Montana CPA CPE Requirements: How Many Hours, By When
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- 2 ethics hours, within that same total.
This applies to active permit holders. New licensees must meet the basic requirement by December 31 of the third year following their year of initial licensure, and CPE earned during the initial licensure year does not count toward that first reporting period. Confirm with the Board which applies to you.
Montana active permit holders must complete 120 hours of CPE for the previous rolling 3-year period ending December 31 (permits still renew annually, but the core CPE count is a 3-year rolling total rather than a flat per-year figure), with a minimum of 50% (60 hours) in technical fields of study (effective Jan 1, 2018). Interpretation trap: the mandatory 2 hours of ethics are NOT an add-on -- the rule confirms they're a subset of the 120-hour total, not additional to it. The Board's own CPE guidance goes a step further and states those 2 ethics hours specifically count toward the 60-hour technical-subjects minimum, not just the 120-hour total. New licensees must meet the basic requirement by December 31 of the third year following their year of initial licensure; CPE earned during the initial licensure year does not count toward that first reporting period.
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