BC CPAs Have an Anti-Money-Laundering Training Deadline of 31 December 2026

Every member of CPA British Columbia must complete at least 1.5 hours of anti-money-laundering training by 31 December 2026. No other Canadian accounting regulator imposes an anti-money-laundering hours requirement at all. If you are a BC CPA and you have not done it, the deadline is weeks away.

The requirement, and where it sits

The obligation is in CPABC's Bylaw Regulations, in the 600-series that carries all of the continuing development numbers. Regulation 600/2.1 provides that "every member must complete at least 1.5 AML hours" by the later of "December 31, 2026" or "the end of the second calendar year following the calendar year of their initial admission as a member".

So the deadline is personal to each member. For anyone admitted before 2024, it is 31 December 2026 flat. For a member admitted in, say, 2025, it falls at the end of 2027 instead. The 31 December 2026 date is the one that applies to the overwhelming majority of the membership.

The hours are not additional to the existing requirement. Regulation 600/2.1(2) provides that anti-money-laundering hours completed under the rule "may be counted as ethics hours under Regulation 600/2" for the calendar year or three-calendar-year period in which they are completed. BC's ethics requirement is four verifiable hours over the rolling three-year period, so the 1.5 anti-money-laundering hours can discharge part of it rather than sitting on top. CPABC's own ethics guidance lists anti-money-laundering among eligible ethics topics, which is consistent.

That matters for planning: a member who has not yet done either can satisfy a portion of both obligations with one course, provided it is verifiable and meets the committee's criteria.

How BC's structure works, because the AML rule only makes sense inside it

British Columbia splits its continuing development obligation across two binding documents, and you need both. The CPABC Bylaws, Part 6, create the programme and the reporting duty but contain no hours. Bylaw 600(1) provides that "the board, by regulation, must establish a Continuing Professional Development Program", and Bylaw 600(2) that "every member must deliver an annual compliance report to CPABC by the deadline specified in the regulations". The numbers all live in the Bylaw Regulations' 600-series. Both instruments are made under the provincial Chartered Professional Accountants Act and both bind.

The headline figures, from Regulation 600/2(2), are "a minimum of 20 qualifying hours of continuing professional development in each calendar year, including at least 10 verifiable qualifying hours", and "a minimum of 120 qualifying hours of continuing professional development during each rolling three-calendar year period, including at least 60 verifiable qualifying hours, of which at least 4 are ethics hours".

One structural feature is worth drawing out. Regulation 600/1 defines ethics hours as verifiable qualifying hours in professional ethics "satisfying criteria approved by the Membership Committee". The content criteria are delegated to a committee rather than fixed in the instrument. The hours are in the regulation; what counts is not. CPABC's published standard is that "professional ethics learning activities must go beyond an awareness of the law, standards or guidelines", with eligible topics including regulatory updates, professional conduct, independence and conflicts, ethical decision-making, whistle-blowing and anti-money-laundering. The four hours may be accumulated across several activities and taken from any provider.

BC's deadline is the earliest in the country

Regulation 600/5 sets it: "for the purposes of Bylaw 600(2), the deadline for members to deliver an annual compliance report to CPABC is January 31". That is the earliest continuing development declaration deadline of any Canadian jurisdiction we examined, and it comes barely a month after the calendar year it reports on closes.

There is a second chance built into the structure. Bylaw 601 treats a member who misses the report or the compliance deadline as compliant if they file and complete outstanding requirements by the later deadline in the regulations, and Regulation 601/1 fixes that date at 31 March.

After that the consequences are set out in Bylaw 602, and they are stiffer than most. Membership is suspended until the member files the report, completes the outstanding requirements and pays any administrative fee. CPABC must give at least thirty days' notice before suspension, stating the effective date, the reason and how to apply to the Membership Committee for relief. And if the member does not meet the requirements "within 90 days of the date the suspension takes effect", membership is cancelled. The Membership Committee can order that a suspension or cancellation not occur, or be delayed, in special circumstances, and Bylaw 603 allows referral of a failure to the Investigation Committee where discipline may be warranted.

How likely is anyone to check

CPABC publishes the figure, which most regulators do not. Its 2024-2025 report to the public records that "33,206 active members were required to self-report compliance with 2024 CPD", that "98% of members complied by the CPD reporting deadline", and that "CPABC verified CPD compliance for roughly 1% of membership". Two hundred and eight members were suspended for continuing development non-compliance that year, and thirty-two of those suspensions became cancellations. The 2021-2022 report gives a consistent picture: 32,528 members reporting, "a minimum of 1% of CPD required reporters" verified, 255 suspensions, 50 cancellations.

Note the structural oddity behind that. There is no continuing development audit or verification provision in Part 6 of the Bylaw Regulations at all — Regulation 600/4 is marked "[Repealed]". Verification happens and is reported, but the authority for it is not in the 600-series.

Members must keep their evidence. Regulation 600/6 requires every member to retain documentation supporting verifiable qualifying hours completed during a calendar year "for at least five years after the end of that calendar year" — a five-year rule in line with the retention periods most US state boards apply, and far longer than Quebec's.

BC's exemption is a revenue test, not a status

This is the other place BC diverges. Most Canadian regulators list statuses that qualify for exemption — retired, on parental leave, on medical leave. BC does not. Per CPABC's requirements page, a member must satisfy all of several conditions, the first of which is that "their gross active revenues does not exceed C$32,300 for the calendar year". The member must also not engage in public practice at any point in the year, must not serve on the board or on an audit, finance or similar governance committee of a public company or reporting issuer, and must comply with the professional competence rule.

There is no standalone retirement or leave exemption. A retired member earning above the threshold, or sitting on a reporting issuer's audit committee, is in the full requirement. The alternative route is the Membership Committee's discretion under Bylaw 600(3), which allows exemption of a category of members or of an individual on application.

New members get no proration either. The first rolling three-calendar-year period begins in the year of admission, and the annual requirement applies from that year. Regulation 600/2(4) does allow carryover verifiable hours completed before the admission year to be deemed completed in it. Compare Ontario, where admission after 30 September exempts the member from that year's annual hours outright.

Members in public practice cannot use the exemption at all, and practitioners seeking or renewing an audit licence must complete an annual self-assessment and declaration that they have undertaken sufficient relevant continuing development for their role — the same international standard mechanism used for licensed auditors elsewhere.

The single action for most BC members reading this: 1.5 verifiable anti-money-laundering hours before 31 December 2026, which will also count toward the four-hour ethics requirement. Details on CPABC's continuing professional development requirements page.