Exam cost
How much does the CPA exam cost?
By Joey Arnold, CPA · Last updated August 24, 2026
Source: NASBA fee schedule, current as of August 2026.
The exam fee itself is the same everywhere: $268.59 per section, set nationally by NASBA. Four sections comes to just over $1,070.
Everything on top of that either varies by state or depends on you. Here’s the whole picture, and which parts you can actually do something about.
What the exam costs everywhere
| Fee | Amount | Who sets it |
|---|---|---|
| Exam section fee | $268.59 per section | NASBA — the same in every jurisdiction |
| Four sections | $1,074.36 | NASBA |
| Education evaluation | around $96, up to about $200 | Your state board |
| Registration, per section | commonly $96, ranging roughly $15–$171 | Your state board |
| Ethics exam, where required | $250 for AICPA members, $320 otherwise | Your state board |
| Initial license | anywhere from about $35 to $650 | Your state board |
Section fee current as of August 2026. NASBA raised it in July 2026, so older pages may quote a lower number.
What your state adds
The section fee is uniform. Nothing else is.
Registration and evaluation fees push a typical first-attempt total for all four sections into roughly the $1,150 to $1,850 range, depending on where you’re licensed. That’s a $700 spread for the identical exam.
The ethics exam is required in some jurisdictions and not others. Initial licensing runs from under fifty dollars in some states to several hundred in others.
None of that is worth agonizing over — you’re licensed where you’re licensed. But it does mean any single number you read online is wrong for most people. Check your own board’s fee schedule alongside its requirements.
The line item that actually decides your total
Here’s what the big total ranges obscure: the difference between a cheap CPA journey and an expensive one is almost entirely retakes.
A failed section costs you the section fee again, plus a re-registration fee, plus — far more expensively — several more weeks. Two or three retakes across four sections adds several hundred dollars in fees and months of your life.
And most candidates do fail at least one section. That’s the normal path, not a worst case. What the pass rates actually show →
Which means the honest way to think about cost isn’t the sticker price of any one thing. It’s this: anything that reduces your chance of a retake is competing against a few hundred dollars and several weeks, every time. That’s the frame that makes a review course, or a study plan you’ll actually follow, easy to evaluate.
Putting it together
For a candidate who passes all four sections on the first attempt, the exam and state fees land somewhere around $1,150 to $1,850, before a review course and before licensing.
Add a couple of retakes and that climbs by several hundred dollars in fees alone — and by considerably more once you count the extra months.
Our own pricing, for what it’s worth: a single section is $349, and all six sections are $1,249.
Where to start
The cheapest version of the CPA exam is the one you pass the first time. That’s the whole strategy.
No credit card, full access to Chapter 1 of every section. All six sections — $1,249 · See what’s included.