How much does the CPA Exam cost? Every 2026 fee, broken down

Taking the CPA Exam costs roughly $1,150 to $1,850 in mandatory fees, before any review course. That covers four section fees at about $268 each (around $1,075 total), a one-time application or education evaluation of roughly $96 to $150, per-section registration fees your state adds, and an initial license fee of $50 to $500 once you pass. Most states also require an ethics exam that runs $250 to $320. A commercial review course is optional and pushes the all-in figure to $2,000 to $5,500.

There is no single national price, and any page that gives you one exact number is rounding off something that varies by state. The exam section fee is close to uniform because NASBA sets it, but every other fee, the application, the per-section registration, the license and the ethics requirement, is set by your state Board of Accountancy. So the honest way to budget is a range, then confirm the exact figures on your own board's application before you pay.

How much does the CPA Exam cost?

Add up the mandatory fees and a typical candidate spends about $1,400 to $1,800 to sit and pass all four sections and get licensed, with low-fee states near $1,150 and high-fee states above $1,850. That total is exam fees plus application plus registration plus the initial license, and in most states plus an ethics exam. It does not include a review course, retakes, or travel, which is where the number climbs for a lot of people.

How much is each CPA Exam section?

Each of the four sections costs about $268 in 2026, so the exam fees alone come to roughly $1,075. NASBA sets this fee and it is close to identical in every state, which is why it is the one number you can plan around. It adjusts periodically, and there are two figures in circulation right now: an older $262.64 that some provider pages still show, and a current $268.59 that took effect for most jurisdictions in mid 2026. Budget around $265 to $269 per section and you will be safe either way.

The CPA Exam has four sections: three Core parts (Auditing, Financial Accounting and Reporting, and Regulation) plus one Discipline you choose from Business Analysis and Reporting, Information Systems and Controls, or Tax Compliance and Planning. You pay the section fee for each one, and you pay it again for any section you retake. That last part is why a single failed section is not a rounding error.

Do you have to pay for the CPA Exam every time you fail?

Yes. Every retake costs the section fee again, about $268, plus a re-registration fee your state charges, commonly $50 to $200. You do not repay the one-time application fee, but the section and registration fees repeat for each attempt. On a section like FAR, which has the lowest pass rate of the four, one retake adds roughly $320 to $470 to your total.

This is the strongest financial argument for over-preparing rather than sitting a section to "see how it goes." The cost of failing is not just the emotional hit and the lost quarter, it is real money you pay twice. Sit a section when your practice scores are consistently above the passing line of 75, not before. Working through a large volume of CPA practice questions with every answer explained until the score is stable is far cheaper than a re-registration fee and another testing window.

How much does a CPA license cost after you pass?

The initial license fee runs from about $50 to $500 depending on your state, paid to your Board of Accountancy once you have passed all four sections and met the experience and education requirements. After that, you pay a renewal fee every one to three years and you have continuing professional education hours to complete, so the license is an ongoing cost, not a one-time one. Check your specific state board, because both the license fee and the renewal cycle vary widely.

Is the ethics exam included in the CPA Exam cost?

No, the ethics exam is a separate fee and it is required in about 30 states. The most common version is the AICPA Professional Ethics self-study course and exam, which costs $250 for AICPA members and $320 for non-members, and you need to score at least 90% to pass. A handful of states run their own ethics exam through their state society instead, including California, Ohio, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Vermont, and roughly a dozen states require no ethics exam at all. Confirm your state's rule before you assume the $250 to $320 applies to you.

How much does CPA Exam prep cost?

This is the widest and most optional line in the budget. A full commercial review course runs from about $1,500 to $6,000: the market-leading course lists from $2,499 up to $6,349, and mid-market courses sit lower. If your employer sponsors your course, and many public accounting firms do, your out-of-pocket prep cost can be near zero. If you are paying yourself, the question is how much of a four-figure course you will actually use.

The part of any course that moves a score is volume of practice with real explanations, not the video library. If you want to see how the premium option compares, we broke down the pricing and features on our Becker CPA alternative page. For candidates self-funding the exam, official AICPA sample tests plus a high-volume question source cover most of what a course provides. An AI tutor generates unlimited CPA practice questions with every answer choice explained for a few dollars a month, which keeps the four figures for your section fees and license instead.

The real all-in number, and how to lower it

Put the mandatory pieces together and a realistic all-in range for sitting and passing all four sections, then getting licensed, is about $1,150 in a low-fee state like Texas to $1,850 or more in a high-fee state like New Hampshire or New York, plus $250 to $320 if your state requires the ethics exam. Add a review course and the total lands somewhere between $2,000 and $5,500. The two levers you actually control are retakes and course spend: pass each section on the first attempt and keep your prep lean, and you stay near the bottom of that range.

One more cost worth naming, because it hits after you are licensed rather than before: the work itself. A newly minted CPA running a small firm's books spends a surprising amount of time on the mechanical parts of the job, and a lot of that, like matching invoices and scheduling payments, is increasingly handled by software that automates accounts payable rather than done by hand. Knowing which parts of the workflow are worth your billable hours and which are not is its own kind of exam, and it starts the day you pass this one.

So budget the range, confirm the exact figures with your state board, and treat first-attempt passes as the cheapest possible strategy. The candidates who spend the least are not the ones who found a discount. They are the ones who did enough practice that they only paid each section fee once.