Ohio CPA requirements
Ohio no longer ties licensure to a fixed 150-hour credit total. You can become a fully licensed CPA with just a bachelor’s degree (about 120 hours) plus 2 years of supervised experience, or take the traditional route with a graduate degree and a shorter 1 year of experience instead.
Education
Ohio no longer ties licensure to a fixed credit-hour total. You need a bachelor’s degree or higher (about 120 semester hours) with the required accounting and business coursework to sit for the exam, and that same degree qualifies you for full licensure once you’ve completed the matching experience requirement below — no extra 30 hours required.
| Requirement | Ohio | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Total semester hours to sit | 120 | Bachelor’s degree with required coursework |
| Upper-level accounting | 30 hours, including Auditing, Financial Accounting, and Taxation | |
| Upper-level business | 24 hours of business courses outside of accounting | |
| Degree level | Bachelor’s minimum | Regionally accredited institution |
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
Ohio uses NASBA International Evaluation Services (NIES) for foreign credential evaluation, submitted online directly through NASBA.
Sitting versus licensing
Ohio is one of a small but growing group of states that has eliminated the flat 150-hour licensure rule entirely. There are now two ways to get fully licensed: a bachelor’s degree plus 2 years of supervised experience, or a graduate degree plus a shorter 1 year of experience. Neither route requires you to rack up 30 “extra” credit hours that don’t count toward a degree.
Plan the extra hours into your degree rather than bolting them on afterwards. A fifth-year master's or an integrated program is almost always cheaper than taking individual courses later, and it keeps you eligible for student course pricing.
Experience
2 years of CPA-verified experience under the bachelor’s-degree (120-hour) pathway, or 1 year under the master’s-degree pathway, effective January 1, 2026 under House Bill 238. Experience can typically be earned in public accounting, industry, government, or academia.
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
Ohio does not accept the generic AICPA ethics exam. Instead it requires its own board-approved Professional Standards and Responsibilities (PSR) course — 3 hours, required for first-time licensees and again at every 3-year renewal — covering Ohio accountancy law, board rules, and the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct as applied in Ohio.
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.
At least 120 semester hours, including the required upper-level coursework, to sit.
Have your school send official transcripts directly to Accountancy Board of Ohio. Unofficial or self-submitted transcripts are not accepted.
Filed with Accountancy Board of Ohio along with the application fee. This is the board's first review of your eligibility.
Once the board approves your application, it notifies NASBA, which issues your Authorization to Test (ATT).
NASBA issues one NTS per section you've paid for. Schedule promptly — an expired NTS means paying the exam fee again.
Schedule at a Prometric test center. All four sections must be passed within a rolling 30-month window that starts when you pass your first section.
2 years of CPA-verified experience under the bachelor's-degree (120-hour) pathway, or 1 year under the master's-degree pathway, effective January 1, 2026 under House Bill 238. Experience can typically be earned in public accounting, industry, government, or academia. This can run before, during, or after your exam sections.
Ohio does not accept the generic AICPA ethics exam. Instead it requires its own board-approved Professional Standards and Responsibilities (PSR) course — 3 hours, required for first-time licensees and again at every 3-year renewal — covering Ohio accountancy law, board rules, and the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct as applied in Ohio.
With your experience verification and ethics requirement on file, submit the final application and initial license fee.
Fees
| Fee | Amount | When |
|---|---|---|
| Application | $96 | Before anything else |
| Exam fee, per section | $268.59 | Paid to NASBA (national rate) |
| Initial license | $100 | On approval |
| Renewal | $150 every 3 years | Ongoing |
After you’re licensed: staying current
Getting licensed is not the end of the paperwork. Ohio requires ongoing continuing professional education to keep your license active, and it is easy to lose track of once you’re working full time.
120 CPE hours over a rolling 3-year period, with a minimum of 20 hours in each calendar year, including 3 hours of Ohio’s own Professional Standards and Responsibilities (PSR) course every 3 years.
What changed recently
House Bill 238, signed January 8, 2025 and effective January 1, 2026, made Ohio the first state in the country to move beyond the standard 120-to-sit/150-to-license model: candidates can now be fully licensed at 120 semester hours (bachelor’s degree) with 2 years of CPA-verified experience, or via a master’s degree with 1 year of experience — with no flat 150-hour minimum required either way. Candidates who had already passed an exam section by December 31, 2025 remain under the prior 150-hour rule.
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
Can I sit in Ohio if I studied out of state?
Usually yes — most states, including Ohio, don’t require residency to sit for the exam. Your transcripts still have to satisfy the upper-level accounting and business hours, which is where out-of-state applicants most often fall short.
Do online courses count toward the credit hours?
They typically do, provided the institution is accredited and the course is genuinely upper-level. Get it confirmed in writing by the board before enrolling — this is one of the most expensive assumptions candidates make.
Do I need to be a US citizen or a resident of Ohio?
No Ohio residency or US citizenship requirement to sit for the exam or be licensed, though a Social Security Number is required for the background check.
What happens right after I pass all four sections?
Passing the exam doesn’t license you on its own. You still need your experience requirement on file and the ethics requirement satisfied before you can submit a license application. You may be able to complete the experience requirement in parallel with the exam, so there’s often little or no extra wait.
Should I license in a state with easier rules instead?
Rarely worth it. Mobility means a license from another state generally lets you practice in Ohio, but if you live and work here you will eventually want a local license anyway, and transferring adds cost and paperwork.
Is there anything unusual about Ohio's process?
Ohio’s 2026 reform goes further than most CPA Evolution states: it doesn’t just let you sit at 120 hours, it lets you become fully licensed at 120 hours through a 2-year-experience trade-off instead of finishing the extra 30 hours — reportedly the first state to do this. Its ethics requirement is a recurring 3-hour course every 3 years rather than a one-time exam, and it explicitly does not accept the generic AICPA ethics exam as a substitute. License renewal also runs on a fixed calendar 3-year cycle instead of a birth-month schedule.
Next step
Accountancy Board of Ohio — 77 S. High Street, Suite 1820, Columbus, OH 43215 — (614) 466-4135.
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