Can you pass the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) board exam with self-review? What the law says, the passing rate, review center costs, and what you need.
Mariano Luiz King
Published November 9, 2026
Yes. You can take the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) Board Exam, the Certified Public Accountant Licensure Examination (CPALE), without a review center, and no law requires one for your first attempt. Whether self-review works for you depends on your discipline and on a few things specific to the CPA exam. This post covers the law, the passing rate, what review centers cost, and what you'd need to do it alone, as of November 2026.
After reading this, you can decide whether to self-review for the CPA exam, and what you need if you do.
The rules come from RA 9298 and PRC's documents. The passing rates come from PRC's results, which I collected in board exam passing rates. Review center prices are from the centers' own sites. I checked all of them on November 9, 2026.
To pass, you need a 75% general average, with no subject below 65% (RA 9298).
If you score 75% or higher in a majority of subjects, you're conditioned and retake only the rest within 2 years. After 2 failed complete exams, RA 9298 requires 24 units of exam subjects before you can retake.
The full retake rules for 10 boards are in what happens if you fail the board exam.
The CPA passing rate was 37.1% in October 2026 (30.8% in May 2026).
That's everyone who took the exam, with or without a review center. PRC doesn't publish separate rates for self-reviewers, so this number can't tell you which method works better. It only tells you how hard the exam is overall.
Three CPA providers publish prices: Team PRTC (₱16,500 face-to-face, ₱9,200 online, ₱1,600 per subject), CEVAS (₱9,950 group), and EAA (₱3,500 self-paced). Details are in CPA review center fees.
I built prepPH, so I'm biased. It has CPA practice questions with explanations, organized by subject, with spaced repetition built in. That covers the practice part of a self-review. It doesn't replace live teaching, and it won't count as a refresher course if your law ever requires one.
Self-review can work for your first CPA attempts, especially with a cheap self-paced or per-subject course for structure. But the passing rate is low and the 24-unit rule kicks in after two failures, so treat each attempt seriously.
Yes, it's allowed. No law requires a review center for your first attempt. Whether it works depends on your discipline and your practice.
Not for your first retakes. After two failed complete exams, RA 9298 requires 24 units of exam subjects from a school accredited by the Board of Accountancy.
It was 37.1% in October 2026 (30.8% in May 2026), based on PRC's results.
Ready to test yourself? Try the free CPA board exam reviewer. For the general comparison, see review center vs self-review.
