CPA Exam Requirements for International Candidates
There is no such thing as the CPA requirements. There are 55 sets of them, and choosing the wrong jurisdiction is the most expensive mistake available.
The most common reason an international candidate stalls on the CPA is not the exam. It is discovering, months in, that the state board they applied through will not license them, or that their degree converts to fewer credit hours than they assumed, or that nobody they have ever worked for can sign off their experience.
None of that is difficult once you know it. All of it is expensive to learn late, because board application fees are not refundable and a credential evaluation has to be redone if you switch boards.
This guide covers eligibility: who decides it, how a non-US degree is assessed, how to choose a jurisdiction, and where the exam ends and licensure begins. If you already know you are eligible and want the practical logistics of testing from the region, read How to Sit for the US CPA Exam from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf instead.
There is no such thing as "the CPA requirements"
Start here, because almost every confusing answer online comes from missing it.
The AICPA writes and scores the exam. NASBA coordinates administration and holds the national candidate database. Neither of them decides whether you can sit or whether you get a licence. That is done by one of 55 individual jurisdictions, each of which sets its own education rules, experience rules, residency rules and fees.
So "can I take the CPA with a Saudi degree?" has no single answer. It has 55 answers, and your job is to pick a jurisdiction whose answer is yes and whose other requirements you can actually satisfy.
Two consequences follow immediately. Advice from a candidate licensed in a different state may be true and still useless to you. And the board's own website is the only source that binds anyone, including this page.
The four things a board will ask you for
| Requirement | Applies to | Where international candidates get stuck |
|---|---|---|
| Education | Sitting the exam and licensure | Converting a foreign degree into US semester hours, and meeting accounting and business subject minimums |
| The Uniform CPA Examination | Both | Rarely the obstacle, and testable in the region |
| Experience | Licensure only | Finding someone who can verify it, which usually means a US-licensed CPA |
| Ethics | Licensure only, and not in every jurisdiction | A separate open-book exam, easy but easy to forget to budget for |
Note the third column of the second row. Education requirements to sit are often lower than education requirements to be licensed, and many boards let you start the exam before you have finished the coursework. Being told you cannot be licensed yet does not mean you cannot begin.
Getting a non-US degree evaluated
A Saudi, Egyptian, Jordanian, Indian or Pakistani degree does not arrive with US semester hours attached, so before a board will assess you, an approved agency has to translate it into that vocabulary. NASBA International Evaluation Services is the usual route and is accepted by most boards; World Education Services and the International Education Research Foundation are the other common ones, and a handful of boards mandate a specific evaluator.
Practical points, in the order they cause problems:
- Confirm which evaluators your target board accepts before you pay. An evaluation done by the wrong agency is money gone.
- Send everything at once. Evaluations stall on a missing transcript or an untranslated document far more often than on anything substantive.
- Expect the credit-hour count to surprise you. A three-year bachelor's degree, common outside the US, will usually convert to well under 120 semester hours. This is the most frequent unpleasant discovery, and it is better made before you have chosen a board.
- Budget roughly US$100 to $400 and several weeks. Start it before you start studying, not after.
The 120 vs 150 question, and what changed
The long-standing rule is 150 semester hours for licensure, which is more than a standard four-year US bachelor's degree provides and considerably more than most international bachelor's degrees. Many candidates closed the extra gap with a master's degree or additional credits purchased specifically for the purpose.
That is now changing. In 2025 the AICPA and NASBA approved an additional pathway: a bachelor's degree plus two years of professional experience plus the exam, sitting alongside the 150-hour route rather than replacing it. As of mid-2026 more than half of US jurisdictions have enacted some version of it, and adoption is continuing.
Three qualifications on that, all of which matter:
- It is a model rule. It applies to you only once your specific board adopts it, and boards are moving at different speeds.
- It governs licensure, not necessarily exam eligibility, which was often less restrictive already.
- The experience requirement gets longer, not shorter, under this route. It trades coursework for time.
If the 150-hour rule is what previously stopped you, it is worth rechecking your target board now rather than assuming the position you found two years ago still holds.
Choosing a jurisdiction
This is the decision that most determines how smooth the process is, and it deserves an hour of proper research rather than copying whatever a forum recommended.
Filter on these, roughly in this order:
Does it participate in international testing?
Almost all do. The exceptions, which do not currently participate in international administration of the exam, are Alabama, Idaho, North Carolina and the US Virgin Islands. If you intend to test outside the United States, those four are out.
Does it require a Social Security Number?
Several boards require an SSN, which most candidates who have never worked in the United States do not have. Jurisdictions that do not require one, and are therefore the ones international candidates most commonly use, include Washington, Montana, Illinois, Alaska and Guam. Requirements change, so confirm on the board's own site before applying.
Does it require US residency or citizenship?
Most do not, but a few impose residency or in-state requirements. Check before, not after.
How does it handle experience verification?
For candidates outside the US this is usually the hardest requirement to satisfy, and it is the one people research last.
Every jurisdiction requires experience for licensure, and most require it to be verified by an active US-licensed CPA. If you work in a Big Four office in Riyadh, Dubai or Doha, there may well be one in your reporting line. If you work in industry in the Gulf, there may not be, and finding out at the end is painful.
Some boards are meaningfully more flexible: certain jurisdictions accept verification by a holder of an equivalent international credential, and a small number accept a supervisor who is not a CPA at all. If you cannot identify a US CPA who could sign for you today, make this the first filter you apply to jurisdictions, ahead of fees and convenience.
Passing the exam is not being licensed
The exam is one of four requirements, and it is the only one you can complete purely by studying. Passing all four sections makes you a candidate who has passed the CPA Examination. It does not make you a CPA, and you may not call yourself one until a board issues a licence.
Two timing rules govern that gap:
- The credit window. Once you pass your first section, a clock runs, and passed sections expire when it ends. The historic window was 18 months; NASBA's model rule moved it to 30 months and most jurisdictions have adopted it, but adoption is board by board.
- Discipline availability. BAR, ISC and TCP are only offered in the first month of each quarter, which compresses that window far more than it appears to. See Sequencing the CPA Exam Around the Discipline Windows.
If you already hold a foreign qualification
Holders of certain non-US credentials can skip the Uniform CPA Examination entirely and sit the International Qualification Examination instead, a shorter route created by mutual recognition agreements between IQAB, NASBA and AICPA.
The bodies currently covered are CPA Australia, Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, CPA Canada, Chartered Accountants Ireland, CPA Ireland, the Instituto Mexicano de Contadores Públicos, and the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants.
SOCPA is not among them, and neither is ICAEW. A SOCPA Fellow who wants the US CPA sits the full Uniform CPA Examination like anyone else. The recognition runs the other way: SOCPA grants exemptions to holders of certain international credentials including the US CPA, which is why the two qualifications stack rather than compete for people working in Saudi Arabia. See CPA or SOCPA: Which Should You Take in Saudi Arabia?.
A sensible order to do all this
- Work out whether you can identify someone who could verify your experience. This shapes everything else.
- Shortlist two or three jurisdictions that fit that answer, participate in international testing, and do not require an SSN if you lack one.
- Confirm which credential evaluators each accepts, then order the evaluation.
- Apply to the board and get your Notice to Schedule.
- Only then build your study schedule, working backwards from the Discipline windows.
Most candidates do this in the opposite order, start studying first, and discover the constraints when they are already committed.
Where to start studying
Once your paperwork is moving, FAR is the usual first section: it is the largest, it underpins the most other material, and taking it early puts the heaviest content at the start of your credit window. See the CPA FAR study guide for what it covers and how to plan it.
Prepito covers all six CPA course options in English with practice questions, timed simulations and full explanations: FAR, AUD, REG, BAR, ISC and TCP. The full CPA programme lists what each section involves.
CPA questions and written explanations are in English. Prepito’s interface is available in English and Arabic, and the AI tutor can respond in either language.
Sources: NASBA International Exam Administration, NASBA Mutual Recognition Agreements, NASBA IQEX. Education, experience, residency and identification requirements are set by individual state boards, differ between jurisdictions and change; nothing here overrides what your board publishes. Confirm every requirement with the board you intend to apply through before paying any fee.
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An entity reports revenues of $8,400,000, cost of goods sold of $5,100,000, selling expenses of $960,000, a loss on sale of equipment of $140,000, interest expense of $310,000, and a loss from discontinued operations of $700,000 before tax. What is income from continuing operations before tax?
