The CPA Experience Requirement: What Counts and How Verification Works

8/24/2026

Education and the exam get most of the attention, but the experience requirement is the one that quietly decides when a candidate actually becomes licensed. It is also the one with the least public explanation. Candidates finish the exam, open their board's application, and only then discover that their supervisor's license has lapsed, that part of their job does not count, or that the board wanted the experience described in a way nobody recorded at the time.

This guide explains what qualifying experience is, how long it has to be, who can verify it, and how verification is actually submitted. It also covers how the new 120-hour pathway changes the experience requirement, because for many candidates it now doubles it.

As with every part of CPA licensure, your state board sets the final rules. What follows is the common framework most boards build on, plus the specific points where they differ and that you need to check.

The Model Rule Most States Start From

The Uniform Accountancy Act (UAA), the model law maintained jointly by NASBA and the AICPA, is the template most state accountancy laws are based on. Its Ninth Edition, published in July 2025, sets out the experience requirement in Section 5(f). Three parts of it matter.

Length depends on your education pathway. A candidate licensed through a post-baccalaureate degree, or a bachelor's plus an additional 30 semester hours, must show one year of experience. A candidate licensed through the new pathway, a bachelor's degree with an accounting concentration but no additional hours, must show two years. In both cases the details are "as defined by Board rule."

The type of work is broad. The model describes qualifying experience as providing any type of service or advice that uses "accounting, attest, compilation, management advisory, financial advisory, tax or consulting skills," and says it is acceptable whether gained in government, industry, academia or public practice.

It must be verified by a licensee. The commentary adds an important nuance: experience "may be supervised by a non-licensee but must be verified by a licensee." In other words, your day-to-day manager does not have to be a CPA under the model, but a licensed CPA has to stand behind the claim.

States have adopted these principles with their own variations. Some still require public accounting or attest experience specifically, some define a year in hours, and some require the verifier to be your direct supervisor. That is why "one year verified by a CPA" is a starting point, not an answer.

How Long: One Year, Two Years, and What a "Year" Means

The headline figure is usually one year on the 150-hour route and two years on the 120-hour route. The fine print is where candidates get caught.

Hours versus calendar time. Some boards express a year as a number of hours worked rather than 12 months of employment. If your board uses hours, a busy-season job with long weeks may get you there sooner than the calendar suggests, while a part-time role takes proportionally longer.

Full-time definitions and part-time proration. Many boards accept part-time experience but prorate it. Check whether the board sets a minimum number of hours per week before part-time work counts at all.

Recency windows. Some boards require that experience fall within a certain number of years before the application date. Experience from a job you held long ago may not count, or may need to be supplemented.

Internships. Some boards accept paid internships, some accept them only if they meet the same duty and verification standards as regular employment, and some do not count them. If you are a student, ask before assuming your internship will carry you part of the way.

The 120-hour pathway. For candidates choosing between finishing 30 more credits and working an extra year, the experience requirement is now part of the education decision. States are adopting the pathway on their own schedules; Maryland's takes effect 1 October 2026, Alabama's 15 October 2026 and Colorado's 1 January 2027. Our CPA licensure requirements overview covers the pathway choice.

What Work Counts

Under the model rule the answer is "more than candidates assume." Under some state rules it is narrower. Here is how the common settings usually line up.

Setting	Typically counts?	What to check
Public accounting, audit and assurance	Yes, everywhere	Whether your board requires attest hours for a full license
Public accounting, tax	Yes, in most states	Whether tax-only experience limits attest privileges
Industry (staff accountant, controller, financial analyst)	Yes, in most states	Whether duties involve accounting skills the board names
Government (auditor, revenue agent, agency accountant)	Yes, in most states	Who can verify if no CPA is in your chain of command
Academia (teaching accounting)	Often, with conditions	Course level and teaching load rules
Internships	Varies	Paid status, hours and duty standards

The duties test matters more than the job title. "Financial analyst" can be qualifying experience or not, depending on whether the work involves applying accounting principles, preparing or analyzing financial statements, tax work, internal control or similar skills. A role that is mostly sales forecasting or data entry may not qualify even if the title sounds right. When you describe your experience, describe tasks, not titles.

Attest experience is the trap. In some jurisdictions, a CPA who wants to sign audit, review or other attest reports must have experience that included attest work, or must obtain it later. A candidate who spends the qualifying period entirely in tax or industry may receive a license but find that it does not cover signing attest reports. If audit is part of your career plan, check this before choosing your first job.

Who Can Verify Your Experience

The verifier is usually the bottleneck, so it is worth understanding the rules early.

License status. The verifier must normally hold an active CPA license. Some boards accept a license from any US jurisdiction; others want specific evidence of the license, and some have additional rules for verifiers licensed elsewhere. Expired or inactive licenses usually do not qualify.

Relationship to your work. Under the UAA model, the verifier need not be your direct supervisor. Some states still require that they supervised you, or that they had direct knowledge of your work. If your manager is not a CPA, find out whether a CPA elsewhere in the organization, such as a controller or CFO, can verify instead, and what they would need to know about your work to do it honestly.

Availability at the end, not the start. Verification happens when you apply for the license, which may be a year or more after the work began. The single most common delay in this part of the process is a verifier who has left the employer, retired or become unreachable. If the CPA who will sign for you is changing jobs, ask them to verify the period they observed before they go.

When no CPA is available. Candidates in industry or government sometimes have no licensed CPA anywhere near their work. Boards handle this differently. Some accept verification from a CPA who reviews your work under defined conditions. NASBA also offers an Experience Verification service for applicants who "have difficulty finding an actively licensed CPA to sign off on their experience requirement." It is available for licensure in a specific list of jurisdictions: Arkansas, Guam, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington and Washington, D.C., plus IQEX candidates. To use it, NASBA requires that you have passed the CPA Exam, met your board's education requirement and have at least 2,000 hours of work experience within your jurisdiction's time frame. The process includes an interview with an actively licensed US CPA and an authentication of your experience; NASBA publishes the fee on its site.

How Verification Is Submitted

The mechanics vary by board, but most follow one of three models.

A signed form. The traditional approach is a board-issued experience verification form completed and signed by the verifying CPA. It typically asks for employer details, dates of employment, hours, a description of duties, the verifier's license number and jurisdiction, and the verifier's relationship to the applicant. Some boards require the form to be sent directly by the verifier, not the candidate.

An online portal. A growing number of boards have moved to online applications where the candidate enters experience details and the verifier receives a request to confirm them electronically. This is faster, but the verifier still has to log in, review and attest.

A third-party service. For the jurisdictions where it is available, NASBA's Experience Verification service sits in place of an employer-based sign-off for candidates who cannot get one.

Whichever model your board uses, expect it to ask for duty descriptions in its own vocabulary. If the board's form lists categories such as "accounting," "attest," "tax" or "consulting," map your duties to those words, with examples, and keep the descriptions specific.

Document as You Go

Most experience problems are documentation problems that started a year earlier. A simple habit prevents nearly all of them.

Keep a running log of start and end dates, average weekly hours, major duties and any change in role or supervisor.
Note the license details of the CPA who will verify you: name, license number, issuing state and expiration date. Check it on the state board's lookup or NASBA's CPAverify database.
Save a copy of each job description and any performance reviews that describe your duties.
Get a mid-point verification if your verifier is likely to leave, or ask them to complete the form at the end of the qualifying period even if you are not ready to apply.
Record attest work separately if your state treats it differently.

When you finally apply, this record turns a painful reconstruction into a 30-minute task for you and your verifier.

Timing: Before, During or After the Exam

In most states, qualifying experience can be earned before, during or after the exam. That flexibility is one of the biggest levers on the overall timeline. A candidate who starts a qualifying job at graduation and studies for the exam while working can finish both at roughly the same time. One who passes the exam first and only then looks for a qualifying role has added a full year, or two on the 120-hour route, to the end of the process.

The cost is workload. Studying for four exam sections while working a demanding first job is hard, especially through busy season. The practical answer is to schedule exam sections around the work calendar: lighter study during peak periods, heavier study in slower months. Our posts on CPA exam study tips while working full time and building a CPA exam study schedule go into this in detail.

A structured review program helps here, because it removes the planning overhead from limited study time. The CPA Exam Prep All Parts Bundle covers all sections, so you can work through the exam on whatever schedule your job allows.

Experience and Moving States

Experience earned in one state usually counts toward licensure in another, but the verification rules travel with the board you apply to, not the one where you worked. If you earned experience under a CPA licensed in your old state and then apply in a new one, check that the new board accepts that verifier and that your duties meet its definition. Once you hold a license, mobility rules govern practice across state lines; our post on holding a CPA license in multiple states covers that.

Choosing a First Job With Licensure in Mind

If you have a choice between roles, a few questions predict how smoothly the experience step will go.

Is there a licensed CPA who will know my work well enough to verify it?
Do the duties map clearly to the categories my board lists?
Does my career plan require attest experience, and does this role provide it?
Does the employer support exam study, for example through study time or review course funding?
If I take the 120-hour route, will this role last long enough to cover two years?

None of these should override the job you actually want, but they are worth knowing before you accept. Our CPA career paths comparison is useful context if you are still deciding between public accounting and industry.

Where Experience Fits in the Final Steps

Experience is usually the last major requirement standing between passing the exam and receiving a license, followed by any ethics requirement and the application itself. Our post on what to do after passing the CPA exam covers that sequence, and how long it takes to become a CPA shows how experience timing changes the overall timeline.

Get the Exam Moving While the Experience Clock Runs

The experience requirement rewards candidates who run it in parallel with the exam. If you are starting a qualifying role, pairing it with the CPA Exam Prep All Parts Bundle lets both clocks run at once. The full list of section courses is on the CPA exam review courses page.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much experience do you need to become a CPA?

Under the Uniform Accountancy Act model that most states build on, one year of qualifying experience if you meet the education requirement through a master's degree or a bachelor's plus 30 additional semester hours, and two years if you license through the 120-hour pathway with a bachelor's degree only. States define a year differently, some in hours and some in months, and some prorate part-time work. Your state board's rules decide the exact figure, so check them before planning around a number.

Does industry experience count toward the CPA license?

In most states, yes. The UAA model accepts experience gained in government, industry, academia or public practice, as long as the work uses accounting, attest, compilation, advisory, tax or consulting skills and is verified by a licensed CPA. Some states still give public accounting or attest work special treatment, especially for CPAs who want to sign audit reports. The duties you perform matter more than your job title, so describe your work in terms of the tasks your board lists.

Does my supervisor have to be a CPA?

Not always. The UAA model says experience may be supervised by someone who is not licensed but must be verified by a licensee. Some states require the verifying CPA to be your direct supervisor or to have direct knowledge of your work. If your manager is not a CPA, check whether another licensed CPA in your organization can verify your experience and what your board requires of that person. NASBA's Experience Verification service is an option in the jurisdictions where it is offered.

What is NASBA Experience Verification?

It is a NASBA service for CPA applicants who cannot find an actively licensed CPA to verify their experience. It is available for licensure in a defined list of jurisdictions, including Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington and Washington, D.C. Applicants must have passed the CPA Exam, met the education requirement and have at least 2,000 hours of work experience within the jurisdiction's time frame. The process includes an interview with a licensed US CPA and authentication of the experience, and NASBA publishes the current fee.

Can I earn CPA experience before passing the exam?

In most states, yes. Experience can usually be earned before, during or after the exam, which is why many candidates start a qualifying job at graduation and study for exam sections while working. Running both in parallel can save a year or more compared with finishing the exam first. A few boards have timing or recency rules, such as requiring that experience fall within a set number of years before the application, so confirm your board's position.

What happens if my verifying CPA leaves the company?

You may still be able to use them as a verifier, as long as they hold an active license and can attest to the work they observed, but reaching them later is harder. The safest move is to ask them to complete the verification for the period they supervised before they leave. Keep your own log of dates, hours, duties and the verifier's license details so you can document the experience accurately, and identify a second licensed CPA who knows your work.