California CPA License Renewal: Birth Month, CPE, and Fees
California doesn't renew every CPA license on one calendar date the way some states do. Your license expires every two years, on the last day of your own birth month — and which two years depends on whether you were born in an odd or even year. It's a real rule with a real formula, not a guess, and getting the parity wrong is the easiest way to miss it.
The rule: birth month, birth-year parity
A California CPA license expires at midnight on the last day of the licensee's own birth month, every two years. Which expiration years apply to you comes down to one detail: if you were born in an odd-numbered year, your license expires in odd-numbered years; if you were born in an even-numbered year, it expires in even-numbered years (Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 5070.5(a); Cal. Code Regs. tit. 16, § 93). Born in 1985 (odd) and your birth month is October? Your license expires every October of an odd year — 2027, 2029, and so on. For more on why some states compute a personal deadline like this instead of publishing one fixed date, see our explainer on the birth-month states.
80 hours of CPE, on the same two-year clock
California requires 80 hours of continuing education in the two-year period immediately preceding your license expiration, with a 20-hour annual minimum (12 of those hours must be technical subject matter) and 4 hours of ethics education within the 80 (Cal. Code Regs. tit. 16, § 87). Keep this separate from the state's Regulatory Review course requirement (16 CCR § 87.8) — that's a distinct, longer-cycle requirement, not part of the 4-hour ethics figure.
What renewal costs right now
The renewal fee is $400 for licenses expiring after June 30, 2026, and $340 for licenses expiring before July 1, 2026 (Cal. Code Regs. tit. 16, § 70(e)). Which figure applies to you depends entirely on your own expiration date under the birth-month/parity rule above — not on when you happen to be renewing.
If you miss your date
A lapsed California permit is called "delinquent," not revoked, and it can still be renewed for up to five years after expiration. Reinstating costs a $200 delinquency fee ($170 if your license expired before July 1, 2026) — California sets this at 50% of the standard renewal fee — plus an extra CE penalty: 20 additional hours of continuing education for every full six-month period between your expiration date and the date you apply to renew, capped at 80 extra hours on top of the normal 80-hour requirement. Less than six full months late, and there's no extra CE at all (Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 5070.6, § 5070.5, § 163.5; 16 CCR § 81). After five years, a delinquent permit can no longer be renewed at all.
Bottom line: your California renewal date isn't on a public calendar — it's your birth month, in the odd or even year your birth year matches. Get your own exact date, tracked against the current fee tier, on our California CPA license renewal page.
General orientation, not a citation. This guide draws on board rules and, where available, this site's own verified dataset — it isn't a primary source in itself. Last checked against those sources: August 27, 2026.
For the current renewal date or CPE figures your state actually enforces, use the state page linked above — it carries a direct link to the board page and codified rule, per our verification standard.