CFA Level I in 2027: Ethics Shrinks, Quant Nearly Doubles

CFA Institute has published Level I topic weights for both 2026 and 2027, and they are not the same. Two changes are large enough to alter how a candidate should study: ethics falls by about a third, and Quantitative Methods nearly doubles. Four topic areas are also renamed, one of them back to a name it used to have.

The two tables, side by side

Session 1 in 2026, then 2027:

• Ethical and Professional Standards: 15–20% → 10–15%
• Quantitative Methods: 6–9% → 11–14%
• Economics: 6–9% → 6–9%
• Financial Statement Analysis: 11–14% → 11–14%
• Corporate Issuers → Corporate Finance: 6–9% → 6–9%

Session 2:

• Equity Investments → Equities: 11–14% → 11–14%
• Fixed Income: 11–14% → 11–14%
• Derivatives → Derivatives and Risk Management: 5–8% → 6–9%
• Alternative Investments: 7–10% → 6–9%
• Portfolio Management → Portfolio Construction: 8–12% → 8–12%

These apply to candidates sitting from February 2027.

Why the ethics cut is the interesting one

The received wisdom about the CFA Program is that it is getting more ethics-focused over time. At Level I, the published weights say the opposite: ethics is being reduced from a 15–20% band to a 10–15% band.

Read alongside the other two levels, what is actually happening is harmonisation. Level II and Level III both sit at 10–15% for Ethical and Professional Standards. Level I has been the outlier at 15–20%, and from 2027 all three levels carry the same ethics band.

So the honest framing is not "CFA Institute is de-emphasising ethics". It is that Level I's unusually heavy ethics loading is being brought into line with the levels above it. The Code and Standards are still tested at every level.

The quantitative shift, and what is going into it

Quantitative Methods moving from 6–9% to 11–14% is the largest single change in the table — roughly a doubling of the weight.

CFA Institute's own announcement of the 2027 curriculum says the changes "focus primarily on Level I Quantitative Methods and Equity Investments topic areas", which between them account for about a quarter of the exam. Within Quantitative Methods it describes expanded content on estimation, simulation and portfolio optimization, plus new interactive "Equation Explorers".

And one specific addition worth noting: "A new learning module introduces financial data science, AI, and large language models."

One module. It sits inside Quantitative Methods. It is not an AI specialism, not a new level, and not a separate qualification — and the restraint is arguably the story. A professional body under commercial pressure to look current has added a single module rather than restructuring around a trend.

Equity Investments also gains content on cost of equity estimation and multi-factor approaches, without a weight change.

The renames, including one reversal

Four topic areas change name for 2027. Three are straightforward: Equity Investments becomes Equities, Derivatives becomes Derivatives and Risk Management, Portfolio Management becomes Portfolio Construction.

The fourth is a reversal. Corporate Finance was renamed Corporate Issuers, which is the 2026 Level I name — and for 2027 it is Corporate Finance again. CFA Institute's current Level II table also reads Corporate Finance.

If you have written or been taught that "it's called Corporate Issuers now", that is true for the 2026 exam and wrong from February 2027. This is a good illustration of why every CFA figure needs a year attached to it.

What this means for study planning

Three practical consequences for anyone sitting in 2027 or advising someone who is.

First, material written for the 2026 exam under-weights Quantitative Methods by roughly half. A study plan carried over unchanged will allocate too little time to the topic whose weight grew most.

Second, ethics remains a disproportionately high-return topic even at the reduced weight, because of how it interacts with borderline results. CFA Institute applies an ethics adjustment to candidates near the minimum passing score, and its own description is explicitly two-directional — it "may move the overall score to one side of the minimum passing score or the other". A reduced weight does not make ethics safe to neglect.

Third, do not assume the renames are cosmetic in every case. Derivatives becoming Derivatives and Risk Management comes with a weight increase from 5–8% to 6–9%, which suggests the scope genuinely widened rather than only the label.

What has not changed

Level I remains 180 multiple-choice questions across two 135-minute sessions, 90 questions per session, and CFA Institute suggests allowing "approximately 90 seconds for each multiple-choice question". Level I continues to be offered each quarter — February, May, August and November — with Level II three times a year and Level III twice. The exam window and deferral mechanics are covered in our guide to CFA exam windows and the deferral policy.

Our existing breakdown of the Level I syllabus is in the CFA Level 1 syllabus guide, and the qualification overview is in what is the CFA.

A note on dating

Level I weights reset annually, and unusually CFA Institute currently publishes both the 2026 and 2027 tables at once. The Level II and Level III tables, by contrast, carry no year label at all — which means any figure taken from them should be cited as "as published" on a given date rather than as belonging to an exam year.

This article describes weights and curriculum changes as published by CFA Institute for the 2026 and 2027 Level I exams. Verify against CFA Institute before building a study plan on any figure here.