How the CPA Exam and REG work

The CPA Exam in one picture

Since 2024 the Uniform CPA Examination has followed a "Core plus Discipline" design (AICPA, The new CPA Exam, two years in). Every candidate passes three Core sections, which test what every newly licensed CPA needs, and then chooses one Discipline section that goes deeper in one field (AICPA, Uniform CPA Examination Blueprints, 2026, Introduction). Each section is four hours long, and you may take them in any order (NASBA, CPA Exam Candidate Guide, November 2026).

Section	Type	Multiple-choice questions	Task-based simulations
Auditing and Attestation (AUD)	Core	78	7
Financial Accounting and Reporting (FAR)	Core	50	7
Taxation and Regulation (REG)	Core	72	8
Business Analysis and Reporting (BAR)	Discipline	50	7
Information Systems and Controls (ISC)	Discipline	82	6
Tax Compliance and Planning (TCP)	Discipline	68	7

(Counts from the AICPA's exam design table in the 2026 Blueprints; the 2027 Blueprints keep them.)

REG is the Core section on tax and law. It has three jobs: U.S. ethics and professional responsibilities in tax practice, U.S. business law, and federal tax compliance for individuals and entities, with a focus on the routine, recurring transactions a newly licensed CPA prepares and reviews (2026 Blueprints, REG Section Introduction). If you enjoy REG, TCP is the Discipline that builds on it; but REG stands on its own and every candidate must pass it.

REG at a glance

Testlet	What it holds	Notes
1	36 multiple-choice questions	Four options, one best answer
2	36 multiple-choice questions	Same format
3	2 task-based simulations	The optional standardized break follows this testlet
4	3 task-based simulations
5	3 task-based simulations

Time. The section is four hours, and one clock runs across all five testlets: there is no separate time limit for each testlet, so you budget your own time. Within a testlet you may answer questions in any order and go back to them, but once you submit a testlet you cannot return to it, and you cannot open the next testlet until you submit the current one (AICPA, Frequently asked questions about the CPA Exam).

Breaks. You are offered a standardized 15-minute break after the first simulation testlet (testlet 3). If you take it, it does not count against your testing time. You may also take a break at the end of any other testlet, but the clock keeps running during those breaks (NASBA, CPA Exam Candidate Guide; NASBA, CPA Exam FAQ).

Simulations. A task-based simulation (TBS) is a short case: exhibits such as a client's source documents, a trial balance, a depreciation schedule or a draft return, followed by several entries you must complete. The assessment also includes applied research: reading excerpts of source materials such as the Internal Revenue Code or Treasury regulations and using them to identify issues and answer (2026 Blueprints, REG Section Introduction). The exam software includes a spreadsheet tool, and NASBA tells candidates to rely on the formulas in its cells rather than the status bar (NASBA, Candidate Guide).

A sensible time plan, which is our suggestion and not an AICPA rule: about 45–50 minutes for each multiple-choice testlet, leaving roughly 140 minutes for the eight simulations (about 17 minutes each).

How REG is scored

• Scores run from 0 to 99, and 75 passes. A 75 does not mean 75% correct, and scores are not curved: they are measured against a fixed standard (AICPA, CPA Exam scoring; NASBA, Score Information).
• For REG, the multiple-choice questions and the simulations each count for 50% of the total score (2026 Blueprints, Score Weighting).
• The scoring formulas consider whether each answer is right and how difficult the question is (NASBA, Score Information).
• Every exam includes pretest questions used only to collect data; they do not count toward your score (AICPA, Frequently asked questions). You will not know which they are, so give every question your best effort.

Score release. REG is a Core section, so its scores are released on a rolling basis against published target dates. For example, for an exam whose data reach the AICPA by November 15, 2026, the target is November 24, 2026; for December 8, the target is December 16, 2026. Target dates are not guaranteed, and some state boards need at least an extra day (AICPA, Find out when you'll get your CPA Exam score; NASBA, Score Information). If you do not pass, you receive a performance report comparing your results, by content area and question type, with those of candidates who just passed, and you must re-register and receive a new Notice to Schedule before you retake the section (NASBA, Candidate Guide).

What REG covers

Area	Content	Weight
I	Ethics, professional responsibilities and federal tax procedures	10–20%
II	Business law	15–25%
III	Federal taxation of property transactions	5–15%
IV	Federal taxation of individuals	22–32%
V	Federal taxation of entities (including tax preparation)	23–33%

(2026 Blueprints, REG Summary Blueprint; unchanged in the 2027 Blueprints.)

The skill levels matter as much as the topics. REG tests Remembering and Understanding (25–35%), Application (35–45%) and Analysis (25–35%), and no Evaluation. Areas I and II (ethics and business law) are tested mostly at the remembering-and-understanding level; Areas III, IV and V (the tax areas) mostly at application and analysis, through the preparation and review of returns (2026 Blueprints, REG Skill allocation). In practice that means: know the ethics and law rules precisely, and practise the tax computations until they are routine.

Several representative tasks ask you to review a return or schedule against its source data and to resolve the flags raised by automated diagnostic checks: a depreciation schedule, a Form 1040, a Form 1120-S, a Form 1065, a corporation's trial balance. The lessons in this course show how to do that kind of review.

What REG does not cover

Some topics that used to belong to REG are now tested in the TCP Discipline instead: the alternative minimum tax, passive-activity and at-risk loss rules, gift-tax returns, like-kind exchanges, recapture on the sale of business property (sections 1231, 1245 and 1250), related-party sales, and corporate and partnership formations, distributions of property and liquidations (2026 Blueprints, TCP Areas I–IV). Federal securities law does not appear in the 2026 or 2027 REG blueprint. This course mentions those topics only where you need them for context.

Which tax law is tested

This is the question REG candidates ask most, and the AICPA answers it with a rule and two assumptions.

The rule. Changes to the Internal Revenue Code and federal tax regulations are eligible for testing in the calendar quarter beginning six months after the change's effective date or enactment date, whichever is later (AICPA, Learn what is tested on the CPA Exam, Policy on New Pronouncements).

Public Law 119-21. H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, became law on July 4, 2025 (Public Law 119-21). Its tax provisions have many effective dates. As a planned exception to the rule, the AICPA's Board of Examiners decided on September 18, 2025, that the Act's provisions with 2024 and 2025 effective dates, which the Board's notice says include provisions for taxable years beginning after December 31, 2025, and for property acquired after January 19, 2025, would become eligible for testing in REG and TCP on July 1, 2026. The Act's other provisions follow the six-month rule (AICPA, Testing of H.R. 1: One Big Beautiful Bill Act on the CPA Exam). So if you test now, the law you are tested on is the Code as amended by Public Law 119-21.

The assumptions. REG's section introduction adds:

1. You are not tested on your knowledge of specific tax rates, amounts or limitations that are indexed to inflation. When a question needs the standard deduction or a phase-out threshold, it gives it to you.
2. References to an individual's wages or compensation do not include overtime or tips unless the question says so.
3. Unless a question states otherwise, events happen in the current year and the most recent eligible tax law applies (2026 Blueprints, REG Section assumptions).

How this course applies it. We teach the Internal Revenue Code as amended by Public Law 119-21 and treat 2026 as the current year. Statutory rules and percentages that are not indexed (for example, the $3,000 limit on deducting a net capital loss, the 7.5%-of-AGI floor for medical expenses or the 21% corporate rate) are fair game, and we teach them. When we show an inflation-indexed amount to make an example concrete, we label its year and cite it; 2026 amounts come from Rev. Proc. 2025-32. Learn the rule, not the number.

Later laws. Congress has continued to amend the Code. Public Law 119-108 (September 11, 2026) changed the treatment of disaster-related personal casualty losses (IRC §165(h)), and Public Law 119-111 (September 18, 2026) extended the educator-expense deduction to early-childhood teachers (IRC §62(d)). Under the six-month rule, a change enacted in September 2026 is not eligible before the calendar quarter that begins six months later, which on our reading is the quarter beginning April 1, 2027. The lessons teach the law as it stood before those changes and flag them where relevant.

Getting to the exam

You apply through the board of accountancy of the jurisdiction where you want to be licensed. Eligibility, fees and how long credit for a passed section lasts all vary by jurisdiction: NASBA's November 2026 candidate guide shows credit periods of 18, 30 and 36 months in different places, some counted from the exam date and some from the score-release date. Look up your own board through NASBA's directory of boards of accountancy, and follow its rules rather than any general summary (NASBA, Candidate Guide; NASBA, CPA Exam FAQ).

Once your board approves you, you receive a Notice to Schedule (NTS) and book an appointment with Prometric. Core sections, including REG, can be scheduled year-round; Discipline sections are given only in the first month of each quarter. No sections are given from July 1 to July 11, 2027, when the exam moves to a new delivery platform with a changed interface (NASBA, CPA Exam FAQ; AICPA, Find out when you'll get your CPA Exam score).

How to use this course

1. Read the blueprint once. Download the REG blueprint from the AICPA and skim its representative tasks. Every lesson here maps to one of its groups.
2. Work the units in order. The units follow the blueprint's five areas. Each lesson teaches the rules with worked examples, lists common traps and ends with a short self-check. The tax lessons are where most of the points are, so give them most of your time.
3. Practise in the exam's formats. Each unit's practice bank mixes four-option questions with simulation-style cases that use exhibits and typed numeric answers. Read every explanation, including for questions you get right.
4. Take the full-length practice exam under timed conditions: five testlets, one four-hour budget, and a break after testlet 3.
5. Learn the software with the AICPA's online sample test, which runs in the real exam interface and shows the correct answers. Its content is current as of July 1, 2023, so its tax items predate Public Law 119-21; use it for the interface, not for current law (AICPA, Practice for the CPA Exam with Sample Tests).

Lumenary Prep is not affiliated with the AICPA or NASBA, and only a state board grants the CPA license. We explain the AICPA's copyrighted blueprints and standards in our own words and link to the originals.

Check yourself

• How many multiple-choice questions and task-based simulations does REG have, and how are they spread across the five testlets? [72 and 8: 36, 36, then 2, 3 and 3]
• Which break does not count against your four hours? [The standardized 15-minute break offered after testlet 3]
• What share of your REG score comes from the simulations? [50%]
• A question asks for the tax on a client's 2026 income. Do you need to have memorised the 2026 standard deduction? [No: indexed amounts are given when needed]
• A provision of Public Law 119-21 applies to taxable years beginning after December 31, 2025. Since when has it been eligible for testing? [July 1, 2026, under the Board of Examiners' decision]
• Which REG area carries the most weight, and at which skill levels are the tax areas mainly tested? [Area V, 23–33%; application and analysis]