IES 7: Where Your CPD Requirement Actually Comes From

Almost every professional accountant in the world has a CPD obligation, and almost none of them can say where it comes from. The answer is International Education Standard 7, and the most widely repeated fact about it — the 120 hours — is not in the standard's requirements at all.

What IES 7 is, and who it binds

IES 7, Continuing Professional Development (Revised), was published in December 2018 and, in its own words at paragraph 7, "is effective from January 1, 2020". It remains the current version: when IFAC published the 2026 edition of the Handbook of International Education Standards in January 2026, the revised standards listed were IES 2, 3, 4 and 6. IES 7 was not among them.

The critical structural point is who carries the obligation. IES 7 does not impose a CPD duty on you as an accountant. It imposes duties on IFAC member bodies — the professional accountancy organisations — to establish, measure and monitor CPD for their members. Your personal obligation comes from your own body's rules, made in order to comply with IES 7.

That is why the requirements differ so much between bodies while the architecture stays recognisable. IFAC's membership covers, in its own published figures as at January 2026, "over 188 professional accountancy organizations (PAOs) in more than 143 jurisdictions". Each of those sets its own scheme inside the same standard.

Two measurement approaches, not three

Requirement 12 is the hinge: "IFAC member bodies shall establish an approach to measurement of professional accountants' CPD using the output-based approach, input-based approach, or both."

An output-based approach, under requirement 13, requires accountants to maintain competence "demonstrated by achieving learning outcomes relevant to performing their role as a professional accountant". An input-based approach, under requirement 14, requires competence "demonstrated by completing a specified amount of learning and development activity". The explanatory material puts the latter plainly: an input-based approach "measures CPD in terms of hours or equivalent learning units".

Note that IES 7 does not name a third "combined approach". The permission is "or both", and the explanatory heading is "Use of Both Measurement Approaches". Calling it a combined approach is a fair gloss but it is not the standard's term, and in a compliance document that distinction is worth keeping.

The 120 hours is an example, not a requirement

This is the part that matters most, because it is stated as fact across most published guidance.

IES 7 specifies no hours figure. None of its requirements contains a number. The familiar figures appear only in explanatory paragraph A25, introduced by "for example" and governed by "may":

"IFAC member bodies using an input-based approach expect professional accountants to develop and maintain professional competence, through the undertaking of a specified amount of CPD. For example, an IFAC member body may set a requirement of at least 120 hours (or equivalent learning units) of relevant CPD in each rolling three-year period, of which 60 hours (or equivalent learning units) would be verifiable; and a minimum of 20 hours (or equivalent learning units) of relevant professional development activity in each year."

Three things follow. The 120 hours over a rolling three-year period is an illustration of what a body might set, not a global floor. The annual minimum in that illustration is 20 hours. And the component almost always dropped from secondary accounts is the 60 verifiable hours — half the total, and the half that requires evidence a third party could check.

So when your own body sets a figure, that figure is its implementation choice. It is not IES 7's number, and quoting "IES 7 requires 120 hours" to a client or a regulator is wrong.

What the standard does require of a member body

Stripping out the illustrations, the obligations on a professional accountancy organisation are structural rather than numerical. It must establish a measurement approach. It must promote the importance of continuing development and of a commitment to lifelong learning among its members. It must facilitate access to CPD opportunities and resources. It must establish a systematic process for monitoring whether members are meeting the requirement, and take action where they are not.

That last pair is where member bodies differ most visibly in practice, and where an accountant is most likely to meet the standard without realising it. Monitoring is why bodies run sampling exercises and ask for declarations; the requirement to act on non-compliance is why a persistent failure can escalate to a membership question rather than simply a reminder letter.

It is also the answer to a common misreading. A body that accepts a self-declaration is not failing IES 7 by doing so, provided it operates a systematic monitoring process behind the declaration. The standard does not prescribe how verification is done.

Why this matters for anyone comparing jurisdictions

Because the standard sets architecture rather than quantum, two bodies can both comply with IES 7 and ask for very different things. One may run a pure output-based scheme with no hours at all. Another may set hours with a verifiable sub-quota. A third may run both together. None of them is more compliant than the others.

This is the same pattern we see wherever an international standard is implemented locally rather than applied directly — the spread of record retention periods across regulators in our comparison of CPD record retention requirements is a good illustration of how far apart implementations drift. For how one major body actually implements it, see our guide to ACCA CPD requirements. And our list of international accounting standards covers the reporting standards that sit alongside the education ones.

IES 7 and the full suite are published by the International Federation of Accountants. Read the requirements and the explanatory material as separate layers: the requirements bind member bodies, and the explanatory paragraphs illustrate without obliging.