Wisconsin CPA Requirements

Wisconsin State Requirements & Education Options

General Requirement

Applicant must be 18 years of age.

Applicant must not have an arrest or conviction record. An arrest or conviction does not automatically disqualify an Applicant. Consideration of the record will be conducted by the Wisconsin Accounting Examining Board.

Education Requirement

A person applying for a license to practice as a CPA must have earned, in the course of completing the required 150 semester hours of education, a bachelor’s or higher degree from an accredited educational institution AND have satisfied one of the following ways to meet the 150 hours course requirement: Earned a master’s degree in accounting from an institution, as defined in Wis. Stat. § 442.04(5)(a), with an accounting program or department accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).

Earned a bachelor’s or higher degree from a business program or college of business accredited by the AACSB, the International Assembly of Collegiate Business Education, or the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs, AND completed at least 24 semester hours in accounting courses from an accredited school at the undergraduate level or 15 semester hours at the graduate level, or an equivalent combination, that covers each of the following subject areas: Financial Accounting, Cost or Managerial Accounting, Taxation, Auditing, and Accounting Information Systems.

The courses covering the subjects of financial accounting, cost or managerial accounting, taxation and auditing would generally be courses taken beyond the introduction level.

Earned a bachelor’s or higher degree from an accredited school including:

at least 24 semester hours in accounting from an accredited school at the undergraduate level or 15 semester hours at the graduate level, or an equivalent combination, that covers each of the following subject areas: Financial Accounting, Cost or Managerial Accounting, Taxation, Auditing, and Accounting Information Systems; AND

at least 24 hours business and economic courses other than accounting courses from an accredited school, at the undergraduate or 15 semester hours at the graduate level, or an equivalent combination, that covers each of the following subject areas: Economics, Finance, Statistics or Data Analytics, Business Law, and Information Technology.

The courses covering the subjects of financial accounting, cost or managerial accounting, taxation and auditing would generally be courses taken beyond the introduction level.

Complete coursework that the board determines is reasonably equivalent to the course content specified in the Education Requirements pursuant to Wis. Admin. Code Accy. §§ 2.202(3)(a),(b).

In the course of completing at least 150 semester hours of education, earned a bachelor’s or graduate degree in accounting prior to June 1, 2017, from an accounting program or department that is listed by an accrediting agency recognized by the board. This subsection applies only to a candidate who submitted an application for a certified public accountant certificate prior to October 1, 2018.

Wis. Stat. § 440.075 enables veterans to request consideration of their military training, education and experience to satisfy licensure requirements if they can demonstrate it is substantially equivalent to the requirements for licensure.