CTP Certification 2026-27: Exam Dates, Fees, Eligibility & Pass Rate

The Certified Treasury Professional (CTP) is the global benchmark credential for corporate treasury, awarded by the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP). It is a single 170-question multiple-choice exam, sat inside a testing window rather than on a fixed exam day, and it requires two years of full-time treasury or corporate finance experience before the credential can be conferred. Exam fees for the December 2026 to January 2027 window run from USD 825 to USD 1,420 depending on membership tier and how early you apply.

One note before the detail: AFP now publishes its certification content at financialprofessionals.org after rebranding from afponline.org. Older links still resolve, but the CTP pages you want live at ctpcert.financialprofessionals.org.

CTP at a glance

CTP exam dates and deadlines

The CTP is not sat on a single exam day. AFP opens a testing window and you book an appointment inside it. Two windows are currently published.

2026B window: 1 December 2026 to 31 January 2027

2027A window: 1 June 2027 to 31 July 2027

The early deadline matters financially, not administratively: applying after it costs USD 100 more at every membership tier. Nothing else about the exam changes.

AFP had not published a 2027B window at the time of writing. On the pattern of previous years, expect it to appear alongside or shortly after the 2027A cycle opens.

CTP exam fees and total cost

Published examination fees for the 2026B window:

AFP notes that the non-member application fee includes one year of AFP membership. That narrows the real gap between the non-member and member routes considerably, and it is the single most misread line in CTP cost comparisons online.

What the exam fee does not cover

• Essentials of Treasury Management, the official body of knowledge, is bought separately.
• AFP’s own exam prep platform and any third-party question banks are separate purchases.
• Recertification carries its own periodic fee once you hold the credential.

Budget for the exam fee as roughly two-thirds of your real outlay, not the whole of it.

CTP eligibility requirements

The core requirement is a minimum of two years full-time work experience in a career-based corporate cash/treasury management or corporate finance-related position. Three details around it are easy to miss:

• Internships, temporary employment and volunteer roles do not count toward the requirement.
• An advanced graduate-level business degree substitutes for one year of the experience requirement. A bachelor’s degree does not: AFP states bachelor’s transcripts are not accepted for this equivalency.
• You may sit the exam before you have fully met the experience requirement. The credential simply is not conferred until every requirement is satisfied by the application expiration date.

Applications remain valid for six consecutive testing windows, which gives a candidate roughly three years of runway from one application.

CTP exam format and knowledge domains

170 multiple-choice questions, every one of them scored, so there is no unscored pretest block to discount. You get three-and-a-half hours to answer them, inside a four-hour appointment; the extra 30 minutes covers an optional tutorial and a post-exam questionnaire.

The published CTP Test Specifications break the 170 questions across five domains:

Read that weighting as a study plan. Domain 1 alone is about a third of the paper: liquidity, working capital, cash positioning and short-term investment. Domains 4 and 5 together are close to another third, and technology’s share is the part candidates coming from an older prep cycle most often under-weight.

Is there a CTP pass rate?

No. AFP does not publish a pass rate for the CTP exam, not on the exam pages, not in the FAQs, and not in the test specifications. Any specific percentage you find quoted online is either an estimate, a figure from a training provider’s own cohort, or a number someone carried over from a different credential.

This is worth saying plainly because the CTP is not alone in this. Some exam bodies publish pass rates as a matter of routine; AFP does not. A candidate planning around a number they found on a forum is planning around nothing.

What you can plan around is the published blueprint: 170 questions, five domains, known weightings, and a defined body of knowledge. That tells you more about the work ahead than a pass rate would.

What does a CTP earn?

AFP runs a compensation survey and publishes the results in its AFP Compensation Report, which is a paid publication. There is no free, official, current CTP salary figure that we can point you to and stand behind, so we are not going to quote one.

What can be said without inventing a number: the CTP is the credential named in corporate treasury job postings far more often than any alternative, and it is frequently listed as preferred or required for treasury analyst, treasury manager and assistant treasurer roles. Its value shows up in which roles open to you rather than in a clean salary premium percentage.

If you want a real figure for your own market, the AFP Compensation Report is the source that actually surveys treasury professionals. Aggregator salary sites report self-reported data with very little treasury-specific sample behind it.

CTP vs CFA vs FRM: which one fits

These three come up together constantly, and they are not competitors. They point at different jobs.

If your job is inside a corporate finance function, forecasting cash, managing bank accounts, handling FX exposure, financing working capital, then the CTP is the one that matches the work. The CFA is a heavier commitment aimed somewhere else entirely; treasurers who hold one usually came from an investment background rather than acquiring it for treasury.

The practical difference in effort is worth stating: the CTP is one exam with two sittings a year. The CFA is three levels. That alone decides it for most working treasury professionals.

Essentials of Treasury Management: the body of knowledge

Essentials of Treasury Management (ETM) is AFP’s official reference text and the source the exam is written from. The test specifications are the map; ETM is the territory. Two things follow from that:

• Study the current edition. The specifications are revised on a cycle, and technology content in particular moves between editions.
• Do not study ETM linearly. Work it in the proportions the domain weightings give you, or you will over-invest in the chapters that sit early in the book rather than the ones that carry the questions.

How to prepare, and where to practise free

A realistic plan for a working treasury professional, from a standing start:

• Read the current CTP Test Specifications first, before you buy anything. It is free and it tells you what is actually examined.
• Work ETM against those weightings, heaviest on Domain 1.
• Move to questions early. The CTP rewards recognition and application, not recall, and question practice surfaces the gap between the two faster than re-reading does.
• Sit timed full-length attempts before the window opens, not during it.

Professional Career Club hosts free CTP practice questions with worked answers, with no signup and no paywall. The CTP course page collects exam dates, fees and updates as AFP publishes them.

Keeping the credential: recertification

CTPs and CCMs are required to earn and report 36 continuing education credits every three years. Credits are calculated at one credit per 50 minutes of attendance at qualified educational sessions, and the reporting deadline is 15 October of the final year of the three-year cycle.

Thirty-six credits over three years is twelve a year. A conference, a handful of webinars, and qualifying in-house training will generally cover it. It is not onerous, but the October reporting deadline catches people who leave it to the final year.

Frequently asked questions

Is the CTP exam hard?

It is a broad exam rather than a deep one. 170 questions across five domains covering liquidity, capital structure, relationships, risk and treasury technology means the challenge is coverage, not any single difficult topic. Candidates who fail usually did so by under-reading a domain, not by failing to understand a concept.

How many times a year can I sit the CTP?

Two testing windows a year, currently 1 December to 31 January and 1 June to 31 July. You book an appointment inside the window rather than sitting on a fixed date.

What happens if I miss the early application deadline?

You can still apply until the final deadline; it costs USD 100 more at every membership tier. Nothing about the exam itself changes.

Can I take the CTP without two years of experience?

You can sit the exam, but the credential is not conferred until the experience requirement is met by the application expiration date. An advanced graduate business degree covers one of the two years.

What is the CTP pass rate?

AFP does not publish one. Any percentage quoted online is an estimate or a training provider’s own cohort figure, not an official statistic.

Is the CTP worth it?

If you work in or want to work in corporate treasury, it is the credential the field actually names in job specifications. If your target is investment management or institutional risk, the CFA or FRM fits your work better.

CTP or CCM, what is the difference?

The CCM (Certified Cash Manager) was the CTP’s predecessor credential. Existing CCMs recertify on the same 36-credit, three-year cycle as CTPs.

Sources

Every date, fee, question count and requirement above is taken from AFP’s own published CTP pages:

• CTP deadlines and fees
• About the CTP exam
• CTP eligibility
• CTP test specifications
• CTP FAQs

Verified against AFP’s published pages on 18 September 2026. Dates and fees change; check the AFP links above before you apply.