South Carolina CPA CPE Requirements 2026: 40 Hours a Year

South Carolina CPAs must complete 40 hours of CPE in each calendar year, with at least two hours on ethics, and report them by February 1 of the following year. Since the 2025 calendar year, the Board requires CPE to be reported through the NASBA CPE Audit Service. The Board's materials do not agree on every detail, so this guide takes the statute and the Board's FAQ as the baseline and flags where older or newer documents differ. For a comparison across states see our CPA CPE requirements guide.

South Carolina CPE requirements at a glance

How the year works

The CPE year is the calendar year, from January 1 to December 31. You report on the annual renewal that opens on November 1 and is due on February 1. A late window follows, and the license lapses after it; the Board's own pages differ, with the FAQ saying February 15 and the renewals page saying February 16, so treat February 1 as your date. The 2026 year is still open, so hours completed before December 31, 2026 count toward the next report.

Ethics

The statute requires at least two of the 40 annual hours to relate to ethics. The Board's FAQ says that since 2022 you do not need a South Carolina-specific ethics course. Any behavioral or regulatory ethics course that meets the Board's rule counts, and a CPA whose principal place of business is outside the state can use that state's ethics course if they hold an active license there. An older 2020 version of the regulation described six ethics hours per fixed three-year period, including a Board-approved course on South Carolina rules. We treat that as superseded, but we could not confirm it from an effective-date record, so check with the Board. Our overview of ethics CPE for CPAs explains how other states handle ethics.

Delivery and activity caps

Self-study counts only when it comes from a course registered with the NASBA Quality Assurance Service, and webinars count only if interactive. Teaching a live course earns two credit hours per participation hour. College teaching is credited at 10 hours per three-semester-hour course and capped at 25 percent, authoring is capped at 25 percent, and peer review service and technical sessions at professional meetings are each capped at 16 hours a year. Nano-learning is capped at 10 percent (4 hours) in the current regulation, compared with 5 percent in the 2020 version. The daily limit is 12 hours in the current text and was 10 in 2020. Because the two versions differ, use the lower figures if you are near a limit.

Carryover

The regulation and the FAQ allow up to 20 excess hours to carry forward into the next year, with some CPE types ineligible. There is no carryover from a year in which CPE was not required, which matters in your first year of licensure.

New licensees, retired and inactive status

A CPA is not required to report CPE for the year the first license was obtained, and no carryover can be earned from that year. Retired status requires 20 hours plus two ethics hours, and eligibility requires 30 years of experience, age 55 or older and no more than 20 hours of work a week. Emeritus status carries no fee or CPE requirement.

Reinstatement

If your license lapsed or went inactive, check the Board for the hours and fee that apply, because we could not confirm a per-year hour requirement for lapses of under three years. After three years or more, Regulation 1-06 requires 120 hours of CPE completed within the previous three years. The regulation says the 120 hours must come from the previous three years, while the 2020 version said 18 months, so confirm the window with the Board.

Records, sponsors and audits

Keep records for five years from the report due date or filing date, whichever is later. Live instruction needs a qualified subject-matter expert and an advance outline, and sponsors keep their own records for five years. Our explainer on what NASBA does covers the registry and the audit service. The Board audits reports, so keep each certificate.

What we could not confirm

We could not confirm whether the 2023 amendment removed the old three-year ethics structure, or what the current personal-development cap is. A 2025 law, Act 34 (S.176, effective June 30, 2025), requires non-CPA firm owners to complete the same CPE hours, including annual ethics, and reciprocity applicants must certify CPE compliance. Regulation 1-13 requires 120 hours of CPE in the last three years to remove a retired designation. Older text capped personal development at 20 percent, or 8 hours. The Board's CPE page also links to a NASBA Fields of Study document, and we did not verify whether that document adds limits.

Frequently asked questions

How many CPE hours do South Carolina CPAs need?

40 hours in each calendar year.

How many ethics hours are required?

At least two hours a year.

When is the CPE report due?

Renewal opens November 1 and is due February 1.

Can I carry hours forward?

Up to 20 excess hours, with some CPE types ineligible.

Finding CPE that counts

Learnsignal publishes accounting, tax, audit, ethics and finance courses in its CPD and CPE library. Before you buy any course for credit, check that the provider is listed as an approved sponsor with your board or on the NASBA registry, and keep the certificate. Our page on NASBA CPE sponsor information explains what we publish about sponsor status. For a wider comparison read our guide to online CPE providers.

Other states: Texas California New York Florida Illinois.

Source: South Carolina Board of Accountancy CPE, renewal and FAQ pages (llr.sc.gov), S.C. Code section 40-2-250 and Regulation 1-08 (scstatehouse.gov), checked October 2026.