CPA Exam Changes 2026: New Blueprints Effective Jan 1

The 2026 Uniform CPA Examination Blueprints took effect January 1, 2026, after the AICPA Board of Examiners approved them on August 18, 2025. They apply by test date: any section you sit on or after January 1, 2026 is built to the 2026 blueprints, regardless of when you applied or when your Notice to Schedule was issued. For five of the six sections the practical impact is small — the Board of Examiners states for every section that the revisions "are not intended to significantly change the nature or scope of the content eligible for testing." The change that actually moves answers landed six months later: provisions of H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, became eligible for testing in REG and TCP on July 1, 2026.

Does this affect you?

Work down this list by the date you sit, not the date you register:

• You passed sections before January 1, 2026. Nothing to redo. Passed sections keep their credit on the same terms, and a new blueprint does not reopen a section you have already passed.
• You sit any section on or after January 1, 2026. The 2026 blueprints govern. Structure, timing, question counts, and weights are identical to before, so this is a content-detail change, not a format change.
• You sit FAR on or after January 1, 2026. One real change: the ASC 820 fair value measurement task in FAR is now an application task rather than a recall task, and it absorbed a task that used to sit in BAR.
• You sit BAR on or after January 1, 2026. The fair value measurement task was removed from BAR. If your study plan has you learning ASC 820 mechanics for BAR, that is now out of scope for this section.
• You sit TCP on or after January 1, 2026. IC-DISC, FDII, BEAT, and GILTI were removed and are no longer eligible for testing in TCP.
• You sat REG or TCP before July 1, 2026. You tested pre-Act law. Provisions scheduled to sunset in 2025 before the Act was signed remained eligible for testing through June 30, 2026.
• You sit REG or TCP on or after July 1, 2026. This is the one that changes correct answers. H.R. 1 provisions with effective dates in 2024 and 2025 are now eligible for testing.
• You sit AUD or ISC. Reference updates and task rewording only. No topic left or entered either section.

One boundary that is not affected by any of this: your 30-month credit window. It did not change in 2026, and it is not keyed to your test date. See "What did not change" below.

Before and after: what actually moved

Item	Through December 31, 2025	From January 1, 2026
Blueprints in force	Prior blueprints	2026 Blueprints, approved by the Board of Examiners August 18, 2025
Exam model	3 Core (AUD, FAR, REG) + 1 Discipline (BAR, ISC, TCP)	Unchanged
Section length	4 hours per section, 16 hours total	Unchanged
MCQ / TBS counts	AUD 78/7, FAR 50/7, REG 72/8, BAR 50/7, ISC 82/6, TCP 68/7	Unchanged
Testlet layout	5 testlets: 2 MCQ, then 3 TBS	Unchanged
MCQ : TBS score weighting	50/50, except ISC at 60/40	Unchanged
Passing score	75 on each section	Unchanged
Content-area weights	See list below	Unchanged — the Board's summary of revisions lists no allocation change in any section
Skill allocations	See list below	Unchanged
ASC 820 fair value, FAR	Two tasks: recall the assumptions and approaches used to measure fair value; and use the fair value hierarchy to classify a fair value measurement	Both removed, replaced by one application task: "Use assumptions (e.g., highest and best use, market participant assumptions, unit of account) and approaches (cost, income, market) to measure fair value according to the fair value hierarchy"
ASC 820 fair value, BAR	Area I.B.3 included an application task to use assumptions and approaches to measure fair value	Removed. Replaced by "Calculate the present value of future cash flows or the net present value of a potential investment"
TCP international tax (Area II.A.4)	Included a task on IC-DISC, foreign derived intangible income (FDII), base erosion and anti-abuse tax (BEAT), and global intangible low-taxed income (GILTI)	Task removed; those concepts are no longer eligible for testing in TCP
AUD Area II.C.2 topic name	Named for control environment and IT general controls	"Control environment, entity-level controls and IT general controls," with two tasks reworded to emphasize entity-level controls
AUD references	AICPA Statements on Quality Control Standards	AICPA Statements on Quality Management Standards
REG cost recovery	Task referred to a special depreciation allowance	Task names bonus depreciation explicitly, clarifying it is in scope
REG and TCP section assumption	No assumption on overtime or tips	Added: "Candidates should assume that references to individual wages or compensation do not include overtime or tips unless otherwise stated"
H.R. 1 (One Big Beautiful Bill Act) in REG and TCP	Not eligible for testing. Provisions scheduled to sunset in 2025 before the Act remained eligible through June 30, 2026	Provisions with 2024 and 2025 effective dates eligible from July 1, 2026. All other provisions become eligible in the calendar quarter beginning six months after that provision's effective date
ISC references	NIST Privacy Framework pinned to Version 1.0; PCI DSS v4.0 Quick Reference Guide; earlier SOC 1 guide title	Version pin removed (now v4.x for PCI DSS, no fixed NIST version); HIPAA definition sections added; Data Analytics added as an eligible textbook category
ISC change management (Area I.A.4)	Fewer, broader tasks	Three tasks revised and two added, splitting out documentation types, tooling, patch management, and configuration parameter controls
Core testing and score release	Continuous testing, rolling target score release dates	Unchanged
Discipline testing windows	Administered in the first month of each quarter	Unchanged

What to actually do differently when studying

FAR: fair value is now an application task

The old FAR treatment let you survive on definitions — recall the assumptions, then sort a given measurement into a hierarchy level. The 2026 task asks you to produce a measurement: apply the cost, income, and market approaches together with highest and best use, market participant assumptions, and unit of account, and place the result in the hierarchy. FAR's skill allocation is 45–55% Application and 35–45% Analysis with Remembering and Understanding capped at 5–15%, so flashcard-only preparation on ASC 820 was already a poor fit. Now it is plainly the wrong tool. FAR still keeps the recall task "Identify the valuation techniques used to measure fair value," so definitions are necessary but no longer sufficient.

BAR: stop studying ASC 820 mechanics for this section

This is the single clearest scope reduction in the 2026 blueprints, and it answers a question a lot of candidates get wrong: fair value measurement under ASC 820 lives in FAR, not BAR. What BAR Area I.B.3 now contains is decision-model work — calculating the present value of future cash flows or net present value of a potential investment, determining the impact of changes to valuation assumptions (the Black-Scholes option pricing model is the named example), and comparing investment alternatives using payback period, NPV, economic value added, cash flow analysis, and internal rate of return. Drill those. BAR still tests plenty of technical accounting in Area II; the change is narrow and specific to the valuation topic.

TCP: four topics you can stop studying

IC-DISC, FDII, BEAT, and GILTI are gone from TCP. What survives in Area II.A.4 is narrower and more conceptual: sourcing of income for a U.S. corporation with foreign operations; sourcing for a foreign corporation with U.S. operations, including federal tax withholding requirements; and the concept of a controlled foreign corporation and its impact on a U.S. corporation's taxable income. The TCP section introduction frames the whole area as focused on "general concepts of income sourcing and allocation as opposed to specific foreign laws or treaties." If your materials still drill GILTI inclusions for TCP, that is time you can reallocate.

REG and TCP: check the publication date on every tax resource

This is the part where being honest is more useful than being reassuring. The July 1, 2026 H.R. 1 cutover is recent, and third-party tax material is uneven right now. Any tax chapter written before July 2025 cannot reflect the Act at all, and material written during late 2025 may reflect the statute without reflecting the Board of Examiners' testability schedule. Before you trust a REG or TCP resource, confirm two things: that it was revised after the Act was signed on July 4, 2025, and that it distinguishes provisions already eligible for testing from provisions that become eligible later. Also memorize the new section assumption verbatim — references to individual wages or compensation exclude overtime and tips unless a question says otherwise — because it silently changes numeric answers on individual tax computations.

AUD and ISC: emphasis, not scope

For AUD, the shift is that entity-level controls now appear in a topic title alongside IT general controls, with a task requiring you to perform procedures to obtain an understanding of them. Confirmation-related tasks were expanded with examples (confirmation intermediary services, electronic confirmations, manual confirmations; exceptions, nonresponses, incomplete responses), and the accounting-estimates task now specifies that the inputs to an estimate include methods and data. The references moved from quality control standards to quality management standards, which is the language you should expect to see in question stems. For ISC, change management is the one topic with real task-level movement — expect tooling and documentation to be named specifically (change tracking, version control, test libraries, build automation, monitoring and logging; system component inventory, baseline configuration, change requests, ticketing, rollback procedures), plus patch management steps and controls over configuration parameters. Do not memorize a specific NIST Privacy Framework version number; the version pin was deliberately removed.

What did not change

This list matters as much as the diff, because it tells you what your existing materials are still good for. Nearly all of a 2025 study plan remains valid.

• The exam model and format. Three Core sections plus one Discipline of your choosing, four hours each, 16 hours total. Five testlets per section: two MCQ testlets, then three TBS testlets.
• Question counts. AUD 78 MCQs and 7 TBSs; FAR 50 and 7; REG 72 and 8; BAR 50 and 7; ISC 82 and 6; TCP 68 and 7.
• Scoring. A passing score is 75 on each section. MCQs and TBSs are weighted 50/50 in every section except ISC, which is weighted 60% MCQ and 40% TBS.
• Every content-area weight. AUD: Ethics, Professional Responsibilities and General Principles 15–25%; Assessing Risk and Developing a Planned Response 25–35%; Performing Further Procedures and Obtaining Evidence 30–40%; Forming Conclusions and Reporting 10–20%. FAR: Financial Reporting 30–40%; Select Balance Sheet Accounts 30–40%; Select Transactions 25–35%. REG: Ethics, Professional Responsibilities and Federal Tax Procedures 10–20%; Business Law 15–25%; Federal Taxation of Property Transactions 5–15%; Federal Taxation of Individuals 22–32%; Federal Taxation of Entities 23–33%. BAR: Business Analysis 40–50%; Technical Accounting and Reporting 35–45%; State and Local Governments 10–20%. ISC: Information Systems and Data Management 35–45%; Security, Confidentiality and Privacy 35–45%; Considerations for SOC Engagements 15–25%. TCP: Tax Compliance and Planning for Individuals and Personal Financial Planning 30–40%; Entity Tax Compliance 30–40%; Entity Tax Planning 10–20%; Property Transactions 10–20%.
• Every skill allocation. AUD 30–40% Remembering and Understanding, 30–40% Application, 15–25% Analysis, 5–15% Evaluation. FAR 5–15% / 45–55% / 35–45%. REG 25–35% / 35–45% / 25–35%. BAR 10–20% / 45–55% / 30–40%. ISC 55–65% / 20–30% / 10–20%. TCP 5–15% / 55–65% / 25–35%. Only AUD tests at the Evaluation level.
• Scheduling. Core sections remain on continuous testing with rolling target score release dates. Discipline sections are still administered only in the first month of each quarter, with a single target score release date per window.
• The 30-month credit window — including the detail most sites get wrong. Nothing about conditional credit changed in 2026, and the clock does not start on your test date. UAA Model Rule 5-7(a) provides that credit for passing a section "shall be valid for that Test Section for thirty (30) months from the date the passing score for such Test Section is released by NASBA to the Candidate or the Board." The rolling window "begins on the date the first passing score(s) are released" and "concludes on the date the Candidate sits for the final Test Section passed, regardless of when the score is released" for that last section. So it opens on a release date and closes on a sit date — not symmetric, and worth planning around when you schedule your final section. Two caveats: this is a model rule that each state board adopts on its own terms, and some jurisdictions run longer than 30 months. Your Uniform CPA Examination Score Notice shows your actual expiration date; treat that and your board's rule as controlling.

Practically, if you were already studying in late 2025, you do not need to start over — you need to re-check three specific topics (ASC 820 in FAR and BAR, international tax in TCP) and re-date your REG and TCP tax material against the July 1, 2026 H.R. 1 cutover. Once you have done that, the fastest way to find out whether the reweighted emphasis has left gaps in your preparation is to work timed questions under the current blueprints with our free CPA Exam practice test.

Official dates and format details

The figures below come from the official source documents linked in the table. They are included so you can make study and registration decisions from published requirements rather than an unsupported estimate.

Published detail	Value	Official source
To pass a CPA Exam section, you must score a minimum of 75. Have you ever wondered how the AICPA calculates your CPA Exam section scores? Scores are reported on a scale that ranges from 0 to 99.	minimum 75 per section, reported on a 0-99 scale	AICPA
We also offer testing in 15 countries outside the U.S.	testing offered in 15 countries outside the U.S.	AICPA
To become a licensed CPA, you must pass the CPA Exam, a four-section, 16-hour assessment.	a 4-section, 16-hour assessment	AICPA