How much continuing professional education a District of Columbia CPA actually needs — sourced the same way every fact on this site is: a board page plus the codified rule itself, never a guess.
DC CPAs must complete 80 hours of acceptable CPE during the two-year period preceding license renewal (biennial cycle, renewal due Dec 31 of even-numbered years), including no fewer than 4 hours of Professional Ethics instruction (effective since Jan 1, 2005). Confirmed by reading the full codified text of 17 DCMR 2530 (via an elaws.us legal-text mirror, cross-checked against the DC Register's own listing of the section) and by DC's own official CPE Reporting Form (dlcp.dc.gov), which quotes the identical 80-hour/4-hour-ethics language and cites 17 D.C.M.R. §§2530.1 and 2530.8 verbatim. No annual minimum (e.g., 20 hrs/year) is stated in the actual regulation text, despite some CE-vendor sites implying one -- only the 80-hour biennial total and the 4-hour ethics carve-out are codified. Initial renewals of licenses issued for under 2 years are exempt; reinstatement after lapse requires 40 hrs/year of non-renewal up to a 120-hour max (a different, non-recurring figure -- do not confuse with the standard renewal requirement).
What does it cost to reinstate a lapsed District of Columbia license? →