feels inconsistent, because both look like payments to capital providers, but interest runs through the income statement and dividends do not. FAR rewards you for knowing where an item lands, not for defining it.

Third, regulation. A preparer takes a position that is not a tax shelter and is not disclosed on the return. What level of support avoids the preparer penalty under section sixty-six ninety-four A? Substantial authority.

Reasonable basis is the weaker standard, and it is only enough if the position is disclosed. There is a ladder of confidence standards in tax practice, and REG tests where each rung applies. So how do you prepare. One: work multiple choice questions until the concepts are automatic, then spend real time on simulations, because they are half your score and they are where unprepared candidates lose the exam.

Two: master the vocabulary, since one word decides the answer. Direct versus indirect interest. Substantial authority versus reasonable basis. Compilation versus review.

Three: pick your section order around the thirty-month clock and start with the section you can pass soonest, because the window only starts when you pass one. Four: study to the blueprint, not to a textbook's table of contents. It is published free, it lists every representative task and the skill level each is tested at, and if a task says analyze or evaluate, a definition will not be enough. And when your material and the blueprint disagree, the blueprint wins.

Quick recap. Three Core sections plus one Discipline, four hours each. Five testlets, multiple choice then simulations, split fifty-fifty in your score for almost every section. Seventy-five to pass on a zero to ninety-nine scale, which is not a percentage.

A rolling thirty-month window once you pass your first section, subject to your board. And the tax law you are tested on changed on July first, twenty twenty-six. Practice free at quibank.com/en/cpa. Concept questions for all three Core sections, in English, Chinese and Spanish, no signup.

Good luck on your exam.