Chartered Accountants complete 120 hours of CPD each triennium, 90 of which must be verifiable, with at least 20 hours in every year of that triennium and six verifiable hours on ethics. Associate Chartered Accountants and Accounting Technicians have reduced figures. This article covers the hours by designation, how the triennium is set, what counts as verifiable, the records you keep, and what happens when CA ANZ reviews them.
1. CA ANZ CPD Requirements at a Glance
| Requirement | What the rules say |
|---|---|
| Governing rule | Regulation CR 7 — Continuing Professional Development |
| Measurement | Hours, counted across a three-year triennium with an annual floor |
| CAs, Affiliates and NMPs | 120 hours per triennium, 90 verifiable, minimum 20 hours each year |
| ACAs | 90 hours per triennium, 67 verifiable, minimum 15 hours each year |
| Accounting Technicians | 60 hours per triennium, 45 verifiable, minimum 10 hours each year |
| Ethics | Six verifiable hours per triennium, for trienniums beginning on or after 1 July 2024 |
| On-the-job training | Up to 50% of your verifiable hours, capped at 45 hours per triennium for CAs |
| Triennium start | 1 July, with your first triennium set by your admission date |
| Records | A CPD log plus verifiable evidence, retained six years and produced on request |
| Monitoring | Annual notifications, record reviews of a percentage of members, and quality reviews for CPP holders |
| Non-compliance | Referral to the Professional Conduct Committee for New Zealand residents; exclusion from membership under the By-Laws for others |
Each row above is a requirement, not a recommendation. Anywhere a point is guidance rather than an obligation, this article flags it.
2. Who Must Comply with CA ANZ's CPD Requirements
CR 7 applies to Individual Members and Affiliate Members, subject to the exemptions in CR 7.5. Individual membership covers Fellows, Chartered Accountants, Associate Chartered Accountants and Accounting Technicians. The obligation follows membership, not the work you do, and CA ANZ states it applies regardless of your role.
Location doesn't change the figures either. All members of the same designation have the same requirements wherever they live, for trienniums commencing from 1 July 2021.
Some members carry more than the base requirement:
- Audit engagement partners: responsible for audits of a public interest entity's financial statements, and New Zealand Licensed Auditors, also comply with Schedule 1 to CR 7. That schedule requires a self-assessment against defined learning outcomes within six months of each reporting period, a prioritised learning plan of no more than three years, and an annual update of both.
- CA Specialists: have separate requirements under Regulations CR 6 to CR 6E, on top of the requirements for all members.
- Holders of licences and registrations: should make sure their training also satisfies those regimes. In Australia that includes registered company auditors, registered company liquidators, registered trustees in bankruptcy, AFS licence holders, approved SMSF auditors, registered BAS agents, registered tax (financial) advisers and registered tax agents. In New Zealand it includes licensed insolvency practitioners, Licensed Auditors, and financial advisers and financial service providers.
Dual members get one route out. Where you're also a current member of an accountancy body CA ANZ recognises, resident outside Australia and New Zealand, not holding a Certificate of Public Practice and not a CA ANZ specialist, written evidence of compliance from that other body is accepted as compliance with CR 7. The recognised bodies named in the regulation include CPA Australia, ACCA, ICAEW, ICAS, Chartered Accountants Ireland, CPA Canada, HKICPA, AICPA, SAICA and several others.
3. How Many Hours You Need, and How They're Counted
The measure is hours, and the requirement splits three ways by designation:
| Designation | Triennium total | Verifiable | Non-verifiable balance | Annual minimum |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CA, Affiliate, NMP | 120 hours | 90 hours | 30 hours | 20 hours |
| ACA | 90 hours | 67 hours | 23 hours | 15 hours |
| Accounting Technician | 60 hours | 45 hours | 15 hours | 10 hours |
NMP refers to New Zealand Non Member Principal status. Affiliates are non-member principals who participate with Individual Members in a practice entity.
How hours are counted:
- There's no minimum block of time. CA ANZ accepts whatever increments reflect learning you actually gained.
- The minimums are built on a 37.5-hour working week over a 12-month period. That baseline is what the pro-rata exemptions work from.
- The minimum isn't always the whole obligation. CR 7 states that in a member's individual circumstances, more CPD than the regulation requires may be necessary to meet the ethical requirement to maintain professional knowledge and skill at the level a client or employer needs.
4. Your Triennium and the Annual Minimum
A triennium is three years beginning on 1 July. Which 1 July depends on when you were admitted:
| Member | First triennium began |
|---|---|
| Resident in New Zealand, admitted before 1 July 2012 | 1 July 2012 |
| All other members admitted before 1 July 1994 | 1 July 1994 |
| Everyone else | 1 July of the financial year following admission |
CA ANZ's own worked example: a member admitted on 16 November 2017 began their first triennium on 1 July 2018, running to 30 June 2021, followed by 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2024, then 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2027.
Both tests run together. Clearing 120 hours across three years doesn't help if one of those years came in under 20. The annual figure is a floor in each year of the triennium, not an average.
5. Verifiable CPD, Non-Verifiable CPD and the Ethics Requirement
The split turns on evidence:
- Verifiable CPD: is any CPD activity for which verifiable evidence supports completion. Verifiable evidence means evidence that is objective, and capable of being proven and retained in written or electronic form.
- Non-verifiable CPD: is an independent and informal activity. CR 7 names reading technical or professional articles, mentoring discussions, and collegial discussion where learning is fostered.
Ethics: takes six verifiable hours per triennium for every member regardless of designation, for trienniums beginning on or after 1 July 2024. The previous figure was two. The scope is wider than it looks:
- Any professional development relevant to your role that relates back to the fundamental principles of the Code of Ethics can be claimed.
- The training can be delivered by any provider.
- It doesn't need to mention the Code of Ethics by name, as long as it relates to the fundamental principles as appropriate to your role.
- The hours sit inside your verifiable total rather than on top of it, and you keep verifiable evidence as you would for any other verifiable activity.
- No pro-rata reduction applies to the six hours, whatever exemption you're otherwise entitled to.
On-the-job training: can make up as much as half of your verifiable hours, capped at 45 hours per triennium for CAs. It has conditions attached: it must be training you receive while performing your professional role rather than business-as-usual activity, it must deliver genuine new or enhanced knowledge or experience, and it must be documented on CA ANZ's prescribed form and authorised by the person you did the work for, usually your manager or supervisor.
6. What Counts as Eligible CPD
CPD activities aren't restricted to accounting or financial topics. The test CA ANZ applies is whether the activity is structured, educational or technical in content and enhances your ability to do your job. Leadership, communication and technology learning all qualify on that basis.
| Activity | How the hours count |
|---|---|
| Conferences, courses, seminars, training and presentations | Verifiable, where you hold evidence of completion |
| Webinars, in-house training and self-directed learning | Verifiable on the same evidence basis |
| Serving on a CA ANZ technical or research committee | Verifiable, confirmed by other committee members or the secretariat |
| Publishing professional or academic papers, articles or research | Verifiable, supported by the published work |
| Speaking at conferences, briefing sessions and discussion groups | Verifiable |
| Developing or delivering training sessions or courses | Verifiable |
| Facilitating professional examination workshops, or marking professional examinations | Verifiable, to a maximum of 50% of your verifiable hours per triennium |
| Participating in a NZICA, CA ANZ or CPA Australia quality review | Verifiable, to a maximum of four hours per triennium |
| Verifiable on-the-job training | Verifiable, to a maximum of 50% of your verifiable hours |
| Technical reading, mentoring discussions, collegial discussion | Non-verifiable, filling the balance of your triennium total |
What doesn't count
- Business-as-usual work. On-the-job training has to be development, not the job itself.
- Any activity you can't evidence, toward the verifiable minimum. It may still sit in your non-verifiable balance if it fits that definition.
- Exempted hours and non-verifiable CPD, for a member applying for a Certificate of Public Practice. CR 7 states that an applicant who reached compliance that way has to establish competence another way.
- Courses undertaken as a prerequisite for admission to membership.
7. Online Learning, Self-Study, Webinars and On-Demand Education
CA ANZ approves no providers and pre-approves no courses. Its position is that CPD should be flexible, and that you choose when and where you learn, naming webinars, in-house training, on-the-job training and self-directed learning alongside conferences and workshops. The ethics rules say the same thing more directly: training delivered by any provider can count.
So format isn't the question. What separates verifiable from non-verifiable is whether evidence of completion exists that is objective, provable and retained.
The overarching requirement is that the activity is structured, educational or technical in content and enhances your ability to do your job, and that you can show it happened. Hours become verifiable when the evidence meets that three-part test and sits in your CPD log alongside the date, the provider, the relevance to your role and the hours claimed. CA ANZ assesses CPD one member and one activity at a time, against your designation and your triennium. In CA ANZ's terms, structured online self-study backed by a certificate of completion falls into verifiable CPD.
EverCPE.com provides online self-study learning for accountants that may help you fulfil your CPD requirements.
EverCPE.com is interactive, structured self-study rather than passive reading. Each learning session comes with:
- Content shaped around the exact accounting and auditing questions you have, instead of generic off-the-shelf courses
- Substantive material organised around clear learning objectives
- Knowledge checks with feedback as you go, so you fix any misunderstanding while you work through the learning session
- Scored multiple-choice questions that check whether you understand the material
- A certificate of completion once you complete the learning session, naming you, the session and the hours
- A full downloadable handout covering the session, its learning objectives, and its content
In short, EverCPE.com leaves you with documentation and evidence of the learning you completed.
8. Records, Reporting, Declarations and Monitoring
Every member who is obliged to undertake CPD keeps records of the activities completed and of any exemption claimed. Those records are retained for six years and provided to CA ANZ on request. There's no prescribed format: the CPD FAQs confirm a log can take any form as long as it records what CR 7.6 requires, and My CA is offered as one option rather than an obligation.
CR 7.6 lists what a record should contain:
- A description of the activity and the dates it was undertaken
- The provider
- Why it was relevant to your current or future professional development
- Whether it was verifiable or non-verifiable
- A copy of the verifiable evidence, for verifiable activity
- Whether it relates to a registration, licence or CA ANZ specialisation
- The number of hours attributed
- Reasons, dates and calculations supporting any exemption or pro-rata exemption claimed
| Accepted as verification | Not sufficient on its own |
|---|---|
| Attendance records, registration forms or confirmation of registration | A diary entry with no supporting document |
| Independent assessment by a competent individual that the activity occurred | Self-asserted notes of learning, which belong in the non-verifiable balance |
| Confirmation by an instructor, mentor, supervisor or tutor | On-the-job training not recorded on the prescribed form |
| Confirmation by an employer of participation in an in-house program, including firm CPD logs | |
| Published research work | |
| Confirmation by other committee members or the secretariat of participation on a technical committee |
CA ANZ monitors compliance through annual notifications and by reviewing the CPD records of a percentage of members. CPP holders' records are reviewed as part of the quality review of the practice. Audit engagement partners are reviewed through CA ANZ's quality review program, and Licensed Auditors provide records to NZICA during annual monitoring, on licence renewal, and at other times connected with NZICA's monitoring.
The consequences are separated by residence. Members resident in New Zealand who fail to comply may be referred to the Professional Conduct Committee. Members not resident in New Zealand may be excluded from membership under the By-Laws. For Licensed Auditors, NZICA may vary, remove, add to or substitute licence conditions, or suspend or cancel the licence.
9. Exemptions, Reduced Requirements and Special Circumstances
Most exemptions need no application. CA ANZ states that CPD exemptions don't require approval unless they rest on exceptional circumstances under CR 7.5(d), and it publishes a CPD Exemption Calculator for working out the reduction.
| Exemption | Who it applies to |
|---|---|
| Full | Members who have permanently withdrawn from the workforce, including from voluntary and pro bono services |
| Pro-rata | Members absent from employment through parental leave, unemployment or illness, and members not in full-time work, including part-time and casual |
| Exceptional circumstances | Where neither of the above fits and the Board approves, on the basis that meeting the minimum would cause particular hardship or difficulty, for the period approved |
| Not available | Members who hold a Certificate of Public Practice, and Affiliate members, for the full and pro-rata exemptions |
The pro-rata calculation is proportional to the months affected. CA ANZ's worked example: six months of parental leave in a triennium gives 6/36 multiplied by 90 verifiable hours, a reduction of 15 hours, leaving 75 verifiable hours for that triennium.
Two limits sit on top of that arithmetic. Where the minimum calculated comes to less than 10 hours per triennium, no minimum applies for that triennium. And the six verifiable ethics hours stay in place regardless.
Returning to work after a long absence doesn't reset the competence obligation. CR 7 notes that a returning member is still required to be competent for any position they take on.
10. Official CA ANZ Sources and Member Responsibility
This article sets out CA ANZ's published rules as at the research date in the verification log below. It doesn't replace Regulation CR 7, CA ANZ's own guidance, or advice about your situation.
Research verified: 23 September 2026, against Regulation CR 7 and CA ANZ's published CPD guidance as at that date.
| Source | What it supports | Verified |
|---|---|---|
| CA ANZ — Managing your CPD | Hours by designation, annual minimums, six verifiable ethics hours, on-the-job training conditions, scope of eligible activity, same requirements regardless of location | 23 Sep 2026 |
| Regulation CR 7 — Continuing Professional Development | The governing regulation | 23 Sep 2026 |
| Regulation CR 7 as issued 16 December 2022 | Definitions of verifiable evidence, non-verifiable CPD and triennium; triennium worked example; record-keeping fields and six-year retention; means of verification; eligible activity list and caps; exemptions; dual member recognition; monitoring and consequences; Schedule 1 | 23 Sep 2026 |
| CA ANZ — CPD exemptions | Pro-rata calculation example, the 10-hour floor, no pro-rata on ethics hours | 23 Sep 2026 |
| CA ANZ — Eligible for a reduction in CPD hours? | 90 verifiable and 30 non-verifiable split, 45-hour on-the-job cap, exemptions needing no approval except under 7.5(d), exemption calculator, no minimum time increment | 23 Sep 2026 |
| CA ANZ — Members' obligations | The obligation as stated to members, including providing evidence if selected for monitoring | 23 Sep 2026 |
| CA ANZ — CPD Frequently Asked Questions | CR 7 applying to all members regardless of work; CPD log in any form recording what CR 7.6 requires | 23 Sep 2026 |
| CA ANZ — On-the-job CPD supporting evidence form | The prescribed form for documenting on-the-job training | 23 Sep 2026 |
Disclaimer: CPD requirements can depend on individual membership status, professional circumstances, jurisdiction and other factors. Requirements may also change over time. Members are responsible for confirming their current CPD obligations directly with CA ANZ and, where applicable, their local jurisdiction, employer, regulator or other relevant authority. EverCPE.com does not guarantee that completion of any particular course will satisfy a member's individual CPD requirements.
