About Chinese Institute of Certified Public Accountants

Chinese Institute of Certified Public Accountants

The Chinese Institute of Certified Public Accountants, known by its abbreviation CICPA, is the national professional body for certified public accountants in China. Founded in Beijing in November 1988 under the Ministry of Finance, with Professor Yang Jiwan as its founding president, the institute administers the National Uniform CPA Examination, registers accounting firms and practitioners, sets auditing and ethics standards, and runs quality inspection and continuing professional development. It is described in its own English-language materials as the world's third-largest accountancy body. By the end of 2023 it counted 10,665 firm members and more than 360,000 individual members, of whom 102,017 were practising certified public accountants. Its official website is cicpa.org.cn.

The CICPA's history tracks the revival of the accountancy profession in reform-era China: the restoration of the CPA system in 1980, the CPA Regulations of 1986, the institute's own founding in 1988, the Law on Certified Public Accountants of 1993, and a long consolidation in the 1990s and 2000s that brought auditors, asset-appraisal and tax-agent bodies into a unified professional structure. It joined the Confederation of Asian and Pacific Accountants in 1996 and the International Federation of Accountants in 1997, and has driven the international convergence of Chinese auditing standards since 2006.

Founding in 1988 and legal basis

The CICPA was founded in November 1988 in accordance with the Law of the People's Republic of China for Certified Public Accountants and the regulations on the registration and administration of social organisations. It is an organisation under the guidance of the Ministry of Finance and the State Council, exercising the management and service functions of the profession under the CPA Law, the functions stipulated by its own charter, and the duties assigned to it by the Ministry of Finance. Its founding president, Yang Jiwan, was a professor and one of the leading figures of modern Chinese accounting scholarship, symbolising the profession's academic as well as regulatory roots.

The institute did not appear in isolation. China's modern accountancy profession dates its establishment to 1918, nearly a century before the CICPA's later leaders were describing its growth to international audiences. After the founding of the People's Republic the profession contracted, and its modern revival began with reform and opening up: in 1980 the Ministry of Finance promulgated interim provisions on the establishment of accounting advisory offices, restoring the CPA system, and in July 1986 the State Council promulgated the Certified Public Accountants Regulations, the first of a series of administrative regulations on the profession after 1949. The formation of the CICPA in November 1988 created the national body of the profession, and local CPA institutes were soon established at provincial level, laying the foundation for the profession's reconstitution and development.

The 1993 CPA Law and professional consolidation

In 1993 China adopted the Law on Certified Public Accountants, notable as the first special legislation for an intermediary profession in the People's Republic. The law gave the institute's functions a statutory footing: organising the national examination, approving membership, developing professional standards, and supervising practice quality. The CICPA's own published list of responsibilities runs to ten items and more, including examining and approving applications for membership and guiding local institutes on registration; developing professional standards and rules and monitoring their implementation; conducting an annual quality assurance programme for individual CPAs and accounting firms; formulating regulatory rules and taking disciplinary action; organising the National Uniform CPA Examinations; delivering training; organising professional exchanges and theoretical research; publicising the profession; and safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of members.

The later 1990s and early 2000s brought consolidation. Between 1995 and 2002 the CPA body was merged and re-aligned with the organisations representing auditors, asset appraisers and tax agents, as the Chinese state sought a single, disciplined professional structure for the intermediary services its growing market economy required. The result was a unified institute system — national CICPA plus provincial institutes — empowered by law to supervise the accountancy profession, a structure the institute's deputy president and secretary general Chen Yugui described to international conferences in 2012 and 2014.

The National Uniform CPA Examination

The best-known of the CICPA's functions is the examination that gates entry to the profession. The institute organises the National Uniform CPA Examination, through which candidates obtain the CPA certificate. The examination system has converged with internationally recognised CPA examination systems, and the CICPA has signed agreements with the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales on reciprocal exemptions in professional qualification examinations.

Passing the examination is only the first step. After passing, an accountant may apply for registration as a practising CPA on condition of having engaged in audit practice for not less than two years. Qualification is then maintained through continuing professional education: each CPA must complete 80 hours of continuing education every two years. The examination, registration and continuing-education chain makes the CICPA the gatekeeper of professional status for China's accountants in public practice, in the same way that its quality-assurance programme polices the firms in which they work.

Membership and the scale of the profession

The institute's published figures chart the profession's rapid growth. By 31 October 2010 the CICPA had 7,790 group members — accounting firms, including branches — and nearly 180,000 individual members, with 95,378 practising members and more than 83,000 non-practising members, in a workforce exceeding 300,000 people serving more than 3.5 million enterprises. By the end of 2017 it had 8,605 group members, of which 40 firms were qualified to conduct securities and futures-related business and 11 authorised to conduct H-share audits, and over 237,000 individual members.

Growth continued into the 2020s. As of 31 December 2020 the CICPA reported 9,800 group members and approximately 280,000 individual members, with 110,000 practising and 170,000 non-practising members, and about 300,000 accounting professionals serving more than 4.2 million enterprises. As of 31 December 2023 it had 10,665 group members and over 360,000 individual members — 102,017 practising and 262,514 non-practising — with about 400,000 accounting professionals in the wider workforce. These numbers underpin the institute's description of itself as the third-largest professional accounting body in the world.

Standards, quality assurance and discipline

Standard-setting is the CICPA's second great function. It develops the professional standards and rules for CPAs — auditing standards, ethics requirements and practice guidance — and monitors and reviews their implementation. Since 2006 the institute has driven the international convergence of Chinese auditing standards, aligning the Chinese framework with international standards while retaining the statutory structure of Chinese law. Its Professional Standards and Technical Guidance Department is one of the specialist departments of a secretariat that, in published descriptions, comprises 14 departments, including the Examination Department, the Registration Department, the Continuing Professional Development Department and the Quality Assurance Department.

Quality control operates through inspection cycles. China has adopted a quality review system of independent oversight under which firms approved to provide securities and futures-related assurance services are visited on a three-year cycle and other firms on a five-year cycle. In January 2011 the European Commission recognised China's supervisory regime for the accountancy profession as equivalent to that of the European Union — a landmark the CICPA cites in its international presentations. Where inspections or complaints reveal non-compliant activity, the institute formulates regulatory rules and takes disciplinary action against firms and practitioners.

Organisation and publications

Internally, the CICPA operates through a national secretariat in Beijing and a network of local institutes of CPAs in the provinces, which handle membership registration under national guidance. The secretariat's 14 departments include two general offices; the Examination Department, which also serves as the office of the CPA Examination Committee of the Ministry of Finance; the Research and Development Department; the International Affairs Department; the Finance Department; the Information Technology Department; the Human Resources Department; and the Editorial Office of Chinese CPA Magazine, the institute's professional journal.

Through its magazine, its research programmes and its technical guidance, the institute functions as the profession's national forum as well as its regulator, organising professional exchanges, conducting theoretical research and providing technical support to practitioners. Its public speeches — such as Chen Yugui's addresses to the Baker Tilly International global conference in Beijing in 2012 and to an Association of US-China Professional Accountants event in New York in 2014 — present the development of the Chinese profession to international audiences as an integral part of the story of reform, opening up and economic growth.

International integration

The CICPA joined the Confederation of Asian and Pacific Accountants (CAPA) in October 1996 and the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) in May 1997, and has since served as a board member of both bodies. It is an active participant in IFAC, CAPA, the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board, the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants, the Small and Medium Practices Committee and other global and regional bodies, and has developed friendly cooperation and communications with more than 50 professional accountancy organisations around the world.

Reciprocal examination arrangements with Hong Kong and with the ICAEW in England and Wales, the European Commission's 2011 equivalence decision on Chinese audit supervision, and the post-2006 convergence of auditing standards together mark the profession's integration into the global accountancy order. For a body founded only in 1988, the speed of that integration — from a restored domestic profession to board seats in the world's accountancy federations within a decade — is a defining feature of the CICPA's history.

The profession the institute represents

Behind the institute stands the modern Chinese accountancy profession itself, established nearly a century ago in 1918, suppressed in the mid-twentieth century and rebuilt after 1978. The CICPA's leaders frame that rebuilding as a direct product of reform and opening up: the 1980 restoration of the CPA system, the 1986 regulations, the 1988 founding of the institute and the provincial institutes, and the 1993 law together reconstituted a profession that by the 2020s served more than 4.2 million enterprises.

That scale explains the institute's dual character. It is at once a membership service organisation — training members, publicising the profession, safeguarding members' rights — and a statutory regulator organising examinations, approving registrations, setting standards and disciplining practitioners under the authority of the CPA Law and the Ministry of Finance. The Chinese Institute of Certified Public Accountants, headquartered in Beijing and reachable at cicpa.org.cn, remains the institution through which those two roles are combined for the largest accountancy profession in Asia.