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ACCA has confirmed that a redesigned ACCA Qualification launches in September 2027. The change is structural: new interim awards, a new set of mandatory modules, and a heavier emphasis on sustainability, technology and employability.

The new award structure

• Diploma in Accounting and Business — at the Foundations stage
• Higher Diploma — at the Knowledge stage
• Advanced Diploma — at the Expertise stage
• Strategic Professional Certificate, followed by affiliate status and then membership once the practical experience requirement is complete

Four mandatory Essential Employability Modules

Every student on the redesigned qualification completes four modules:

• Enterprise and Entrepreneurship
• Responsible Business Management
• Digital Tech and Innovation
• Ethical Sustainable Leadership

What else changes

ACCA describes a greater emphasis on sustainability, social impacts, artificial intelligence and technology across the qualification, and adds a Data Science Professional option exam. The practical experience requirement stays at 36 months.

If you are studying now

September 2027 is far enough out that most students currently mid-qualification will finish under the existing structure. ACCA has not, in this guidance, published a final sitting date for the current qualification or the transition rules for part-completed students, so treat any specific cut-off date you see elsewhere as unconfirmed until ACCA publishes it.

Source: ACCA — FAQs on the future ACCA Qualification

ACCA runs four exam sessions a year – March, June, September and December. Unlike the CPA, there is no continuous testing: you enter for a session, and if you miss the deadline you wait three months.

The published 2026 sessions

The deadline that actually costs you money

ACCA prices exam entry in tiers, and the standard deadline is the one worth diarising – entering late costs noticeably more for exactly the same exam. Exam entry for the September 2026 session opened on 5 May 2026, and for December 2026 on 4 August 2026.

For the December 2026 session the standard deadline is 2 November 2026, with late entry closing 9 November. That is the next real decision point for most candidates.

Planning around results dates

Results for September 2026 land on 19 October 2026 – two weeks before the December standard deadline. That is deliberately tight: if you are waiting on a September result before committing to a December paper, you have a fortnight to decide. Have a plan for both outcomes before results day rather than after it.

2027 sessions

ACCA has not yet published entry deadlines for the March and June 2027 sessions. The session months are fixed, but do not plan around specific 2027 deadline dates until ACCA publishes them – check the official important dates page rather than relying on last year's pattern.

You can practise free ACCA questions on Professional Career Club – no signup needed.

Source: ACCA – Important dates, accaglobal.com. Verified 3 September 2026.

ACCA is scaling back remotely invigilated exams. In its published guidance on the limited availability of remote exams, ACCA states that it is now only offering remotely invigilated exams in countries which have no exam centre provision.

The two dates that matter

• 4 November: students can no longer purchase tokens for remotely invigilated on-demand exams.
• March 2026: all ACCA session-based exams are held in centres, except in countries where ACCA has no exam centre provision.

What is exempt

One qualification is carved out. The Professional Diploma in Sustainability continues to be available as a remotely invigilated exam in all countries.

Does this affect students in India?

ACCA's notice does not list countries individually. The rule it sets out is provision-based: remote invigilation survives only where there is no centre. ACCA says it has exam centres in more than 90 countries, and it directs students to its Exam availability and booking page for confirmation of which delivery format is offered in their country. Students in India should therefore plan on centre-based exams and confirm their own centre and format on that page before booking.

Practical implications

Centre-based sittings change the logistics rather than the syllabus. Booking earlier matters more, because centre capacity is finite in a way that remote slots were not. Travel time, ID requirements and centre-specific rules move back onto the checklist, and the on-demand flexibility that remote tokens allowed disappears for most students.

Source: ACCA — FAQs on the limited availability of remote exams

The CPA Exam does not work like CFA or ACCA. There is no single exam day you count down to – but the two halves of the exam behave completely differently, and mixing them up costs candidates months.

Core sections: book any week you like

The three Core sections – AUD (Auditing and Attestation), FAR (Financial Accounting and Reporting) and REG (Regulation) – run on continuous testing. You can schedule them at any point in the year, and scores are released on a rolling cycle roughly two weeks after your test data is processed.

This is genuinely useful: you can sit FAR the week you finish revising it rather than waiting for a window to open.

Discipline sections: only the first month of each quarter

The Discipline sections – BAR, ISC and TCP – are not continuous. AICPA administers them only in the first month of each quarter, and the score release lags well behind:

Miss an October Discipline window and your next chance is January – a three-month wait with no way around it. Plan your Discipline section first and fit the Core sections around it, not the other way round.

The 30-month clock

You must pass all four sections within 30 months of sitting your first one. Some states extend this to three years. The window is set by your own state board, not by AICPA, so check your board's rule before you assume you have the extra time.

One thing to plan around

Continuous testing for Core sections does not last forever. From July 2027 the exam moves to a new platform and Core sections switch to quarterly windows as well. If your study plan runs into the second half of 2027, that flexibility disappears.

You can practise free CPA questions on Professional Career Club – no signup needed to attempt them.

Source: AICPA – CPA Exam scoring and score release timetables, aicpa-cima.com. Verified 3 September 2026. AICPA notes all dates are subject to change.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India declared the results of the CA Final examination held in January 2026 on 1 March 2026. Across both groups, the pass rate came in at 10.97%.

January 2026 CA Final results at a glance

• Group I: 53,652 candidates appeared, 11,282 passed — 21.03%
• Group II: 38,169 candidates appeared, 3,726 passed — 9.76%
• Both groups together: 22,293 candidates appeared, 2,446 passed — 10.97%

A total of 69,591 candidates sat the examination across 576 centres in India and abroad. Diksha Goyal of Karnal topped the examination with 486 out of 600 marks (81.00%).

How to read these numbers

The both-groups figure is always the lowest of the three, because it counts only candidates who cleared Group I and Group II in the same attempt. Group I remains the more forgiving of the two: at 21.03% it passed roughly one candidate in five, while Group II passed fewer than one in ten.

Results and detailed marks are published by ICAI on icai.nic.in, retrievable using registration number together with roll number.

What this means if you are preparing now

A sub-11% both-group rate is a scheduling signal as much as a difficulty signal. Candidates who attempt both groups in one sitting are competing against a pass bar that has stayed narrow, so the honest question before booking is whether both groups are genuinely exam-ready or whether one strong group is the better use of the attempt.

Source: ICAI — Result of CA Final Examination held in January 2026