California CPA CPE Requirements: How Many Hours, By When
How much continuing professional education a California CPA actually needs — sourced the same way every fact on this site is: a board page, plus the codified rule itself where we could confirm it against primary law, clearly labelled where we could only confirm it against the board's own page, never a guess.
- 20-hour minimum in each 1-year period (you can't front-load the whole requirement into a single year).
- 4 ethics hours, within that same total.
80 hours in the 2-year period immediately preceding license expiration, minimum 20 hours each year (12 of which must be technical subject matter), including 4 hours of ethics education. A separate Regulatory Review course requirement (§87.8) also applies on a longer cycle -- not counted as 'ethics' here since it's a distinct named requirement, noted separately if this cluster expands.
What does it cost to reinstate a lapsed California license? →