CPA Exam Study Planner

It depends on your state board, but as of NASBA's 2023 model rule amendment, nearly all US jurisdictions have moved to a 30-month rolling window from your first passing score. A handful of state boards may not have formally adopted the change yet, so confirm your specific board's current rule rather than assuming -- this planner uses 30 months as the now-typical default.

TCP (Tax Compliance and Planning) is the most common Discipline choice for candidates pursuing general public accounting or tax-focused careers, so it's used as the default fourth section. If you're taking BAR or ISC instead, just enter that section's recommended study hours in the TCP Study Hours field -- the study-time math treats all three Discipline options identically.

The default hour ranges (100-150 hours per section) reflect commonly cited review- course guidance, but actual hours needed vary significantly by your accounting background, how recently you studied the material, and which review provider you're using. Adjust each section's hours to match your own review course's recommendation or your personal pace from practice exams.

Because the planner assumes you pass sections in AUD, FAR, REG, TCP order for planning purposes and skips the study time for sections you've already cleared. If you passed sections out of that order, the remaining-hours total will still be accurate as long as the number of sections passed is correct, even though the specific section names skipped may not match your actual history.

Within 30-Month Window? switches to "At Risk," meaning your current study pace and buffer assumptions put you on track to exceed the rolling window before finishing all four sections -- at which point your earliest passing score could expire, forcing you to retake that section. Increasing Study Hours / Week or reducing Buffer Weeks / Section (if realistic) are the two levers this planner exposes to pull the timeline back inside the window.