Continuing Professional Development
Continuing Professional Development (CPD) helps CPAs remain current with the latest business trends, evolve their skills and remain go-to resources for companies and organizations in any industry. CPD is a requirement to maintain membership.
The mandatory CPD requirements for members of CPA Ontario have been aligned with the International Federation of Accountants’ CPD standards and harmonized with the provincial CPA bodies.
CPAs must complete at least 120 hours of CPD in every rolling three-year period and submit a CPD Declaration each year. On this page you will find information on how to submit your annual CPD declaration and learn more about your CPD requirements.
A Simple Guide to CPD Requirements
CPD exemption flow chart
Annual Requirement (January 1-December 31)
Every year: You must complete a minimum of 20 hours of CPD (including 10 verifiable hours).
CPD Declaration (April 1-June 1)
You must submit your CPD Declaration for the reporting year (previous calendar year) at the same time you pay your Annual Membership Dues (AMD) by completing the AMD/CPD application in My Portal.
Triennial Requirement
Every rolling three-year period: You must complete 120 hours of CPD (including 60 verifiable hours, four of which are related to professional ethics).
Your annual and triennial CPD requirements
You are required to complete a minimum of 20 hours per year and a total of 120 hours by the end of each triennial period (e.g. 2023-2025, 2024-2026, 2025-2027, etc.).
Annual Requirements (January 1-December 31 of reporting year (previous calendar year):
- Minimum of 20 hours, 50 per cent (or 10 hours) of which must be verifiable
Triennial Requirements (for example January 1, 2023 - December 31, 2025):
- Minimum of 120 hours, 50 per cent (or 60 hours) of which must be verifiable
- Must include four verifiable hours of professional ethics
For more detail on the triennial calculations, see A Simple Guide to CPD Requirements.
Verifiable CPD hours
At least 50 per cent of your CPD hours must be verifiable. Hours are considered verifiable if you have acceptable documentation to support the professional development hours. You must keep records and supporting documents of these activities for at least five years in case you are audited.
Verifiable hours can be gained through continuing education, instruction/speaking, technical committees and research/publications. For further details on what qualifies as verifiable hours and acceptable documentation, see A Simple Guide to CPD Requirements.
Unverifiable CPD hours
You obtain unverifiable hours through independent and informal learning activities. These activities can include:
- On-the-job training for new software or techniques
- Self-study that does not involve an exam
- Casual reading of journals and magazines
Members must also track their unverifiable hours to ensure that they are meeting the requirements. If you are selected for audit, you may need to include unverifiable hours completed in your log in order to meet the minimum CPD hours required.
Professional ethics CPD requirement
Professional ethics is the study of the values that guide the choices and behaviours of professionals. Professional ethics CPD can cover a wide range of topics related to ethics.
Your four required ethics hours do not have to be obtained in one single program. They can be accumulated through ethics components in any number of seminars or courses. Course material must go beyond a mere awareness of the rules, standards or guidelines. It should give examples or scenarios that show applications of ethical decision-making and present ethical dilemmas.
Read more about the ethics requirement in our Simple Guide to CPD Requirements.
Tracking your CPD hours
To help record, update and track your CPD hours, you can use our optional CPD Tracker. Remember to retain all related documentation for five years.
The CPD Tracker is for your personal record-keeping purposes and does not exempt members from a CPD Audit. CPA Ontario does not have access to your CPD Tracker. Courses taken through CPA Ontario are not automatically populated in your CPD Tracker and will need to be added manually.
If you are selected for audit, you will need to enter all required details through the CPD Audit log on My Portal. Review our page on CPD and AMD Audits for more information.