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1. Public accountants who wish to renew their certificate of registration for 2023 are to submit their applications for renewal via the BizFile+ portal starting from 1 December 2022.

Renewal Criteria

2. Public accountants must complete all requirements for renewal before their registration can be renewed. This includes compliance with the Continuing Professional Education (CPE) requirements, orders of the Public Accountants Oversight Committee (PAOC), and payment of any amounts outstanding to ACRA.

CPE Requirements

3. Public accountants must complete at least 120 CPE hours over three year, with at least 90 hours in structured learning and at least 20 hours in structured learning each calendar year. The 3-year period for 2023 PA renewal began on January 1, 2020.

4. As per Practice Direction 1 of 2021: Revised Continuing Professional Education Syllabus and Requirements for Registration as a Public Accountant and Renewal of Certificate of Registration (176KB, PDF), the following revised CPE requirements will be implemented from 2023 PA Renewal.

• Information Technology (IT) is a core area of expertise for public accountants. All public accountants must obtain at least nine structured hours of IT training in each 3-year rolling period starting from 1 January 2022. Public accountants can consider courses such as Robotic Process Automation, Robotic Process Automation, Data Analytics, Data Interpretation and Visualisation, Business Analytics and Reporting, Blockchain , and Artificial Intelligence as Category 5 to satisfy this requirement.
• Currently, the minimum hours required for Ethics and Professionalism (Category 2) is 6 hours.

5. When completing the 2023 PA Renewal form, public accountants will need to enter the hours acquired in Category 5 under “Others” and indicate “Cat 5” in the field provided under “State relevance and objective of course for hours classified under “Others”. For more information, please refer to this link (122KB, PDF) for the illustration.

6. Public accountants who have received orders from the PAOC to acquire additional CPE hours as part of the Practice Monitoring Programme should not include these additional hours when calculating the CPE requirements for registration renewal.

7. ACRA will sample public accountants to check compliance with CPE requirements. Enforcement actions, including denial of registration renewal, will be taken against public accountants who make false declarations.

8. Please find attached a list of publications containing key observations from past compliance checks, as well as clarification and guidance regarding CPE compliance. Exemption applications can be found under the Download section of this link.

Application for Exemption from CPE Requirements

9. Please submit your application for exemption from the CPE requirements through BizFile+ before the renewal exercise ends on 31 December 2022. Those public accountants who have applied for exemption from the CPE requirements should wait for the outcome before submitting their PA renewal applications.

10. Public accountants who wish to be exempt from CPE requirements must provide the following:

1. a completed template detailing their CPE shortfall, including the extent of the shortfall and the CPE category to which it relates;
2. detailed reasons for not meeting the CPE requirements;
   details of CPE hours acquired in 2022, in the format set out in Appendix IV of the CPE Syllabus  (225KB, PDF); 
3. evidence of participation in structured CPE hours acquired in 2022; and
4. details of courses the public accountant has signed up for to make up for the CPE shortfall. 
   Please note that incomplete applications will not be processed.

11. If your application for an exemption is approved, the PAOC may require you to make up for any CPE shortfall and acquire additional CPE hours within a specific timeframe as a condition for renewing your certificate of registration. If your application for exemption is denied, you will no longer be able to practice as a public accountant after your registration expires on 31 December 2022.

Renewal Fee

12. The fees payable for 2023 PA Renewal are as follows:

a. A fixed sum of $600; and

b. A variable sum is set out in the table below:

Important Timeline

13. The timelines for the 2023 PA renewal are as follows:

To learn more about Singapore incorporation, economy, banking, etc., feel free to call/WhatsApp us at +65 90612851 or email us at aceglobalacct@gmail.com. Alternatively, you may leave us a reply using our contact form below.

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