California CPA requirements

California lets you sit for the exam at 120 credit hours, but you still need 150 hours and 1 year of general accounting experience before the board will license you.

Education

You need a bachelor’s degree or higher and 150 total semester hours to be licensed in California. You can sit for the exam earlier, at 120 hours.

Community college credits generally count toward the total but not toward the upper-level accounting requirement. Get a transcript evaluation from the board before you pay for extra coursework.

Foreign-educated candidates

California maintains its own list of board-approved foreign credential evaluation services rather than requiring one specific evaluator. NASBA International Evaluation Services (NIES) is on that approved list.

Sitting versus licensing

California is one of the states that has adopted the newer 120-hour pathway: you can sit for the exam well before you finish your degree’s final 30 hours, then complete the rest while you work toward licensure. That timing flexibility is real, but don’t mistake “eligible to sit” for “eligible to be licensed” — plenty of candidates finish all four sections and then wait months to hit the full 150-hour threshold.

Experience

1 year of general accounting experience, supervised and verified by someone holding a current, active, unrestricted CPA license. Qualifying work is broad — public accounting, private industry, government, or teaching accounting at an accredited college or university all count.

The experience can typically be earned before, during, or after you pass the exam sections. Your supervisor submits the verification directly to the board, so keep the relationship intact — chasing a signature from a former manager years later is the most common avoidable delay at this stage.

Ethics

California eliminated its separate PETH ethics exam for initial licensure in July 2024. Instead you need 10 semester units of ethics study as part of your education (at least 3 units in accounting ethics), plus a CBA-approved 2-hour Regulatory Review Course before or at your first renewal and every 6 years after that.

How to apply, step by step

The order matters less than it looks — experience and exam sections can overlap — but this is the sequence that avoids the most common delays.

Fees

California’s CBA fee schedule lists the first-time application and NASBA’s section fee. Licensing fees conflict between sources, so confirm them with the CBA.

Third-party guides disagree on California’s license and renewal fees, and we could not confirm them against the CBA’s own fee schedule. Check the California Board of Accountancy before you budget.

After you’re licensed: staying current

Getting licensed is not the end of the paperwork. California requires ongoing continuing professional education to keep your license active, and it is easy to lose track of once you’re working full time.

80 hours of CPE every 2-year renewal period, with a 20-hour minimum in each year of the cycle (at least 12 of those 20 must be technical), plus 4 hours of ethics CPE every 2 years and a 2-hour Regulatory Review Course every 6 years.

What changed recently

California removed the standalone PETH ethics exam requirement for initial licensure in July 2024, replacing it with the Regulatory Review Course. A bigger change is coming: starting January 1, 2027, AB 1175 creates an entirely new licensure pathway — a bachelor’s degree with an accounting concentration plus 2 years of experience, with no 150-hour requirement at all. A dual-pathway transition runs 2027–2028, and the new pathway becomes the only option from 2029 onward.

Most states have also aligned their credit window with the national thirty-month rule, which gives candidates six more months than the old eighteen-month window to finish all four sections. If you were planning around the old rule, replan.

Common questions

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