CPA Professional Program Exam Resources

Uploaded August 25, 2026

The CPA profession in Canada is launching a new CPA Professional Program designed to better prepare future CPAs for the evolving demands of business and society. Aligned with the CPA Competency Map 2.0, the program modernizes the certification journey through integrated learning, assessment, and practical experience requirements that more closely reflect real-world professional practice. The new CPA Professional Education Program modernizes the candidate experience by embedding assessment throughout the program. The program’s integrated assessment approach provides a richer and more meaningful picture of candidate competence over time, recognizing that professional growth occurs throughout the learning journey rather than at a single moment of evaluation. The result is a more relevant, engaging, and effective pathway to becoming a CPA.

To support exam candidates, educators, and employers in understanding assessments in the new CPA Professional Program, the profession has prepared the following resources

Module Guide 2026

The 2026 CPA Professional Program Module Guide (Module Guide) was developed to:

• provide Competency Map interpretation guidance; and
• describe, through representative learning outcomes, the level of knowledge and skills that learners need to demonstrate to be successful in each CPA Professional Program module and meet the expectations required at the point of obtaining the CPA designation.

Exam Guide 2026

The 2026 CPA Professional Program Exam Guide was developed to prepare exam candidates for the exams that make up the CPA Professional Program, as well as the Knowledge Assessment, by outlining the objectives, format, and content of each of the exams. Essentially, these are the examination blueprints, and they were designed to provide transparency and clarity around assessment expectations, helping exam candidates understand what will be assessed, how competencies will be evaluated, and how to best prepare for success throughout the program.

Sample Exams

In addition to the above guides, sample exams have been provided to better illustrate what to expect. Full exams have been provided for each of CPA Core – Common, CPA Core – Licensure, CPA Leadership and CPA Professional Readiness. These include sample cases, illustrative responses as well as mapping documents, outlining the assessment opportunities and their alignment with the learning outcomes in the Module Guide.

The sample exams are intended to offer a general indication of the format, structure, and nature of questions that learners may encounter. While these materials have been developed with careful consideration and are intended to be broadly representative, they are not exhaustive and cannot capture the full range of possible question variations. In addition, these samples have not undergone the full range of processes and quality assurance checks that are typically applied during the development of live examinations. As a result, these samples should be used as a guide rather than a definitive representation and we expect that minor errors may be identified. Where required, revised versions of the sample exam documents will be published in early 2027 to incorporate any necessary corrections.

CPA Core – Common 

Two to three cases, each between 60 and 120 minutes, totalling 3 hours 

CPA Core – Licensure 

Part A: Two to three cases, each between 60 and 120 minutes, totalling 3 hours 

Part B: One 2-hour case 

CPA Leadership 

One 5-hour comprehensive case 

CPA Professional Readiness 

One 2-hour case focused on professional judgment 

One 1-hour case focused on ethical decision-making 

Sample questions have also been provided for the Knowledge Assessment and Foundational Development Exams. Full sample exams for these will be released in early 2027. 

Sample Objective-format questions and Testlet