To become a CPA you need 150 semester hours of college credit, roughly 30 of them in accounting, a passing score on the four-part CPA exam, and a year or two of experience under a licensed certified public accountant. The license is state-issued, so the fine print lives with your state board.
Key Takeaways
- The 150-credit requirement means a CPA track usually needs a bachelor's plus roughly 30 extra hours of coursework, not a master's exclusively.
- You need about 30 semester hours of accounting courses and a similar count in business before the boards will look at you.
- The CPA exam is four sections taken separately over an 18-month window, and it is the hardest hurdle for most candidates.
- States require one to two years of supervised experience under a licensed CPA before you get the full license.
- Accountants and auditors earn a median $83,680 a year, and licensed CPAs pull more in tax, audit, and advisory.
The 150-credit rule shapes everything
Every state board requires at least 150 semester hours of college credit before granting the CPA license, while a bachelor's degree is normally 120. That 30-credit gap is why so many accountants add a master's in accounting, a second bachelor's, or a fifth year of coursework at the same school.
The rule is about hours, not degrees, so the cheapest path is often a bachelor's in accounting plus the extra hours or an online master's that satisfies both the credit count and the accounting-course requirement at once.
The coursework that actually counts
Boards want roughly 30 semester hours in accounting, including financial accounting, auditing, taxation, and business law, plus a comparable block in general business like finance, economics, and statistics. Courses must come from an accredited school and usually from one the board has approved.
Check your state board's course list before you choose a program, because two schools that both claim to be CPA-track can differ in which classes the board accepts. The transcript, not the degree title, is what the application is graded on.
The four-part exam
The Uniform CPA Exam has four sections: Auditing and Attestation, Business Environment and Concepts, Financial Accounting and Reporting, and Regulation. You sit for each separately, in any order, and you pass them to an 18-month rolling window before scores start to expire.
Most candidates study 300 to 500 hours total and pass the four sections over six to eighteen months. Exam fees run a few hundred dollars per section, and most candidates add review-course costs, so budget the exam like a course.
The experience requirement
After the exam, your state board wants one to two years of full-time experience in accounting, auditing, or tax, supervised and attested by a licensed CPA. Public accounting firms build this in: most candidates earn the experience while working toward the license.
Some states accept part-time and academic experience, and some require the experience to come from within the state. Read the board's experience rules before you accept a position, so the year you work counts toward the license.
What it pays
The entire occupational group, accountants and auditors, earns a median of $83,680 a year per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and licensed CPAs with a few years of experience typically sit above the median in tax, audit, and advisory.
The licensure premium compounds with time: CPAs are the promotion track in most accounting firms, which is the real reason people spend the 150 credits and the exam year. The career pages on this site break down the roles each accounting degree leads to.
Where these numbers come from
The 150-hour and 30-accounting-credit rules, the four-section exam, and the experience requirements come from the state boards of accountancy, which publish the exact list for your state. The $83,680 median is the Bureau of Labor Statistics figure for accountants and auditors. Confirm program acceptance with the board before you enroll, not after.
All guides|Source figures: U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard, unless a section says otherwise.