Certified Public Accountant (CPA) is the statutory title of qualified accountants in the United States who have passed the Uniform Certified Public Accountant Examination and have met additional state education and experience requirements for certification as a CPA. In most U.S. states, only CPAs who are licensed are able to provide to the public attestation (including auditing) opinions on financial statements. The exceptions to this rule are Arizona, Kansas, North Carolina and Ohio, where although the "CPA" designation is restricted, the practice of auditing is not.

Many states have a lower tier of accountant qualification (below that of CPA), usually entitled "Public Accountant" (with designatory letters "PA"). However the majority of states have closed the designation "Public Accountant" to new entrants, with only about 10 states continuing to offer the designation. Many PAs belong to the National Society of (Public) Accountants.

Many states prohibit the use of the designations "Certified Public Accountant" or "Public Accountant" (or the abbreviations "CPA" or "PA") by a person who is not certified as a CPA or PA in that state.[1] As a result, in many circumstances, an out-of-state CPA is restricted from using the CPA designation or designatory letters until a license or certificate from that state is obtained.

Although the CPA exam is uniform, licensing and certification requirements are imposed separately by each state's laws and therefore vary from state to state.

State requirements for the CPA qualification can be summed up as the Three Es - Education, Examination and Experience. The Education requirement normally must be fulfilled as part of the eligibility criteria to sit for the Uniform CPA and the Examination component is the Uniform CPA itself.


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