The IPA Now Requires 40 CPD Hours a Year, Not 120 a Triennium

If you look up the Institute of Public Accountants' continuing development requirement today, you will probably find 120 hours over a three-year period with 90 of them verified. That was the rule. It is not the rule now, and one of the places still describing it is the IPA's own public page on CPD audits.

Pronouncement 7, version 5.0, approved by the IPA board of directors on 17 February 2026, replaced the triennium with an annual requirement: 40 hours each one-year period, of which at least 30 verified and 10 unverified.

What changed, precisely

The superseded version 4.1, approved on 6 September 2022, required "a minimum of 120 hours CPD over each three-year CPD period", with at least 20 hours in each financial year, at least 90 of the 120 verified, and unverified activity capped at 30 hours or 25 per cent. The three-year period ran 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2024.

Version 5.0 restructures that entirely. Clause 5.1 sets 40 hours for each one-year period, 30 verified and 10 unverified. Clause 5.2 permits a maximum of 10 verified hours to be carried forward into the next period. Later periods are one year each, aligned to the Australian financial year.

Annualised, the change is less dramatic than it looks — 120 over three years was already 40 a year on average. What changes is the flexibility. Under the old rule a member could do 20 hours one year and 60 the next and still comply. Under the new rule each year stands largely on its own, with only 10 verified hours of carry-forward to smooth it. A member who front-loads or back-loads around busy season has far less room than they had.

The verified proportion also shifts. The old rule required 90 of 120, which is 75 per cent. The new rule requires 30 of 40, also 75 per cent. That one is unchanged — but the unverified cap is now a flat 10 hours a year rather than a 30-hour allowance across three.

A genuine defect in the instrument, and we are not going to paper over it

The transition is structured oddly. Clause 1.3 splits the period from 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2027 in two: "Part-1 is from 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2026 CPD period (two-years)", and Part-2 runs 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027.

Pronouncement 7 version 5.0 never states how many hours Part-1 requires.

The phrase "Part-1" appears exactly twice in the document: once in clause 1.3 defining it as a two-year period, and once in clause 5.3 capping carry-forward out of it at 20 hours, of which no more than 15 verified and 5 unverified. The 40-hour rule in clause 5.1 is expressed per one-year period. And the competency-area minimums in clause 5.4 apply, in the document's own words, "from Part-2 onward".

So a member asking what they needed for the two years to 30 June 2026 cannot answer the question from the instrument. We are not going to multiply 40 by two and publish 80, and the old 120-hour triennium rule is not stated to apply to it either. If you need that figure, it has to come from the IPA.

The competency areas, and an ethics requirement that is easy to miss

From Part-2 onward — that is, from 1 July 2026 — clause 5.4 requires at least 7.0 hours in each of three competency areas, of which at least 5.0 verified and 2.0 unverified. The areas are Technical and Product Knowledge; Management and Professional Skills; and Professional and Ethical Standards. Clause 5.5 lets the remaining hours come from any area.

So the IPA's ethics requirement is 7.0 hours a year, split 5.0 verified and 2.0 unverified, with clause 4.5 giving as an example "knowledge and application of the APES 110 Code of Ethics". That is a substantially heavier ethics obligation than most bodies impose — ICAEW mandates one hour, Canada's regulators four verifiable hours across three years, and the CMA two a year.

Do not mix it with the old figure. Version 4.1's ethics minimum was 20 hours per triennium including 15 verified. In annualised terms the new requirement is slightly higher, and it is structured differently.

A multiplier system you should know about

The IPA does not count all attendance equally. Clause 6.4 assigns activities to CPD Groups 1, 2 and 3, awarding 1, 1.5 and 2 CPD hours respectively per hour of attendance. An hour in a Group 3 activity is worth two hours against the requirement.

That is unusual. Most bodies we have documented count an hour as an hour, with the only adjustment being a 50-minute convention or, as in the international standard's own illustration, a straight hours total. A weighting system means two members with identical attendance records can hold different CPD hour totals.

On the verified and unverified distinction, the IPA's definitions are more useful than most. Clause 6.3.1 says verified activities have an outline of the content covered, designated learning outcomes, a timeframe allocated to complete the activity, and documentary evidence available to prove the event took place. Clause 6.5.1 describes unverified activities as "informal learning tasks that can be initiated through reading or self-study" that "may not have a defined learning outcome, a timeframe for the activity to be completed or an assessment."

Where the obligation legally sits

Pronouncement 7 is a board policy, not legislation. The duty to comply with it sits in the by-laws: by-law 3.1.1(e) requires members to "comply with the IPA's Continuing Professional Development (CPD) requirements", and by-law 2.1.3(a) lists Pronouncement 7 among the pronouncements members must abide by. By-law 7.1.18(a) allows administrative action "requiring the Member concerned to undertake specific CPD".

Pronouncement 7 states that it is issued pursuant to clause 53.2(a) of the IPA constitution and mandated by constitution clause 4.6. We could not retrieve the constitution itself, so those clause references are reported as the Pronouncement cites them rather than read at source.

The accurate formulation is therefore: the duty to comply is in the by-laws, and the content is in a board-approved pronouncement that the board can revise — as it did in February 2026. That is a materially different position from CPA Australia's by-law-based ethics quantum or CA ANZ's regulation.

Audit is universal on paper, with no published rate

Clause 8.1 states that "all IPA Members are subject to the IPA CPD audit process to verify compliance with Pronouncement 7", and clause 8.3 that "it is mandatory for all IPA Members to comply with the IPA CPD audit process." Clause 8.2 names the mechanisms: the Quality Review Program, the Professional Standards Declaration, and other review processes used from time to time.

No sample rate is published anywhere. We checked the Pronouncement, the public audit page, and the IPA Group Integrated Report 2024, which reports delivery figures — 175 face-to-face events with 4,463 attendees, 769 online and on-demand events with 27,027 attendees, and ethics course enrolments up from 453 to 1,725 — but no member compliance rate, no number of members reviewed and no non-compliance count.

The consequences are stated loosely. Clause 8.4 says a non-compliant member "will be required to become compliant", and that failure to do so "within the designated time-frame" may result in disciplinary action. The Pronouncement never designates a time-frame. Clause 10.1 allows a member to dispute the application of the Pronouncement to the chief executive, whose decision is final.

Who is out, and who gets relief

Clause 3.2 excludes several member classes from the requirement entirely: Affiliate, MIPA (AAT), FIPA (AAT), Retired, Honorary, Life and Student members. Clause 3.1 lists those who are in: AIPA, Graduate Associate (AIPA), MIPA, FIPA, Joint and Academic members.

Clause 9 provides for special consideration on written application with supporting documentary evidence, on grounds of "serious illness, parental leave, carers leave, career change, or extended holiday" — note that career change and extended holiday are grounds almost no other body recognises. Relief may be a full exemption or a reduction.

New members are prorated under clause 5.7 by quarter of admission: 30 hours for July to September, 20 for October to December, 10 for January to March, and for anyone admitted between 1 April and 30 June, no CPD at all for the current period.

Record retention is five years after the end of each CPD period, under clause 7.1. No reporting or declaration deadline is stated in the instrument at all.

One last caution. The IPA's own public CPD audit page still describes the 120-hour requirement, the 2021 to 2024 triennium and the 90-plus-30 split. Cite the Pronouncement, not that page: Pronouncement 7, version 5.0.