Every Oregon CPA has to report ethics CPE at renewal, but the rules around which course counts have changed in recent years — and a fair amount of outdated information is still circulating online. Here’s a current, plain-English breakdown of what the Oregon Board of Accountancy requires, how the ethics hours fit into your broader CPE obligation, and what you need to keep on file afterward.
Oregon’s Ethics Requirement at a Glance
Four hours of ethics CPE per biennial renewal period. That applies to active licensees and inactive licensees alike. Retired licensees are not required to report CPE at all.
Effective October 1, 2023, the Board set the ethics obligation at a minimum of four hours each biennial renewal period for all active and inactive Oregon licensees.
How Ethics Fits Into Your Total CPE
The four ethics hours are not additional hours stacked on top of your requirement — they’re carved out of it.
| Licensee status | Total CPE per period | Ethics hours | Non-technical cap | Max carryforward |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active | 80 hours | 4 | 16 hours | 20 hours |
| Inactive | 32 hours | 4 | 8 hours | 8 hours |
| Retired | None required | — | — | — |
Active licensees also carry a 20-hour annual minimum. Carryforward hours can reduce the total number of hours you owe for the period, but they cannot be applied toward that annual minimum — a distinction that catches licensees off guard more often than you’d think.
Municipal auditors have a further layer: 24 hours in governmental accounting and auditing subjects each renewal period. Those 24 hours may be counted within the 80.
Renewal Timing
Oregon permits renew biennially on June 30. Whether that falls in an even or odd year depends on your permit number:
- Even-numbered permits expire June 30 of even-numbered years
- Odd-numbered permits expire June 30 of odd-numbered years
CPE earned in the two years immediately preceding your June 30 expiration date is what counts, with the exception of hours used for reinstatement.
Which Ethics Courses Actually Qualify
This is where the outdated guidance shows up most often.
Oregon’s current position is that the four-hour ethics obligation can be satisfied through an ethics-coded program that meets the Board’s general CPE guidelines. The Board’s subject-matter rules list professional ethics and regulatory ethics among the technical subject categories eligible for credit — which also means your ethics hours don’t eat into your 16-hour non-technical allowance.
In practice, that puts Oregon in the same category as states like Colorado, Georgia, and Arizona: a general NASBA-registered ethics course satisfies the requirement. Oregon is not currently in the group of jurisdictions — California, Texas, Ohio, New York, Washington and others — where a state-specific or Board-approved course is mandatory and a general course will not be accepted.
Two exclusions are worth knowing. The Board does not grant CPE credit for courses taken to satisfy the requirements for initial licensure, and it specifically excludes ethics courses taken to fulfill the ethics exam requirement for licensure. If you sat the AICPA comprehensive ethics exam to get licensed, that does not double as your renewal ethics CPE.
Self-Study Courses Must Come From a NASBA-Registered Sponsor
If you’re completing ethics CPE by self-study — as most licensees do — Oregon has a hard requirement:
Self-study and correspondence courses do not qualify for CPE credit unless the sponsor is approved on the NASBA National Registry of CPE Sponsors.
Registered sponsors are assigned a six-digit National Registry number. That number must appear on your certificate of completion and must be reported on your renewal or reinstatement application. A course from a non-registered sponsor will be denied, regardless of how good the content is.
Live courses are treated differently — they don’t need to be registered with the Board — but the self-study rule is absolute.
Out-of-State Licensees
If your principal place of business is outside Oregon, the Board offers CPE reciprocity. You can be deemed compliant with Oregon’s CPE requirement by meeting the requirements of the jurisdiction where your principal place of business is located, and you demonstrate this by signing a statement to that effect on the Oregon renewal application.
One important exception: if your principal place of business is in a jurisdiction that has no CPE requirement for renewal, reciprocity is not available to you and you must meet Oregon’s requirements in full.
Recordkeeping: Five Years
Oregon requires licensees to retain proof of completion for five years after finishing each program. A valid certificate of completion needs to show:
- Your name as the participating licensee
- The sponsor’s name
- The program title
- The date of completion
- The instructor’s name, where applicable
- A statement that the sponsor is on NASBA’s National Registry, with the registry number
- The number of CPE hours awarded
If any of those elements are missing from a certificate, it’s worth requesting a corrected one before you file rather than after the Board asks.
Meet Your Oregon Ethics Requirement for $38.95
EthicsCPE.com offers Ethics for Oregon CPAs — 4 Hours for $38.95. The course is delivered as QAS Self-Study, carries a Regulatory Ethics field of study, and covers the full four hours Oregon requires each renewal period.
EthicsCPE.com is operated by CPE Solutions, LLC (dba CPECredit.com), which is registered with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) as a sponsor of continuing professional education on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors, Sponsor Identification Number 111907 — the registration Oregon requires for self-study credit. That sponsor number appears directly on your certificate, ready to report on your renewal application.
How it works:
- Purchase — you get immediate account access
- Study — download the course PDF and work at your own pace
- Review questions — full rationale provided on every answer
- Exam and certificate — pass at 70%, with unlimited retakes, and print your certificate the same day
There’s no subscription and no bundle to buy into. It’s a single course at a single price, which is the point.
View the Oregon course →
Check requirements for another state →
State boards of accountancy have final authority on the acceptance of individual courses for CPE credit. Requirements are subject to change; confirm current rules with the Oregon Board of Accountancy before completing coursework. The Board can be reached at [email protected] or 503-378-4181. Complaints regarding registered sponsors may be submitted to the National Registry of CPE Sponsors at www.NASBARegistry.org.