Every Chartered Accountants Ireland member is required to maintain their professional competence through continuing professional development (CPD). Members choose how to measure it. Under the input-based approach, the requirement is 70 hours a year, at least 20 of them structured, averaged over a rolling three-year period. The output-based and combination approaches replace the hours target with planned, recorded outcomes. This guide covers who the rules apply to, how each approach works, what counts, the records to keep and the exemptions.
1. Chartered Accountants Ireland CPD Requirements at a Glance
| Rule | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Who | All members, from the date of admission |
| Approach | Input-based, output-based or combination, chosen and recorded by the member |
| Input-based hours | 70 hours per annum: at least 20 structured, up to 50 unstructured |
| Input-based period | Rolling three-year average, with at least 20 hours every year |
| Members in practice (input) | At least 10 structured hours per annum in each service area, within the 70 |
| Output-based | No hours target: assess, plan and act, reflect, record, every year |
| Records | Any format, kept at least five years |
| Confirmation | Annual membership renewal |
| Monitoring | Periodic review of CPD records by the Quality Assurance Committee |
| Exemptions | Retired members doing no business or financial work, career breaks, unemployment |
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 Chartered Accountants Ireland's CPD Requirements
The CPD Regulations apply to all members. The Institute's CPD FAQs apply that rule to common situations:
| Your situation | Position |
|---|---|
| Working outside Ireland | Full requirement applies |
| Working part-time | Same requirement as full-time |
| Working outside accountancy or finance | Requirement applies unless a waiver is granted |
Your obligation starts on the date you're admitted as an associate, not the date you pass your exams. If you studied for your exams in the year you join, the FAQs say you're unlikely to need additional CPD that year. That's guidance. If your study finished earlier, the full requirement applies in the year you join.
Former CPA Ireland members follow these Regulations from 1 January 2025, as CA Ireland's CPD information page confirms.
The Quality Assurance Committee decides whether a member is subject to the Regulations. Its decision is final.
3. Input, Output or Combination: Choosing Your CPD Approach
You choose the approach. The CPD Guidance asks you to decide before the calendar year starts, because CPD records run by calendar year. Switching mid-year is permitted. Record the decision and the reason. You're responsible for meeting the requirement of whichever basis applies in each year.
| Input-based | Output-based | Combination | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Measures | Hours of learning | Outcomes achieved | Hours and outcomes |
| Hours target | 70 per annum, 20 structured | None | No 70-hour target |
| Period | Rolling three years, 20-hour annual floor | Each calendar year | Each year |
How the rolling average works
Input hours, including the practice-area minimums, can be averaged over a rolling three-year period. The floor is 20 hours, structured or unstructured, in every single year. A 20-hour year still meets the rule if the three-year average holds. The 20 is a floor, not the target.
The output-based approach
There's no hours count. The Guidance asks you to start this cycle in advance of each CPD calendar year:
- Assess: what's expected of you in your current and future roles
- Plan and act: decide on your training and development goals, including CPD activities, and carry them out
- Reflect: on whether those activities met your goals, and where you need further development
- Record: all of the above
The Regulations require the evidence to be sufficient, reliable and satisfactory to the Quality Assurance Committee. Output CPD is annual. There's no averaging. A short year stays short.
The combination approach
The Regulations require structured or unstructured hours each year plus evidence that outcomes were achieved. You run the four output steps and log your hours. You're not held to the 70/20/50 split.
4. Structured, Unstructured and Practice-Area CPD
| Type | Definition in the Guidance | Share of the 70 input hours |
|---|---|---|
| Structured | Learning is the primary objective, and it's measurable and verifiable | At least 20 |
| Unstructured | Informal learning through self-study or informal training; measurable but not verifiable | Up to 50 |
Twenty structured hours is a minimum. Nothing in the Regulations stops all 70 being structured.
Practice-area minimums
Input-approach members in practice, and members employed in practising firms, need at least 10 structured hours per annum in each service area they practise in:
- Audit / Accounting
- Sustainability assurance
- Investment Business
- Insolvency Practice
- Tax
These hours are part of the 70, not additional to it. Elements of one course can count toward several areas. The FAQs say moving from industry into practice may bring area-specific requirements with it. Moving the other way, your structured total stays the same, but the specialist-area hours may fall away.
Ethics
The Regulations set no separate ethics hours quota. The Guidance expects CPD to develop professional knowledge, skills, values, ethics and attitudes relevant to your work. Renewing your membership each year acknowledges compliance with the Code of Ethics as well as the CPD Regulations.
5. What Counts as CPD
Any learning or development activity relevant to your role can count. You don't have to attend courses. Training from any provider can count toward structured hours, your employer's included, if it's relevant and of a suitable standard. The subject doesn't have to be accountancy: broader business skills and sector specialisms qualify where your role needs them.
The Institute's structured and unstructured activity summaries classify common activities. The limits below come from those summaries, the FAQs and the Guidance. They're guidance, not caps written into the Regulations.
| Activity | Counts as | Guidance limit |
|---|---|---|
| Courses, conferences, seminars and in-house training led by a qualified facilitator | Structured | None stated |
| Pre- and post-course reading for a structured course | Structured | 2–3 hours |
| Online self-study courses: interactive computer-based or multimedia programmes, or certified modules with assessments or learning outcomes | Structured | None stated |
| Organised on-the-job training for software, systems or procedures | Structured | None stated |
| Research, lecture preparation and publications in your own name | Structured | None stated |
| Teaching, presenting and mentoring others | Structured | One repeated activity shouldn't be a disproportionate share |
| Committee work where learning is part of the role, structured case study analysis, simulations | Structured | None stated |
| Study towards a further qualification | Structured | Institute diplomas: teaching hours structured; assignments and home study unstructured |
| Opening and closing meetings of a quality review or monitoring visit | Structured | 3 hours per visit |
| Home study with no interaction or assessment, including educational videos | Unstructured | None stated |
| Reading technical articles and journals | Unstructured | 25% of unstructured CPD |
| Network or focus group discussion of technical matters | Unstructured (an expert presentation within it is structured) | 50% of unstructured CPD |
| Podcasts, webcasts, reflective practice and informal peer discussion | Unstructured | None stated |
What doesn't count
- General reading of the financial press: Only technical content earns credit.
- Non-technical discussion at network or focus group meetings.
- Home study without interaction or assessment, as structured CPD: It counts only as unstructured.
- Institute face-to-face courses you didn't attend: Those sessions aren't recorded, and attendance is required to claim the hours.
- A firm's CPD programme, by default: The FAQs make each member responsible for checking that it meets the Regulations.
6. Online Learning, Self-Study, Webinars and On-Demand CPD
The Regulations don't treat online learning as its own category. Design decides where it falls, and two features carry the weight: interaction and assessment.
- Courses run in webinar format count as structured.
- Recorded sessions and virtual workshops count as structured where they include interactive elements or assessments. Without them, the same session is unstructured.
The Institute's own online CPD runs as live webinars (a recording follows), live virtual classrooms (not recorded) and on-demand courses (pre-recorded webinars).
The overarching test is relevant. Acceptable CPD develops the knowledge, skills, values, ethics and attitudes your current and future work calls for, and the Regulations leave that judgement to members and their firms. Structured hours add a second test: learning has to be the primary objective, and it has to be measurable and verifiable. Interactive online self-study falls under what the Institute lists as interactive multimedia learning, one of its structured CPD activities. Stated learning objectives, a scored assessment and a certificate line up with that measurable-and-verifiable test, and with the independent assessments and provider confirmations listed as evidence below. Compliance is assessed member by member, from each member's own record.
EverCPE.com offers structured e-learning for accountants that may help you meet your CPD requirements.
EverCPE.com is interactive, structured e-learning 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.
7. Statutory Auditors and Other Reserved Areas
Some members carry CPD obligations beyond the Regulations because legislation or other regulations impose them. Waivers under the CPD Regulations don't reach those obligations unless the legislation itself permits one.
| Role | Extra requirement |
|---|---|
| Responsible Individual (statutory auditor) registered in Ireland | IAASA CPD Guidelines, through the Institute's Audit Regulations, Ireland |
| Responsible Individual registered only in the UK | Audit-related CPD under the Audit Regulations, UK; the IAASA Guidelines don't apply |
| Member registered as a statutory auditor by another body | That body's audit CPD rules |
| Sustainability assurance service provider | Sustainability assurance CPD under the Audit Regulations, Ireland |
| Member of a firm supervised for anti-money laundering | CPD matching anti-money laundering obligations in Ireland and the UK |
The Institute publishes separate pages for RIs in Ireland and RIs registered only in the UK.
Responsible Individuals in Ireland
The IAASA CPD Guidelines took effect on 1 January 2022. They apply to every statutory auditor the Institute approves in Ireland, members of other accountancy bodies included. Each year, an RI is required to:
- Plan: reflect on the knowledge, skills and values the role needs, and identify development needs
- Complete: sufficient, relevant CPD across every area of audit work undertaken
- Evaluate: check at regular intervals whether the CPD meets its objectives, and revise the approach
- Record: keep written records of planning, completion and evaluation, with supporting documents, for six years
- Declare: confirm compliance each January
RI CPD has to achieve the learning outcomes in IES 8, the standard for engagement partners. Those outcomes cover technical competence, professional skills, and professional values, ethics and attitudes. RI CPD also keeps RIs current on the Irish auditing framework, the financial reporting standards used in Ireland, and relevant Irish and EU legislation.
No exemptions apply to RI audit CPD, including for career breaks or retirement. The Institute reviews every RI's CPD records at least once in six years.
8. Records, Renewal Confirmation and CPD Reviews
Keeping records
You're responsible for your own CPD record. Any format is permitted, as long as it shows you understand and comply with the Regulations. Keep records for at least five years. Where your employer holds them, the same five years applies, and the records have to be available for inspection.
The Guidance's templates set the minimum information:
| Approach | Minimum content |
|---|---|
| Input: structured | Date, activity (supplier and title for courses), subject matter with a brief description of topics, hours |
| Input: unstructured | Date, activity, subject, hours |
| Output | Role assessment, development goals and activities, reflection on outcomes |
| Combination | Both formats |
Confirming compliance
Annual renewal of your membership counts as acknowledgement of your CPD obligations and of your compliance with them. Paying the subscription, or letting it be paid on your behalf, has the same effect. This replaced the Individual Annual Return for most members from 1 July 2024. Practising certificate holders still declare CPD compliance explicitly in their individual annual return.
CPD reviews
Any member can be asked to submit CPD records and supporting evidence. The Quality Assurance Committee selects records on a risk basis and at random. Under the Committee's policy, records are also inspected when you apply for a practising certificate or a registration in a reserved area. The Committee may seek independent third-party verification.
The Guidance gives examples of the evidence it may ask for. They're examples, not a closed list:
- Input: course outlines, attendance or registration confirmations from the provider, independent assessments, confirmation from an instructor, mentor or employer, and notes made at the time
- Output: assessed learning outcomes, published articles or research, re-examination or a further qualification, and work logs verified against a competency map
If you don't comply
| Stage | What the Regulations provide |
|---|---|
| Compliance not demonstrated | You explain why, and show how you otherwise sustain competence |
| First instance | Referral to the Quality Assurance Committee |
| Practising and reserved-area rights | Refusal, restriction or revocation |
| Regulatory penalty | Only where you agree a breach occurred; accept within ten business days; no review or appeal |
| Publication | The Committee may publish decisions, including names |
| Repeated or grave failure | Disciplinary action, up to exclusion from membership |
The Guidance says initial steps focus on bringing members into compliance within a reasonable time frame.
9. Exemptions, Waivers and Special Circumstances
| Circumstance | Position |
|---|---|
| Retired, doing no professional work of a business or financial nature, paid or unpaid | CPD not required |
| Retired, doing voluntary or part-time business or financial work | Full requirement applies |
| Career break for family or other reasons, or unemployment | Exempt, with enough CPD before or right after your return to refresh your competence |
| Career break for part of the year, input approach | Pro-rata: six months out means 35 hours, at least 10 structured (FAQs) |
| Not engaged in any accountancy-related work | May apply to the Quality Assurance Committee for a waiver |
| Meeting another accountancy body's CPD requirement | Committee may grant a waiver if that requirement is at least equivalent |
| Circumstances change during the year | May apply for a waiver for a specific period |
Limits on the retirement exemption
The Guidance excludes retired members who:
- give material explanations or representations to a company's auditors about financial statements
- have statutory responsibility for preparing financial statements
- provide documents that third parties rely on
- act as a company director, or sit on or advise the board of an entity that publishes financial statements
- work as internal auditors or public sector auditors
The Committee's general discretion
The Quality Assurance Committee can waive or relax any requirement, at its absolute discretion, where it's satisfied there's no undue risk to clients or the public.
10. Official Chartered Accountants Ireland Sources and Member Responsibility
This article sets out Chartered Accountants Ireland's published rules as at the research date in the verification log below. It doesn't replace the CPD Regulations, the Audit Regulations, Chartered Accountants Ireland's own guidance, or advice about your situation.
Research verified: 29 September 2026, against the Chartered Accountants Ireland CPD Regulations (in force from 1 January 2025) and the Guidance on Continuing Professional Development (updated August 2024).
| Source | What it supports | Verified |
|---|---|---|
| CPD Regulations | Scope; three approaches; 70/20/50 hours; practice areas; rolling average; Committee decisions and waivers; five-year records; renewal confirmation; non-compliance outcomes; retirement and career break exemptions; reserved-area obligations; former CPA Ireland members | 29 Sep 2026 |
| Guidance on CPD | Structured and unstructured definitions; calendar-year records; output steps; combination approach; ethics in CPD scope; retirement exclusions; record content; evidence examples; review selection; initial compliance steps | 29 Sep 2026 |
| CPD FAQs | Overseas and part-time members; admission date; switching approach; industry and practice moves; any provider; broader skills; diplomas; firm programmes; pro-rata and waiver cases; employer-held records | 29 Sep 2026 |
| Structured CPD activities summary | Structured activities, webinar rules and their limits | 29 Sep 2026 |
| Unstructured CPD activities summary | Unstructured activities; reading and network group limits | 29 Sep 2026 |
| Annual returns | 1 July 2024 change; practising certificate holders' individual annual return | 29 Sep 2026 |
| CPD for Responsible Individuals, Ireland | IAASA Guidelines scope and start date; plan, complete, evaluate, record, declare; six-year records; IES 8 and Irish frameworks | 29 Sep 2026 |
| RI requirements, UK | UK-only RIs | 29 Sep 2026 |
| IAASA CPD Guidelines | Statutory auditor CPD guidelines | 29 Sep 2026 |
| CPD courses FAQs | Institute online formats; attendance for face-to-face courses | 29 Sep 2026 |
| CPA Ireland: CPD information | Former CPA Ireland members from 1 January 2025 | 29 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 Chartered Accountants Ireland 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.
