ACCA Exam Dates And Fees 2026 Complete Guide

To help students excel in all aspects of the finance and accounting field, the course is divided into three levels or stages prepared for your ACCA that students' are required to complete, each crucially cultivating students' talent: 

Stage One:

The first stage, Applied Knowledge, mainly focuses on building a solid base of the core accounting subjects among students.

Subjects Included:

The Applied Knowledge exams consist of three subjects:

• Business and Technology (BT)
• Management Accounting (MA)
• Financial Accounting (FA)

 Examination Pattern:

As this is an entry-level stage, the examination pattern here is not very difficult. This part is objective. It requires you to achieve fifty marks out of a hundred to pass the examination.

Stage Two:

The second stage is applied skills and is more rigorous than the first. The course consists of six subjects to sharpen the student's accounting skills.

Subjects Included:

As mentioned above, the second stage of the ACCA certification course consists of six subjects:

• Business and Business Law (LW)
• Performance Management (PM)
• Tax (TX)
• Financial Reporting (FR)
• Audit and Assurance (AA)
• Financial Management (FM)

 Examination Pattern:

The difficulty level increases in all aspects as the students appear for their stage two examinations. First and foremost, the curriculum of this level is not as basic as the entry-level, with subjects dealing with various in-depth concepts relating to accounting. The students also have to appear for six examinations at this level as opposed to two in the previous one, significantly increasing their syllabus. And finally, here, only one paper, i.e., Business and Business Law (LW), is 100% objective, and the remaining subjects are a mix of objective and subjective.

Stage Three:

The third level is the course's final stage, Strategic Professional. Strategic professional exams aim to nurture students' strategic and critical thinking skills and transform them into young professionals. It is considered the most difficult of all three stages.

Subjects Included:

The third and final stage of the ACCA course consists of 6 subjects. Two of these subjects are compulsory papers, and the remaining are optional. However, optional does not mean students can skip these; it only means they can select the exam they want to appear on from four choices. To select the optional subjects, students have four options.

The Compulsory Subjects

• Strategic Business Leader (SBL)
• Strategic Business Reporting (SBR)

The Optional Subjects:

• Advanced Financial Management)
• Advanced Performance Management (APM)
• Advanced Tax (ATX)
• Advanced Research and Assurance (AAA)

Examination Pattern:

As discussed already, stage three is the hardest level of the ACCA course. While a lot of it has to do with the curriculum of this level, the examination pattern of the course also contributes to its difficulty level. Unlike the previous two levels, no part of this level is objective. Therefore, students must face a fully subjective examination pattern for all four papers at this level.

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ACCA provides exemptions to students pre-qualification in the field of accounting. The reason for giving qualification is that these selected courses are considered sister courses with similar curricula, making the students well-equipped with several topics to be studied in the ACCA course. Following are the different situations where exemptions from exams are available:

Bachelors of Commerce

If the student has completed their undergraduate degree in Bachelors of Commerce, they can avail up to five exemptions.

CA Inter - CMA India Inter

Students who have cleared the inter-level examination in the CA or CMA courses can avail of exemptions for up to six papers.

Fully Qualified CA & CPA Students

Students who fully qualify for the CA or US CPA course get the maximum number of exemptions, with nine papers exemptions.

However, to get an exemption, an exemption fee is charged, the students are required to pay extra examination fees over and above the exam entry fee to register for ACCA. The additional fees will be paid per paper exempted, totalling around INR 10,000.

Even with a world-class education with global recognition, the ACCA registration and subscription fees are affordable. The ACCA total cost, especially ACCA Fees 2026, is quite reasonable considering the comprehensive nature of the course and its global recognition. Here is a brief breakdown of the cost of the ACCA qualification exam.

Stage One

Each examination at the Knowledge Level costs 70 pounds, totaling 210 pounds for the entire stage.

Stage Two

The fee per paper increases to 134 pounds at the Skill Level, totaling 804 pounds for the entire second stage.

Stage Three

The third and last stage is the most expensive, where the students must pay 238 Pounds for SBL and 170 pounds each for the remaining subjects. It brings the total stage three ACCA exam cost to 748 pounds.

This was the breakdown of the total fees an ACCA student will have to incur. Following through with this ACCA paper fee structure, a student must book in the ACCA portal and pay the fees 25 days before the exam. Post this time period, they will need to pay an additional sum of 70 pounds. 

Also mentioned above, if they pre-qualify and request for exemptions on particular exams, they will have to bear an exemption fee for the same, which adds up to about INR 10,000 per paper.