This content was originally published in the Canadian Tax Foundations newsletter: Canadian Tax Focus. Republished with permission.
The chartered professional accountant (CPA) designation in Canada is poised for a major transformation with the recent launch of the new CPA Professional Program (“the new program”) by the CPA accounting bodies in the provinces, territories and Bermuda (PTBs). The new program is rolling out over the next two to three years.
This modernization reflects the profession’s ongoing commitment to responding to a rapidly evolving business landscape shaped by economic shifts, technological innovation and changing societal needs consistent with Competency Map 2.0 (CM 2.0). The delivery and assessment of tax content will change with the launch of the new program.
Accreditation of undergraduate post-secondary institution (PSI) programs in combination with the graduate programs will be discontinued. Instead, PSIs offering an accounting major program will be encouraged to align with seven recommended undergraduate accounting courses covering essential knowledge areas and eight other business-related courses. Students who don’t graduate with an accounting major but still want to pursue a CPA can enter the program by completing a knowledge assessment.
Following graduation with an accounting major or completion of the knowledge assessment, students will enter the CPA Professional Program administered by the PTBs. This will consist of four modules: Foundational Development, CPA Core (Common or Licensure), CPA Leadership, and CPA Professional Readiness. The first modules will be offered in May 2027. It is noteworthy that the CPA Professional Readiness module will be a one-week in-residence program that learners will attend only after they have completed their practical experience requirements.
The CPA Core (Licensure) module is optional and is designed to prepare learners for roles where the protection of the public interest is essential, including auditing public corporations. This module includes, among other things, more complex corporate tax-planning topics.
There will no longer be a three-day Common Final Examination (CFE) written twice per year. Instead, there will be a Professional Final Exam with components occurring at different times: after each of the CPA Core, Leadership, and Professional Readiness modules, learners will need to complete an assessment before they can proceed to the next module. These assessments will be available three times per year. The last May CFE sitting will be held in 2026 and the last September CFE sitting will be held in 2028.
Tax Content
There will be only one tax course in the suite of seven recommended undergraduate accounting courses for accounting major programs. The content of this undergraduate tax course is not expected to change significantly from the current competency map entry-level requirements. Consistent with CM 2.0, the new program’s tax course will likely focus more on skills development (research skills, decision competencies and communication competencies) and less on specific areas of tax knowledge. Guidance for PSIs on the content of the undergraduate tax course is currently being circulated to them so they can develop their courses for the new program.
PSIs will be encouraged to offer additional tax electives to deepen students’ expertise and competencies. However, some PSIs currently offering two tax courses may move to only one; this is a decision for the PSIs themselves. On the other hand, some PSIs may offer tax courses beyond the minimum required for professional certification, just as they do now.
The overall goal of the new program is to ensure that a newly certified CPA going into public accounting licensure does not have significantly different tax knowledge and skills than a student who took the tax and assurance electives in the current system. It is expected that non-licensure learners will have somewhat more tax knowledge and skills than those in the current CPA educational program because more tax elements are included in the Common Core module.
As noted above, the PTBs or their designates will deliver the new CPA Professional Program. Under the current system, the delivery method of pre-certification content can vary across Canada. The most common pattern is that PSIs offer only part of this pre-certification content, with the profession covering the rest. However, some PSIs currently offer all of this content, with the students proceeding directly to the CFE following university studies. This may be done as part of a master’s degree or graduate diploma and may involve course content in many areas of accounting beyond those required for professional certification, including tax. The PTBs are currently developing plans for the delivery of the new program in their respective jurisdictions.
