Illinois CPA License: Requirements,
Exam and Experience

Illinois cpa license at a glance

This guide is general information about Illinois licensing, not legal advice. Illinois Board of Examiners and IDFPRrules, fees and deadlines change — confirm your own position with the board, or with a licensed attorney, before you rely on anything here.

Illinois cpa license types: the full Illinois Board of Examiners and IDFPR ladder

Accountancy's ladder runs through eligibility, examination and experience rather than through seniority grades, and in Illinois the firm licence is a genuinely separate tier that employed CPAs often overlook until they go into practice.

Exact experience hours and fees vary by license type and can change, confirm current requirements on the Illinois Board of Examiners and IDFPR CPA program page.

Illinois CPA candidate vs Illinois licensed CPA CPA in Illinois, what is the difference?

How do you get an Illinois CPA licence CPA license?

1. 1

   Meet the Illinois education requirement

   Complete a degree containing the accounting and business coursework the Illinois Board of Examiners (examination and certification eligibility) and the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (licensure) specifies. The 150-semester-hour education requirement is the long-standing national standard adopted in statute across the states, but it is actively in motion: a number of states have enacted an additional pathway allowing licensure on a bachelor's degree plus additional documented experience, and the AICPA and NASBA have amended the Uniform Accountancy Act model to support it. Enactment dates and effective dates differ, and some states have passed a law that has not yet taken effect. Confirm which pathways are currently available with the board itself rather than relying on a national summary. The composition matters as much as the total: boards specify minimum accounting hours, minimum business hours and often particular subjects such as auditing, taxation and, in some states, ethics. Have your transcripts evaluated against the current Illinois rule before you assume you qualify, because remedial coursework taken after graduation is the most common and most avoidable delay in this process.

2. 2

   Apply for eligibility and sit the Uniform CPA Examination

   Apply through the Illinois Board of Examiners and IDFPR or the evaluator it designates, receive your notice to schedule, and sit the examination at Prometric centres. Under the current examination structure candidates take three core sections — auditing and attestation, financial accounting and reporting, and taxation and regulation — plus one discipline section chosen from business analysis and reporting, information systems and controls, or tax compliance and planning. Each section is scored on a scale where 75 is the passing score, and that is the same in every jurisdiction. Credit windows and retake rules are set by board policy and have changed in recent years, so confirm the current window with the Illinois Board of Examiners and IDFPR rather than planning around older guidance.

3. 3

   Complete the experience requirement

   Illinois requires a period of accounting experience verified by a licensed CPA, and the rule defines what counts — the boundary between public accounting, industry, government and academic experience is drawn differently by different states, and attest experience is frequently treated separately from general experience. Because eligibility and licensure sit with different Illinois agencies, keep the evaluation record from the Board of Examiners — IDFPR will expect it, and reconstructing an old evaluation is slow. Confirm with the Illinois Board of Examiners (examination and certification eligibility) and the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (licensure) that a role will qualify before you take it, and get the verification signed while your supervisor is still reachable; chasing a verifying CPA years later is a well-known and entirely preventable problem.

4. 4

   Satisfy the ethics requirement

   Most states require an ethics examination or course in addition to the Uniform CPA Examination, commonly the AICPA's professional ethics course, and several states administer their own examination on state rules of professional conduct instead of or alongside it. Illinois is the state most likely to confuse an out-of-state candidate, because two bodies are involved: the Illinois Board of Examiners evaluates education and determines eligibility to sit the Uniform CPA Examination, while the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation issues the licence to practise. Candidates routinely contact the wrong one and lose weeks. Illinois has also historically distinguished the certificate from the licence, so read the current statute carefully on what each permits. Confirm with the Illinois Board of Examiners and IDFPR which ethics requirement applies in Illinois and whether it must be completed before or after the licence application, because the sequencing differs.

5. 5

   Apply for the licence, then maintain it

   Submit the licence application with transcripts, examination results, verified experience and ethics documentation, and pay the current fee. After licensure, renewal runs on the Illinois Board of Examiners and IDFPR's cycle with continuing professional education, normally including a specified ethics component and, for those in attest practice, accounting and auditing subject requirements. If you practise through a firm, remember that the firm has its own registration and, where it performs attest work, peer review obligations — enforced separately from your individual licence.

Does an Illinois cpa license transfer to other states?

Accountancy has one of the strongest mobility frameworks of any licensed profession. Under substantial equivalency, a CPA licensed in one state may generally serve clients in another without obtaining a second licence, provided the home-state licence meets the substantially equivalent standard and the practitioner consents to the other state's jurisdiction and enforcement. That is why an Illinois CPA can take on work across state lines in a way an engineer or a nurse cannot. The limits matter, though: mobility covers individuals, and a firm performing attest work in another state normally still needs a firm registration there; some states require notification or a fee; and mobility does not apply where you establish a physical office in the other state, which triggers full licensure. The additional education pathways now being enacted also raise substantial-equivalency questions that NASBA and the states are working through. Where you want a second licence rather than a practice privilege, Illinois offers licensure by reciprocity to CPAs licensed elsewhere, with the Illinois Board of Examiners (examination and certification eligibility) and the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (licensure) publishing the route. Confirm the current position with the board before relying on either.

Reciprocity agreements change, always confirm the current list and requirements on the Illinois Board of Examiners and IDFPR CPA program page before applying.

How much does an Illinois cpa license cost, and how long does it take?

The degree dominates, and beyond it the lines to budget for are the Illinois Board of Examiners and IDFPR's application and evaluation fees, the Uniform CPA Examination section fees published through NASBA, review course materials, the ethics course or examination, the licence application fee, and continuing professional education at each renewal. Review courses are frequently the largest discretionary item and are commonly funded by employers, particularly in public accounting where firms also pay examination fees and give study leave. Every fee is set separately and revised, so take current figures from the Illinois Board of Examiners (examination and certification eligibility) and the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (licensure) and from NASBA rather than from a third-party total.

Illinois Uniform CPA Examination requirements and license verification

What is on the CPA examination, and how do you verify an Illinois CPA?

The Uniform CPA Examination is developed by the AICPA and administered through NASBA, and it is the same examination in every jurisdiction — which is why the CPA credential travels as well as it does. Under the current structure candidates sit three core sections covering auditing and attestation, financial accounting and reporting, and taxation and regulation, then choose one discipline section from business analysis and reporting, information systems and controls, or tax compliance and planning. Sections are scored on a scale on which 75 is the passing score; it is a scaled score rather than a percentage of questions answered correctly, which is why comparing raw question counts is meaningless. Testing is at Prometric centres, and score release follows NASBA's published schedule. What Illinois controls is not the examination but eligibility to sit it and everything around it: education composition, the experience definition, and the ethics requirement. Illinois is the state most likely to confuse an out-of-state candidate, because two bodies are involved: the Illinois Board of Examiners evaluates education and determines eligibility to sit the Uniform CPA Examination, while the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation issues the licence to practise. Candidates routinely contact the wrong one and lose weeks. Illinois has also historically distinguished the certificate from the licence, so read the current statute carefully on what each permits. Confirm current credit windows and retake policy with the Illinois Board of Examiners (examination and certification eligibility) and the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (licensure), because these have changed in recent years.

How to verify an Illinois cpa license

Verify an Illinois CPA through the Illinois Board of Examiners (examination and certification eligibility) and the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (licensure)'s licence lookup and through CPAverify, the NASBA-operated national database drawing on participating state boards. Check three things rather than one: that the individual licence is current, whether the person holds the attest or report-signing authority Illinois recognises, and — if you are engaging a practice rather than an individual — whether the firm itself is registered and current on peer review. Because eligibility and licensure sit with different Illinois agencies, keep the evaluation record from the Board of Examiners — IDFPR will expect it, and reconstructing an old evaluation is slow. Where a CPA is serving you from another state under mobility, verify the licence in their home state and confirm they have complied with Illinois's notification requirements. GlobalCybers verifies individual and firm status before every accounting placement.

How do you become a CPA in Illinois?

Complete the accounting and business coursework the Illinois Board of Examiners (examination and certification eligibility) and the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (licensure) requires, obtain eligibility to sit the Uniform CPA Examination, pass all four sections at a scaled score of 75, complete the experience the board requires

verified by a licensed CPA, satisfy the ethics requirement, and apply for the licence. Illinois is the state most likely to confuse an out-of-state candidate, because two bodies are involved: the Illinois Board of Examiners evaluates education and determines eligibility to sit the Uniform CPA Examination, while the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation issues the licence to practise. Candidates routinely contact the wrong one and lose weeks. Illinois has also historically distinguished the certificate from the licence, so read the current statute carefully on what each permits. The examination is the same in every state; what makes Illinois different is the education composition, the experience definition and the ethics requirement.

Does Illinois require 150 credit hours for a CPA license?

The 150-semester-hour education requirement is the long-standing national standard adopted in statute across the states, but it is actively in motion: a number of states have enacted an additional pathway allowing licensure on a bachelor's degree plus additional documented experience, and the AICPA and NASBA have amended the Uniform Accountancy

Act model to support it. Enactment dates and effective dates differ, and some states have passed a law that has not yet taken effect. Confirm which pathways are currently available with the board itself rather than relying on a national summary. The 150-hour rule has been the standard for licensure for decades, and in most states it remains the principal route. What has changed is that an alternative built on a bachelor's degree plus additional documented experience is now available in a growing number of states. Because enactment and effective dates differ, and because substantial-equivalency implications are still being worked through, confirm what Illinois currently accepts with the Illinois Board of Examiners (examination and certification eligibility) and the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (licensure) rather than with a national article.

Illinois CPA licenses, Frequently Asked Questions

Illinois Board of Examiners (examination and certification eligibility) and the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (licensure) · National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) · AICPA — Uniform CPA Examination · CPAverify — national CPA licensee lookup · U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS May 2025 (13-2011) · BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook (Accountants and Auditors). Fees and rules can change, confirm current details at www.ilboe.org before applying.

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