Date of Last Revision:    3/29/2023

License Renewal Date
Last day of birth month in odd or even year corresponding to the odd or even year of birth

CPE Reporting Period
Biennial on the last day of birth month in odd or even year corresponding to the odd or even year of birth

General Requirements
80 hours
20 hour yearly minimum
40 hours in technical subjects
12 hours yearly minimum in technical subjects

Ethics Requirement
Four (4) hours

Regulatory Review Requirement
A two (2) hour, board approved, Regulatory Review course is due every 6 years. For those licensed 2024 and forward, a two (2) hour Regulatory Review course must be completed between the initial license date and the first license expiration date.

Other Subject Area Requirements

• Government Auditing: If the individual engages in planning, directing, conducting substantial portions of field work, or reporting on financial or compliance audits of a government agency, 24 hours of government CPE are required.
• Accounting & Auditing: If the individual engages in planning, directing, approving, performing substantial portions of the work, or reporting on an audit, review, compilation or attestation services on a non-governmental entity, 24 hours of A & A are required.
• Preparation Engagement: If the individual only performed preparation engagements as their highest level of service, 8 hours of CE specific to preparation engagements or accounting and auditing are required.
• Fraud: For licensees who are subject to the A&A,Government or Preparation Engagement CE requirement, an additional four (4) hours of fraud CE, related to the detection and/or reporting of fraud in financial statements, is required. The fraud CE is part of the 80 hours of CE required for license renewal, but not part of the 24-hour A&A or government CE requirement.
• Technical: A minimum of 50% (at least 40 hours) must be in technical subject areas such as accounting, auditing, fraud, taxation, consulting, financial planning, business law, economics, management services, statistics, Board-approved professional conduct and ethics course, computer and information technology (except for word processing) and specialized industry or government practices related to public accounting skills.

Credit Limitations

• Ethics: Courses must be at least one hour in length or, if part of a course covering multiple subjects, have an Ethics component that is at least one hour in length.
• Instruction: The maximum credit for instructors is 50%. Credit for repeat presentations is only allowed if the program material has substantially changed.
• Nontechnical subjects: Subject areas such as behavioral ethics, business management and organization, communications and marketing, computer software and applications, personal development, personnel/human resources and production are limited to 50% max.
• Published materials: The maximum credit for writing articles/books/instructional materials/Uniform CPA exam questions is 50% of the total requirement. Credits for authorship/publications are acceptable as long as the publisher is not under control of the licensee.
• Self-study: Courses must have an interactive delivery method. Self study courses designed to meet the Regulatory Review requirement must have a final exam and be passed with a score of 90 or above to receive credit toward that requirement.
• Fields of Study: This jurisdiction has a rule(s) placing limitations on certain subject areas or requiring a certain number of credits within a certain subject area or group of subject areas. Confirmation with the Board of the impact of the changes included in the new Fields of Study document, which went into effect September 1, 2016, is included in this analysis.
• Technical Reviewer: Credit is allowed on an hour-for-hour basis for performing a technical review of instructional materials for any continuing education program which meets the requirements of subsection (a)(1), Section 88.1 and Section 88.2.

Credit Calculation

• Instruction: Credit is equal to actual presentation hours, plus up to two (2) additional hours for actual preparation time for each hour taught.
• Partial credit: Credit is accepted in 0.2 and 0.5 increments after the first hour for Group Study and Blended Learning. Credit is accepted in 0.2 and 0.5 increments after the first half-hour for Self-Study. Credit is accepted in 0.2 increments for Nano Learning. Credits from Nano Learning cannot be applied towards the ethics, fraud or regulatory review requirements.
• University/college credit: Academic credit limited to the following: One (1) quarter hour equals ten (10) CE hours; one (1 )semester hour equals fifteen (15) CE hours; and one (1) hour non-credit classroom presentation equals one (1) CE hour.

Other State Policies

• Learning or teaching the use of accounting software qualifies as general CE in the technical subject area but not as credit for accounting and/or auditing.
• California does not accept CE in the following subject areas: personal growth, self-realization, spirituality, personal health and/or fitness, sports and recreation, foreign languages and cultures, etc.
• California accepts CPE credits for programs offered by National Registry sponsors.
   

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