New Hampshire

New Hampshire Board of Accountancy
www.oplc.nh.gov/board-accountancy

Under the traditional (pre-HB 1259) framework: to sit for the Exam, a bachelor's degree with 120 semester hours plus 30 semester hours in accounting (financial accounting, management accounting, auditing, taxation) and 24 semester hours in business subjects; for licensure, 150 total semester hours. Effective April 22, 2026, HB 1259 (signed by Governor Ayotte) created a third pathway: a bachelor's degree with an accounting concentration plus two years of experience, without completing the full 150 hours. HB 1259 also added an early-sitting provision allowing candidates to sit up to 120 days before their bachelor's degree is conferred.

Under the 150-hour pathway: 1 year of qualifying public accounting, industry, or government experience — full-time roles need at least 1,500 hours/year in accounting/audit skills; part-time roles need 2,080 hours/year with 1,500 of those in accounting/audit skills, gained within 5 years (for the 1-year requirement) or 6 years (for a 2-year requirement) before application. Under HB 1259's new bachelor's-plus-experience pathway, 2 years of qualifying experience substitutes for the additional 30 hours of coursework.

Not confirmed in this research pass — the New Hampshire Board's own site returned an access error, and the New Hampshire Society of CPAs' overview page (used as a fallback source) did not explicitly state a separate post-Exam ethics exam requirement. Confirm directly with the Board.

Yes — candidates can typically sit for the Exam before finishing all coursework required for full licensure (e.g. at 120 semester hours, finishing the rest before licensure).

CARE could not directly fetch the official oplc.nh.gov board pages during this pass (they returned access errors); this record was deepened instead against the New Hampshire Society of CPAs' own 'Becoming a CPA' page plus legislative-tracking sources for HB 1259, which took effect April 22, 2026 and also added individual-based practice-privilege mobility for out-of-state CPAs. Confirm specifics directly with the Board given both the source-access limitation and how recent this legislative change is.

https://nhscpa.org/becoming-a-cpa-in-new-hampshire/ — accessed 2026-09-30