Important CPA Exam Updates & Schedule Changes for 2026

On July 4 of this year, the President signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) into law. Beginning in July 2026, key provisions of OBBBA will be incorporated into the REG and TCP sections of the CPA Exam, making it essential for candidates to understand the law’s content and implications.

The largest 2026 CPA exam update will be the key provisions in OBBBA. Other exam changes in other sections such as quality management standards (AUD) or GASB updates (BAR) are smaller in scope and won’t require as much study time to get up to speed. But OBBBA is another story. The table below provides a quick summary of what provisions will be testable beginning in July of 2026. But before then you probably want to know how to approach preparing for REG and TCP and how OBBBA will impact your study sessions. Let us dive into that first. 

First, timing is everything. If you take REG or TCP between now and June 30, 2026, it won’t matter for you. You can pretend for the purposes of the exam like the law doesn’t exist. So, if you studied tax in your undergrad or graduate program and don’t want to have to learn a new set of laws in 2026, try and sit for those sections before July 1 of next year. 

Second, how you order your exam sections still matters. If you are planning to choose TCP as your discipline and you are eligible to sit before July 1, 2026, we advise you to plan your studies so you can take and pass both REG and TCP before that date. Otherwise, you will likely take REG without it testing OBBBA and TCP with it testing OBBBA. That requires learning OBBBA for one exam and not the other – a highly inefficient study plan. 

Here at Surgent, we recommend you work smarter and not harder and advise that you “marry” your discipline to its closely related core section. For instance, we recommend you order your exams to where if you choose TCP, you should take REG immediately before it, FAR immediately before BAR, or AUD immediately before ISC. We do not recommend that you take discipline sections before their core sections in almost any circumstance. This is because all the disciplines have duplicate material and content overlap with their core section. By marrying the two you will save study time, increase your odds of passing the discipline on the first attempt, and be done with the exam sooner! 

If you want to take TCP as your discipline but don’t have the time to fit them both in by June 30, you may want to prioritize FAR and AUD before then. That way you’ll keep the laws you need to know consistent. 

At the end of the day even if you cannot follow the neatly laid out plan we have, we will have the materials you need to pass when you need them. The content you see in our LMS is based off of your planned exam date. So, if you enter July 1 as your exam date, we will show you content that prepares you for OBBBA. If you enter June 30, you will see study materials without reference to the law because it’s not testable yet. Either way, we’ll have you ready to succeed on exam day. 

The law is wide in scope and contains a ton of provisions (shown below). But that shouldn’t scare you. Just know when it is testable (July 1, 2026) and how you should plan your studies to prepare for it. What is learning one more law if you can’t sit before July 1? You’ve made it this far with your study efforts and perseverance. If you follow our lead and advice, you’ll have all you need to succeed on exam day. Good luck!