North Carolina CPA CPE Requirements: How Many Hours, By When
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- 1 ethics hour, within that same total.
North Carolina's CPE requirement has been governed by a minutes-based framework since January 1, 2020. Active CPAs must complete 2,000 CPE minutes annually by December 31 (.0401(d)), including at least 50 minutes of regulatory or behavioral ethics (.0401(e)). At the Board's own 50-minutes-per-CPE-hour conversion, that is 40 hours/year including 1 ethics hour/year. The rule text was amended effective June 1, 2026 (the version now posted on the Board's page): the 2,000-minute and 50-minute ethics figures are unchanged, but the amendment added explicit proration for newly-approved certificates (1,500/1,000/500 minutes for approvals in Apr-Jun/Jul-Sep/Oct-Dec of the same year), a carry-forward of up to 1,000 excess minutes into the following year (ethics minutes excluded from carry-forward), and a duplicate-course exclusion. CPE reporting is due with the July 1 license renewal each year (.0406(a)).
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