Two Indian CPE Years: ICAI Ends in December, ICSI in March

A dual-qualified Indian practitioner — a chartered accountant who is also a company secretary — has two continuing education deadlines three months apart, two different units, two different age rules and two different online caps. Neither body's guidance mentions the other. This is the post that exists because a single "India CPE" article cannot be written without being wrong about at least one of them.

The years do not line up

ICAI runs on the calendar year. Its current statement is that "Currently Calendar wise CPE Hours Requirements for Members are as below", with the governing announcement titled "Revised CPE Hours Requirements for Members for each Calendar Year from Calendar year 2026 onwards." So a chartered accountant's CPE year ends on 31 December.

ICSI runs on the financial year — "the period of 12 months commencing from 1st day of April and ending on 31st day of March following". So a company secretary's year ends on 31 March.

Three months apart, every year. A practitioner who front-loads learning into the first quarter of the calendar year is simultaneously finishing one body's year and starting the other's, and hours earned in January count toward ICAI's new year and ICSI's old one.

Anyone writing "the Indian CPE year" has already made an error. There are two.

Both bodies use 60. It means different things.

ICAI operates an age ladder for certificate of practice holders at 60, 70 and 80, with the requirement falling at each step. Critically, a member aged 60 or over who does not hold a certificate of practice is fully exempt.

ICSI uses 60 as a single step to 50%. Members aged 60 and over who are in company secretarial employment or hold a certificate of practice obtain half the required credits, from the year after they turn 60. Entrepreneurs owning non-professional businesses are also at 50%, by self-declaration. An ICSI member in the position that would make an ICAI member exempt is at 50%, not zero.

Same number, opposite outcomes. ICAI also has an age-attainment quirk: a member reaching 59 years and 364 days during a year is treated as having reached 60 that year.

Forty versus twenty, and the practice question

ICAI's headline for a certificate of practice holder under 60 is 40 hours, of which 20 structured. ICSI's is 20 CPE credits, with an effective floor of 8 structured.

But the more important difference is who the requirement binds. ICAI's structure turns on certificate of practice status — a member without one and under 60 has a reduced 20 hours. ICSI draws no such distinction at all: its Guidelines apply "irrespective of whether they are in practice or otherwise".

That is the single most commonly misstated fact about ICSI. There is no practice-versus-employment split, and advisers who describe one are inventing it. The detail is in our guide to ICSI CPE credits.

The online caps run in opposite directions

ICAI caps digital delivery inside the structured requirement: "A maximum of 4 CPE hours per calendar year is allowed through DLH", with the excess reclassified as unstructured. So of 20 structured hours, at most 4 can be digital — a severe constraint, which we unpack in the ICAI structured hours squeeze.

ICSI caps web-based learning at 8 unstructured credits, leaving its structured requirement unconstrained by delivery mode.

The practical effect is that the same online course can be a scarce, rationed resource for one qualification and an ordinary one for the other.

Mandatory subjects: one body, not both

From Calendar Year 2026, ICAI mandates "1 Structured CPE Hours each on topics of 'Standards on Auditing', 'Code of Ethics' and 'Digital Technology'", for certificate of practice holders under 60 and the 60-to-under-70 band.

ICSI has no mandatory subject for general members. Its only topic-specific provision is permissive — bodies "may consider" credits for Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India topics for registered Insolvency Professionals and Registered Valuers.

Transplanting ICAI's mandated subjects onto ICSI is the most frequent cross-contamination error in secondary summaries.

Carry-forward, newly divergent

ICSI's revised text, in force from 1 April 2026, permits carry-forward of excess structured credits for the first time — capped at 8, reduced to 4 for the 60-plus group, with FY2026-27 credits carrying into FY2027-28. The 2019 text barred it.

For ICAI we have not established a carry-forward position and are not going to assert one.

Shortfall: both double it, but the exposure differs

Both bodies apply a doubling rule. ICAI: "To ensure full compliance members have to do twice the shortfall of the calendar year 2025." ICSI: failure to obtain the required structured credits means making up double the shortfall the following year, on top of that year's requirement — the FAQs work an example where a 4-credit shortfall produces a 28-credit year.

Beyond the arithmetic they part company. ICSI states that a member who fails "may be liable to disciplinary action for non-compliance" under the Company Secretaries Act 1980 and the Code of Conduct. ICAI ties compliance to issuance of a Good Standing Certificate; its published consequences document sits on a crawler-blocked domain, so we have not verified whether a penalty or a certificate of practice bar exists, and we are not repeating the claim that one does.

A note on the third body

ICMAI, for cost accountants, also runs on the financial year, 1 April to 31 March, which puts it alongside ICSI rather than ICAI on timing.

We are not quoting its current hour values here. An amendment to its CPE Guidelines appears to have taken effect on 1 April 2026 and the primary documents are not retrievable, so any figure we printed might be a regime out of date. Check ICMAI directly.

What to actually do

If you hold two of these qualifications, run two plans. Diarise 31 December and 31 March separately. Place ICAI's three mandated subject hours and four digital hours first, because they are the most constrained. Then fill ICSI's 8 structured credits, which can come from anywhere. Full ICAI context is in ICAI CPE requirements.

This article describes published requirements and is not legal advice. Both bodies reset figures annually; verify before relying on this for a declaration.