Do CPA exam credits expire after you pass all four sections?
In almost all of them, no. Only 3 of the 55 jurisdictions can actually expire your exam credit once all four sections are passed: Kentucky, Mississippi, Texas. One more, Florida, expires the board's certification of your scores rather than the credit, and nobody re-sits. The rolling window that governs while you are still passing sections ends the moment the fourth one lands, and in the other 51 nothing replaces it.
Which states set a deadline to get licensed after passing the CPA exam?
Florida, 36 months to get your fees and documents in; Kentucky, five years to apply for the license; Mississippi, three years to apply for the license; Texas, 36 months to meet the education requirement. Two things differ between them and both matter. What you have to DO is not the same: Texas wants the education requirement met, Kentucky and Mississippi want the license application filed, and Florida wants your fees and documents received. And Florida's clock does not start where the others do, running from the day the board certifies your scores rather than from the day you passed.
| Jurisdiction | How long | Counted from | What you must do | What lapses | Rule |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Florida | 36 months | the board certifying your scores | get your fees and documents in | The certification, not the credit | Fla. Admin. Code R. 61H1-28.0052(2) |
| Kentucky | five years | passing your last section | apply for the license | Exam credit | KRS 325.270(4) |
| Mississippi | three years | passing your last section | apply for the license | Exam credit | Miss. Admin. Code Title 30, Part 1, Rule 2.1.2 |
| Texas | 36 months | passing your last section | meet the education requirement | Exam credit | 22 TAC 511.80(e) and (f) |
Which states have a clock that is mistaken for a credit deadline?
31 of the 55, which is the real story here. Most are continuing-education conditions: wait long enough and the license application needs CPE hours attached, while the sections you passed are untouched. Minnesota is the one to know, because "Minnesota gives you three years or you retake the exam" is repeated widely and is incorrect; the rule adds 120 hours of CPE. Nevada is the trap in the opposite direction, its three-year clock running BACKWARD from your application and reaching only the ethics exam. Five more read like deadlines and do not hold: Arkansas's consequence was severed when a 2025 act struck the word the cross-reference depends on, New Mexico's hangs off a repealed records schedule, Vermont's states a deadline with no consequence attached, South Dakota's is expressly waivable and starts later than you would think, and Louisiana's is close to inoperative because anyone who could lawfully sit has already satisfied it.
| Jurisdiction | The clock, and what it actually does |
|---|---|
| Alabama | 60 months to finish the education requirement, after which extra CPE is required. Credit itself stays intact. |
| Arkansas | A deadline whose consequence was severed in 2025. Ark. Code Ann. 17-12-313 still says an applicant who does not obtain a license within three years holds "a void license under 17-12-504(h)". Act 428 of 2025 struck the word "void" from 504(h) and replaced it with revocation after notice and hearing, which can only reach a license that existed and lapsed. Somebody who has never been licensed has none, and nothing in either section touches exam credit. 17 CAR 236-311, effective 5 March 2026, also grants an extension for extreme hardship. |
| California | Experience more than 5 years old with no exam passed in that period requires 80 hours of CE (16 CCR 12(d)). |
| Colorado | Scores older than 10 years at application require 80 hours of CPE in the preceding two years (Rule 1.8(C)). |
| Idaho | Experience must include 2,000 hours earned within the 10 years before application (IDAPA 24.30.01.107.02.a). |
| Illinois | 4 years from CERTIFICATE issuance, then 90 hours of CPE (68 Ill. Adm. Code 1420.20(a)(5)). |
| Iowa | 3 years, then the basic CPE obligation applies (193A-3.14(2)). |
| Kansas | Grades may be voided if a transcript is not supplied within 120 days of the first section (K.S.A. 1-302a(b)(2)). Runs from sitting, not passing. |
| Louisiana | A rule that reads like a deadline and is close to inoperative. La. R.S. 37:75(G)(1)(b), as re-enacted by 2026 Act 653 effective 1 August 2026, voids scores if you have not completed an educational pathway by 31 December of the fifth calendar year after passing. But one of those pathways is a bare baccalaureate with an accounting concentration, which 37:75(C)(1) already requires in order to SIT. Anyone who lawfully sat has therefore already completed a pathway and cannot be voided. |
| Maine | 4 years, then 40 hours of CPE (32 M.R.S. 12230(2)). |
| Maryland | 4 years, on the transfer-of-grades pathway only, then 80 hours of CPE (COMAR 09.24.01.05D). |
| Massachusetts | Credit can be lost by failing to supply a certified transcript within 90 days of SITTING (252 CMR 2.01(2)). That clock runs from sitting, not from passing. |
| Minnesota | 3 years, then 120 hours of CPE (Minn. R. 1105.3350). This is the origin of the widely repeated and false "Minnesota gives you 3 years or you retake". |
| Missouri | 5 years, then 40 hours of CPE including 2 of ethics (20 CSR 2010-2.061(3)). |
| Montana | Experience must fall in the 3 years before the application date (ARM 24.201.502(2)(c)), and there is no CPE cure. The fix is earning fresh experience. |
| Nebraska | 6 years, then 120 hours of CE including 4 of ethics in the 3 years before applying (288 NAC 9-004.04B). Nothing expires. It sits in the EDUCATION chapter, not the exam chapter, which is why it is easy to miss. |
| Nevada | The ethics exam must be passed no earlier than 3 years BEFORE you file the application (NAC 628.030(2)). The clock runs backward from the application and touches only the ethics exam. Stated as "apply within 3 years of passing" it would push a candidate to retake an exam they never lost. |
| New Mexico | Not a deadline. NMAC 16.60.2.10(D) says that at five years the scores "will be presented to the Board to determine validity", and it hangs off a records-retention schedule (1.18.420 NMAC) that has since been repealed. The words expire, lapse and no longer valid appear nowhere in the part. The harsher language candidates find in search results lived in 16.60.2.13, repealed 1 December 2014. |
| New York | 10 years, then the license is withheld until you complete CPE the Department sets, quantified as 40 hours in the prior 12 months (8 NYCRR 70.4). The board states plainly that "once an applicant has passed all four sections of the examination, the examination credit does not expire". |
| Oklahoma | 5 years, then 120 hours of CPE earned in the 3 years before applying (59 O.S. 15.9). Nothing expires. |
| Oregon | 8 years, then an alternate route: 80 CPE hours and a board-approved ethics exam at 90 percent, both within the prior 12 months (OAR 801-010-0065(6)). Nothing expires. |
| Pennsylvania | 80 CPE hours in the 2 years before filing, unless you passed in the same biennial renewal period as the application (49 Pa. Code 11.62(a)). Effectively the tightest gate of any jurisdiction: miss one biennium and the hours attach, with no multi-year grace. |
| South Carolina | 3 years, then 120 hours of CPE (S.C. Regs. 1-01(C)). |
| South Dakota | Three years from meeting the requirements for licensure, NOT from passing, and expressly waivable: ARSD 20:75:03:01 says "The board may waive this requirement for good cause." Since the clock starts once education and experience are both in hand, it normally begins later than the exam. The board FAQ runs it from passing instead, which is the harsher reading and is not the rule. |
| Tennessee | 10 years, then 80 hours of CPE (Rule 0020-01-.06(11)). |
| Vermont | A deadline with no stated consequence. Board rule 5.1(b) gives four years to complete the application process after passing, but nothing in Part 5 says anything is forfeited, and the board’s own CPA Application Instructions of January 2026 do not mention it. The same rule set still prints a superseded 18 month rolling window, so treat the document as stale. The live clock is a different one: required documents must arrive within six months or the application expires. |
| Virginia | A CPE ladder of 40, 80 or 120 hours depending on how long after passing you apply (18VAC5-22-90 D). Separately an application expires 6 years after it is opened, which expires the application and not the credit. |
| Washington | 4 years, then CPE including ethics in the 36 months before application (WAC 4-30-080(2)). The one most often misreported as a credit deadline. |
| West Virginia | Experience recency of 4 years (1CSR1 4.1.c). |
| Wisconsin | Experience must be acquired within 5 years before applying (Accy 2.402(4)). |
| Puerto Rico | 3 years from passing to finish the 150 credits, otherwise 10 continuing-education credits per year are added (Reglamento 9612-2024, Sec. 2.03(c)). It applies only to those who sat under the 120-credit alternative, and it is education remediation rather than credit expiry. |
Which states set no deadline after you pass the CPA exam?
We did not find one in 20 of the 55. Three of those carry statutory language whose stated consequence is loss of STATUS rather than loss of credit, which is the drafting pattern that rules a deadline out: Ohio, Nevada and Nebraska all say a successful candidate "has no status as a certified public accountant" until the education and experience are in hand. New York and North Carolina go further and state plainly that exam credit does not expire.
Alaska, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Rhode Island, Utah, Wyoming, District of Columbia, Guam, US Virgin Islands, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
How much to trust each rowThe four in the first table each carry the rule text they came from, and each was then handed to a pass instructed to refute it rather than confirm it. That pass is why this page is shorter than it was: nine jurisdictions looked like deadlines on the first reading and five did not survive. It also repointed Texas, whose rule moved from subsection (d) to (e) in June 2026 while the widely mirrored third-party copy still shows the old lettering with the correct-looking number. A "not found" is weaker evidence than any of that, because a rule can sit in a chapter nobody thought to open: Kentucky's is in KRS 325.270 rather than the qualifications statute, and Nebraska's is in the education chapter. Confirm with your board before planning to the month.
The clock that runs while you are still passing sections is a different rule entirely: when the 30 month window starts covers it, and when your credit expires works out the last day you can sit.
Every jurisdiction was read against its own statutes and administrative rules on 2026-09-20 rather than against a board FAQ alone, because several of these rules sit outside the chapter a reader would search: Kentucky's is in KRS 325.270 and not in the qualifications statute, and Nebraska's is in the education chapter. Pass rates are the AICPA published candidate pass rates for 2026 through Q2, read from AICPA & CIMA on 2026-08-17. The AICPA publishes them quarterly.