What Your State Actually Requires for Ethics CPE — and What It Should Cost
Ethics is the smallest requirement on your CPE report and the one most likely to cost you your renewal.
The rest of your hours are flexible. Take a tax update, a fraud course, an Excel class — as long as it comes from a NASBA National Registry sponsor, your board will almost certainly accept it. Ethics doesn’t work that way. Some boards require a course written specifically for their own statutes and rules, and will reject anything generic. Others accept a general regulatory ethics course from any registered sponsor. Which camp your state falls into determines what you’re allowed to buy, and it isn’t something to guess at.
EthicsCPE.com publishes state-specific ethics courses for more than 40 jurisdictions. The standard four-hour course is $38.95.
Fifty states, fifty sets of rules
There is no national ethics requirement. There are roughly fifty of them, and they don’t agree with each other — not on hours, not on cycle length, not on what the course has to contain.
North Carolina wants one hour. Alabama, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and South Carolina want two. Ohio and Wisconsin want three. Most states want four. Rhode Island wants six. Minnesota wants eight.
Cycles vary just as much — annual in some states, biennial in others, triennial in others still. And several boards individually review and approve each ethics course every year, which means the course you take may need to carry the current year on it.
Three mistakes account for most failed ethics requirements:
Confusing the AICPA licensure course with an ongoing ethics course. The AICPA’s comprehensive professional ethics course is built for initial licensure. Many states accept a general ethics course covering the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct for ongoing CPE — but that is not the same product as the licensure course, and states requiring a board-approved state-specific course won’t take either one.
Assuming one course covers two licenses. Where a board requires a course written for its own rules, a Texas course won’t satisfy that requirement even though both are ethics. Where a board accepts general ethics, one course may cover you in both states. It depends entirely on the two boards involved.
Taking a prior-year edition where the current year is required.
Each mistake costs the same thing: you paid for hours that don’t count, and you find out at renewal.
The catalog
EthicsCPE.com publishes a separate course for each jurisdiction it covers, matched to what that board actually requires — state statutes and administrative rules where the board demands a state-specific program, general regulatory ethics content where the board accepts it. Either way, the course listed for your state is the one built to satisfy your state.
Courses are available for Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
Pricing follows the credit hours rather than the state:
| Credits | Price |
|---|---|
| 1 hour | $14.95 |
| 2 hours | $19.95 |
| 3 hours | $29.95 |
| 4 hours | $38.95 |
| 6 hours | $59.95 |
| 8 hours | $79.95 |
Every course is classified as Regulatory Ethics and delivered as NASBA QAS Self-Study. All are basic-level programs with no prerequisites and no advance preparation required.
Will my board accept it?
This is the question worth answering before you spend anything, on any provider’s site.
Three things establish whether a self-study ethics course can count. The sponsor has to be on the NASBA National Registry of CPE Sponsors — EthicsCPE.com is operated by CPE Solutions, LLC, Sponsor ID #111907. The delivery method has to meet the standard your board recognizes; these courses are QAS Self-Study. And the content has to match what your state asks for, which is why the catalog is organized jurisdiction by jurisdiction rather than as one course sold fifty times.
Beyond that, boards hold final authority over accepting any individual course. That’s true of every sponsor in the industry, and any provider claiming otherwise is overstating it. What you can verify before buying is the sponsor’s Registry listing, the delivery method, and what your state’s requirement page says.
How it works
Four steps, and none of them involve waiting for a scheduled session.
You purchase and get immediate account access. You download the course PDF and work through it at your own pace. You run the review questions, which carry full rationale on every answer rather than a bare right-or-wrong. Then you take the exam and print your certificate the same day. The passing score is 70% for most states and is shown on each course page before you buy — a few boards set it higher, Florida among them at 80%.
Everything runs in a browser on a computer, tablet, or phone. Nothing to install, and your progress saves if you stop partway through.
Three details there do more work than they appear to.
Unlimited retakes at no extra cost. Nobody fails an ethics exam permanently, but plenty of CPAs have sat through a proctored retake window or paid a second fee. The exam is a checkpoint, not a hurdle.
Same-day certificate. Most ethics purchases happen in the final two weeks of a reporting period. A course that can’t produce a certificate on the day you finish it isn’t much use in that window.
A full year of access. Course access runs one year from the date of purchase, so buying a few months ahead of your deadline costs you nothing. Start, stop, and come back as often as you like.
What happens when you get audited
CPE credit is self-reported. No sponsor files your hours with your board — you keep the record and produce it if you’re asked. That’s the normal arrangement across the industry, and it means part of what a provider is worth is how well it keeps records on your behalf.
Every completion stays permanently in your account with the date, credit hours, field of study, and course number. Certificates don’t expire out of your account and can be reprinted years later. Each one carries a number that anyone — including your board — can confirm through the site’s verification page.
Practically, that means you don’t have to file a PDF somewhere you’ll still remember in three years. If an audit letter arrives, you log in and print.
Where the price sits
Board-approved state ethics courses commonly run from the high $30s into the $80s for self-study, and past $100 for live webcasts, conferences, and state society programming. Same hours, same credit on your report.
Your board doesn’t grade the price. It checks whether the course satisfied the requirement and whether you completed it in the right window. An approved $38.95 course and an approved $89 course produce an identical line on your CPE record.
There’s also a 90-day refund window: if you haven’t passed the assessment and no certificate has been issued, you can request a refund within 90 days of purchase. That’s a wider window than most CPE providers offer, and it covers the most common mistake — buying for the wrong state.
Firms and multiple licensees
Volume discounts are available for firms putting several CPAs through their ethics requirement at once. Pricing depends on headcount and how many jurisdictions you’re covering, so it’s handled directly rather than through the cart.
Email [email protected] or call 1-800-545-7601 with how many people you’re covering and which states they’re licensed in, and we’ll set up your order with the discount applied. Worth doing before anyone on your team buys individually — firms often find they’re covering three or four states across their staff and can handle the whole thing in one pass.
Each course still registers under the name of the person earning the credit, since certificates carry an individual’s name and license number. Send the names and states and we’ll take care of it.
Twenty-five years behind it
EthicsCPE.com is operated by CPE Solutions, LLC — the same company behind CPECredit.com — which has been providing continuing education to accounting professionals for more than 25 years.
Longevity matters more here than it might seem. Boards revise their rules. NASBA updates its standards for self-study. Approved-provider lists get re-evaluated annually in several states. Maintaining forty-odd jurisdiction-specific ethics courses against that many moving targets is an infrastructure problem, which is why the state-specific ethics market has far fewer serious players than the general CPE market does.
The courses are written and maintained by a group of ethics authors and instructors rather than a single writer — the practical requirement for keeping that many editions current.
Common questions
Does the AICPA ethics course count? The AICPA comprehensive course is designed for initial licensure. For ongoing CPE, some states accept a general ethics course covering the AICPA Code; others require a board-approved state-specific course. Check your state’s requirement page.
I’m licensed in two states. Do I need two courses? Often, yes — where either board requires a course written for its own rules. Check the requirement page for each state you hold a license in.
How fast can I finish? The material opens as soon as you purchase. A four-hour course can be completed and certified in a single sitting.
Can I skip ahead to the exam? No. Self-study standards require the steps in order — review questions unlock after you open the material, and the exam unlocks after that.
What if I fail the exam? You retake it. Retakes are included at no extra cost. Passing is 70% in most states; a few boards require more, and the score for your course is listed on its page.
Whose name goes on the certificate? The name on your account. If it needs to match your license exactly, set it under Account details before you finish the course.
Do these hours count toward my total CPE, or only ethics? Both. Ethics credit satisfies the ethics requirement and counts toward your overall hour total.
Before you buy
Confirm your state’s requirement. Hours range from one to eight, and cycles range from one year to three. EthicsCPE.com publishes a state requirements page for each jurisdiction, linked from every course.
Check whether your state requires the current-year edition.
If you hold licenses in more than one state, check both requirements. You may need a separate course for each, or one may cover both.
Then log the credit with your board. Completing a course and reporting it are two different acts, and boards only see what you enter.
State boards of accountancy hold final authority on accepting any individual course for CPE credit.
The hours are mandatory. Overpaying for them isn’t.
Four-hour courses are $38.95. You have a full year to complete what you buy, the certificate prints the day you pass, and there’s a 90-day refund window if you get the wrong one.
Find your state’s ethics course →
Questions about which course you need, or buying for a firm? Call 1-800-545-7601 or email [email protected].