CFP® certification (CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER®)
The CFP mark is a licence to call yourself a planner in the fullest sense: someone who looks at a household's tax, retirement, insurance, investments and estate at once and gives advice that holds together.
CFP Board guards it with four gates, education, exam, experience and ethics, and the exam is only the second of them.
Certificate facts
- Level
- Professional
- Field
- Finance & accounting
- Access
- Paid
- Assessment
- Proctored exam
- Duration
- 360 minutes
- Questions
- 170 multiple-choice questions in two 3-hour sections of 85: stand-alone items, short scenarios and multi-page case studies
- Passing score
- Pass or fail on the total score across both sections; every question is worth one point and the cut score is not published on the scoring page
- Languages
- EnglishCFP Board's exam pages do not name an exam language; every page, the practice exam and the registration process are in English.
- Price
- 925 USD (read 26 September 2026)
- Validity
- 1 year, renewable
- Exam delivery
- Prometric test centres in three eight-day windows a year (March, July, November); cfp.net also describes a remote-proctored option
Prerequisites: Coursework at a CFP Board Registered Program before the exam; a bachelor's degree in any subject, which may be finished up to five years after passing; 6,000 hours of financial planning experience or 4,000 hours on the apprenticeship pathway; an ethics declaration and a background check.
Renewal: Every year: pay the annual certification fee and file a Renewal Application with an ethics declaration. Every two years: 30 hours of continuing education, two of them in a CFP Board ethics course. A late renewal costs a non-refundable 75 USD.
Source: certificate page at CFP Board · Price: Standard registration for the October 2026 window (2 Sep to 6 Oct 2026). Early bird 825 USD until 1 Sep, late registration 1,025 USD from 6 to 13 Oct. Paid to CFP Board, not to Prometric; the official practice exam is included (read 2026-09-26)
How to prepare
1. Online courses
Courses and practice questions from the directory that target exactly this exam — details, price and the provider link (affiliate) are on the course page.
- Background materialHow to Become a Financial Advisor or CFPThe route and its four requirements, not exam preparation.
- Preparation courseIntroduction to Financial Planning - CFP CertificationThe General Principles domain.
- Preparation courseInvestment Planning - CFP CertificationThe Investment Planning domain.
- Preparation courseRisk Analysis and Insurance Planning- CFP CertificationThe Risk Management and Insurance Planning domain.
Book the exam
Delivered by Prometric test centres in three eight-day windows a year (March, July, November); cfp.net also describes a remote-proctored option. Schedule with CFP Board (opens in a new tab)
Affiliate disclosure: the course link above is an affiliate link — buying through them may earn us a commission at no extra cost to you. The vendor's learning path and booking links carry no commission.
Four requirements, and the exam is the narrowest
Most credentials on this site are an exam and a certificate. The CFP mark is closer to a professional admission. Before you may sit the exam you must finish planning coursework at a programme CFP Board has registered, which the board says typically takes between twelve and eighteen months. A bachelor's degree in any discipline is required too, and you have five years after passing to complete it. Then comes experience: 6,000 hours in work that touches the planning process, or 4,000 hours on an apprenticeship pathway with extra conditions. Finally you sign an ethics declaration and undergo a background check. The board's own estimate for the whole route is eighteen months to two years, and that assumes the degree is already done.
| Domain | Share of the exam |
|---|---|
| Professional Conduct and Regulation | 8 % |
| General Principles of Financial Planning | 15 % |
| Risk Management and Insurance Planning | 11 % |
| Investment Planning | 17 % |
| Tax Planning | 14 % |
| Retirement Savings and Income Planning | 18 % |
| Estate Planning | 10 % |
| Psychology of Financial Planning | 7 % |
The weighting tells you what the profession thinks a planner is for. Retirement and investments lead, but tax and estate together outweigh either, and the psychology domain, which covers how clients make decisions about money and how a planner communicates, is examined in its own right. The board describes the paper as testing integration and judgement rather than recall, and the question formats support that: stand-alone items of a few sentences, short scenarios carrying about three questions each, and case studies running over several pages with eight to twelve questions attached.
Exam day in practice
- Two sittings of three hours, 85 questions each, with a forty-minute break between them and optional short pauses inside each section.
- Three windows a year, in March, July and November, each eight days long; you choose a Prometric centre and date after registering, and a remote-proctored option exists.
- A preliminary result on the screen, then the official one by email roughly four weeks after the window closes. Candidates who fail receive a diagnostic by domain.
- Registration can precede your coursework, but the board must have verified that coursework by its education deadline, a week before registration closes.
Registration is tiered by date, so the same sitting costs noticeably more in the final week than in the early period; the exact amounts sit in the cost table. The official practice exam, built from retired real questions, comes with every registration and is the closest rehearsal available.
A US mark with US content
CFP Board is based in Washington, and its topic list gives the game away: Social Security and Medicare planning, gift and estate tax, generation-skipping transfer tax. Candidates elsewhere should check which body certifies planners in their own country before starting this route, because a large part of the syllabus is specific to American law and benefits.
What a question looks like
Written by us in the exam's style. It is not a real question from any question bank, and we do not publish those.
A couple in their late fifties want to retire in three years. One spouse has a large balance in an employer plan, the other a small business they hope to sell. They ask whether to pay down their mortgage with a bonus or add it to savings. Before answering, which piece of information would most change your recommendation?
Every option sounds prudent in isolation. The exam rewards seeing the household as one system: the sale price of the business, the tax treatment of the bonus and the couple's attitude to debt all bear on the answer, and the question asks you to identify the missing fact rather than to calculate.
What it costs to get and to keep
| Item | Amount | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Exam registration, standard rate | 925 USD | October 2026 window, 2 Sep to 6 Oct 2026; early bird 825 USD until 1 Sep, late 1,025 USD in the final week (read 26 September 2026) |
| Registered Program coursework | not published | set by each education provider, not by CFP Board; the board lists programmes but publishes no price (read 26 September 2026) |
| Annual certification fee | not published | payable every year to keep the mark; the renewal policy page does not state the amount (read 26 September 2026) |
| Late renewal | 75 USD | non-refundable, charged if the renewal application and fee arrive after the expiry date (read 26 September 2026) |
| Continuing education | not published | 30 hours every two years including a 2-hour CFP Board ethics course; course prices are set by the sponsors (read 26 September 2026) |
How much preparation, from where you are
- Career changer without a finance background
- The Registered Program coursework is where you learn the material; the exam then tests whether you can combine it. Plan on the full coursework period before booking.
- Working adviser in a single specialism
- An insurance or investment specialist knows one or two domains deeply and meets estate, tax and psychology almost fresh. The case studies punish that imbalance.
- Accountant or tax professional
- Tax planning will be familiar, but the exam treats tax as one input to a household plan. Insurance and retirement income need real study.
What passing this does not prove
- Whether you can win and keep clients, which is most of a planner's working week.
- Planning outside the United States: the tax, retirement and estate content is American.
- Portfolio construction at the depth of an investment analyst.
- Your conduct after certification; that is policed through the ethics declaration and the board's standards, not by the exam.
Against the alternatives
- CFA® Program Level I
- The CFA route trains analysts who value securities and run portfolios; the CFP route trains advisers who plan a family's whole financial life. Choose by the job, not by prestige: portfolio managers rarely need the CFP, and household advisers rarely need the charter.
- Financial Risk Manager (FRM®) Certification
- FRM measures risk inside financial institutions. It overlaps with the CFP only in the vocabulary of insurance and investment risk and serves an entirely different employer.
CFP® certification (CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER®) — quick answers
How much does the CFP exam cost?
It depends on when you register for a window: there is an early, a standard and a late rate, and the cost table shows the current three. The practice exam is included. Coursework, the annual certification fee and continuing education are separate costs.
What is the usual timeline to become a CFP professional?
CFP Board puts the typical route at eighteen months to two years, with coursework alone usually taking twelve to eighteen months. The experience requirement can be met before or after the exam, so for some people it is the longest part.
Can I take the exam without a degree?
Yes. You must finish the Registered Program coursework first, but the bachelor's degree can be completed up to five years after you pass. You cannot hold the mark until it is done.
How is the CFP mark renewed?
Annually, by paying the certification fee and filing a renewal application, and every two years by completing 30 hours of continuing education including two hours of CFP Board ethics.
Is the CFP recognised outside the United States?
This record covers the mark as CFP Board awards it, which is built around American tax and law. If you plan to advise clients in another country, find the body that certifies planners there before you begin.
Where this certificate sits in the field
What comes next
Concepts this certificate draws on
Glossary entries with the reason each one matters for CFP® certification (CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER®).
- Asset allocation
A planning domain the exam weights; the client conversation runs on it.
- Diversification
A planning domain the exam weights; the client conversation runs on it.
- Compound interest
A planning domain the exam weights; the client conversation runs on it.
- Index fund
A planning domain the exam weights; the client conversation runs on it.
- Time value of money
A planning domain the exam weights; the client conversation runs on it.
Last reviewed 26 September 2026 · Getting Digital