How to Become a CPA in Colorado 2024

To meet the Colorado CPA education requirements to sit for the CPA exam, you must have a bachelor’s degree with at least 120 semester hours. 27 semester hours of non-duplicative accounting coursework at the undergraduate or graduate level. 21 semester hours of non-duplicative business administration coursework at the undergraduate or graduate level.

Within the 27 semester hours in accounting, 21 semester hours must exclude introductory accounting courses and cover subject areas such as Accounting Ethics, Accounting Information Systems, Accounting Research and Analysis, Accounting Theory
Auditing and Attestation Services, Financial Accounting and Reporting of Business Organizations, Financial Accounting and Reporting for Government and Not-for-Profit Entities, Financial Statement Analysis, Fraud Examination, Internal Controls and Risk Assessment, Managerial or Cost Accounting, Taxation, Tax Research and Analysis, Forensic Accounting, Tax Auditing, and other areas as approved by the Board. Must also include a 3 semester hour, or more, auditing course concentrating on U.S. GAAS.

Within the 21 semester hours in business administration, it should include Behavior of Organizations, Groups, and Persons, Business and Accounting Communication, Business Ethics, Business Law, Computer Information Systems, Economics
Finance, Legal and Social Environment of Business, Management, Marketing, Quantitative Applications in Business, Statistics, and other areas as approved by the Board.

The first step to determining your eligibility is to register an account at CPA Central.

Then submit the necessary educational requirements to NASBA Advisory Evaluation at CPA Central and pay the $75 education evaluation application fee.

You would need to have your college or university send your official transcripts through mail at:

CPA Examination Services – CO
PO Box 198469
Nashville, TN 37219

Or email it at etranscript@nasba.org

Once your educational requirements have been approved by NASBA advisory evaluation, NASBA will then send you an email notifying you that your payment coupon is ready for payment. You have 90 days to pay the fee.

Click here to see a breakdown of the Colorado CPA exam costs.

Upon payment for the examination fees, you will receive a receipt of your NTS. Make sure that everything is correct as it will be used at the testing centers. If the names do not match, immediately contact the Board to request a correction. You will not be allowed to test if the name on the identification documents does not exactly match the name on the NTS.

With the NTS, then you can schedule your actual exam on the Prometric website at www.prometric.com.
You will have six months to apply and sit for your first portion of the CPA exam.

Once you pass the first CPA exam section, you’ll have 18 months to pass the remaining 3 sections.

After passing the Uniform CPA Examination, you must complete the appropriate education requirements to become a licensed CPA, which totals 150 semester hours with a graduate degree. 33 total semester hours of non-duplicative accounting coursework.  27 of these hours must be above the introductory level. 6 of these hours must be in auditing. 3 of these hours must be in accounting or business ethics. 27 total semester hours of non-duplicative business administration coursework.  No more than 9 semester hours can be in any single subject area. Hours in excess of the 9-hour maximum may count toward the 150-hour requirement.

You would need to have your college or university re-send your official transcripts to be re-evaluated through mail at:

CPA Examination Services – CO
PO Box 198469
Nashville, TN 37219

Or email it at etranscript@nasba.org

To meet the Colorado CPA experience requirements, you must have at least a minimum of 1,800 qualifying hours which must have been obtained over a period of not less than one (1) year and not more than three (3) years. Must have been met within five (5) years preceding date of application. All qualifying hours must be verified by an active Certified Public Accountant (CPA) in good standing for the entire period verified. The verifier must attest to having direct and continuous knowledge of the work done by the Applicant and to having performed contemporaneous periodic review and evaluation of the Applicant’s work.

Supervising CPA must complete the Certificate of Experience form which can be found through Colorado’s DPO.

After passing the CPA exam, the candidate must also meet the Colorado CPA ethics exam requirement by taking one additional test to take: the AICPA’s Ethics exam. The association offers an 11-hour self-study course, after which you can take the open-book test. The Ethics Examination is not expected to be particularly tough, but you must pass with a minimum score of 90 to get your license.

The Professional Ethics course can be found here.

Before you are able to apply for your Initial CPA License, you must have an account first at NASBA CPA Licensing Online Application System.

After you have completed your professional education, passed the exams, and retain the necessary work experience, you have fulfilled a majority of the CPA exam requirements. You’ll need to complete the Initial CPA Application form at NASBA CPA Licensing Online Application System and the $150 initial application fee.

Now that you have completed all the necessary steps to be a Certified Public Accountant in Colorado. You will be notified by Colorado’s Board of Accountancy of any missing documents in your application. If the application is complete, you’ll be issued a license allowing you to practice. Your certificate will be sent to you through the mail.