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CPAFAR Pass Rate Hits 42% in 2025 — Why It Is the Hardest CPA Section
Every year, FAR sits at the bottom of the CPA pass rate table — and 2025 was no exception. At 42%, roughly six in ten candidates who sat Financial Accounting and Reporting did not pass. For context, REG cleared 63% and the TCP discipline reached 78%. FAR is not marginally harder. It is a different category of difficulty entirely.
What makes FAR structurally harder than other sections
- Breadth — FAR covers financial reporting under US GAAP, IFRS differences, governmental accounting (state and local), not-for-profit accounting, and selected transactions. No other core section covers this much distinct territory
- Conceptual depth — unlike REG, which is largely rule-based, FAR requires you to understand the principles behind journal entries, not just the entries themselves
- Four-hour exam with MCQs and task-based simulations — the TBS portion of FAR is consistently reported as the most time-pressured part of the exam
- Governmental accounting — GASB standards are fundamentally different from FASB standards and require a separate mental model that many candidates underinvest in
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What the 2024 CPA Evolution change did to FAR
Under CPA Evolution, advanced governmental and not-for-profit accounting topics were moved from FAR to the BAR discipline. The intent was to lighten FAR's load. In practice, FAR's pass rate improved only marginally — from 40% in 2024 to 42% in 2025 — suggesting the core difficulty was never in the advanced topics. It is in the breadth and depth of the remaining content.
What high-scoring FAR candidates do differently
- They spend proportionally more time on governmental accounting — GASB 34, fund accounting, and the government-wide vs fund-level reporting distinction
- They practice task-based simulations from week one, not just in the final review phase
- They do not skip IFRS differences — these appear in MCQs and are frequently the distinguishing factor between a pass and a near-miss
- They understand the conceptual framework, not just the journal entries — FAR TBS questions often test whether you know why an entry is made, not just what it is
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