ACCA vs CIMA

ACCA is 13 exams across three levels. Applied Knowledge (BT, MA, FA), then Applied Skills (LW, PM, TX, FR, AA, FM), then Strategic Professional, where you sit two compulsory papers and pick two from four options. Alongside those you complete the Ethics and Professional Skills Module and 36 months of supervised practical experience. BT, MA, FA and most LW variants are on-demand computer-based exams; the rest are tied to the March, June, September and December sittings.

CIMA is longer than most comparisons let on. The professional qualification itself is 12 exams: three Objective Tests and one Case Study at each of Operational, Management and Strategic level. If you're starting without an accounting background you need the four-paper Certificate in Business Accounting before any of that, which takes the real total to 16. Graduates are usually exempt from the Certificate, so 12 is the number most people actually face, but 16 is the honest figure for a school leaver.

The Case Studies are the part ACCA has no equivalent of. Three hours, human-marked, set in a fictional business, testing all three of that level's subjects at once. They run in four windows a year: February, May, August and November.

There's also a second CIMA route that comparisons tend to skip. The CGMA Finance Leadership Programme is a subscription platform where continuous online assessments take the place of the Objective Tests entirely. Same syllabus, same Case Study exams, same CGMA at the end, but the only formal exams you sit are the three Case Studies. It suits people who learn well on their own, and people who know they underperform in exam conditions.

The scheduling difference matters more than it sounds. CIMA's Objective Tests can be booked any day of the year, which is ideal if you want to move at your own pace, though it also means nothing external ever forces the decision. ACCA's fixed sittings impose a rhythm whether you want one or not.

Both bodies grant exemptions for relevant prior study, and an accounting degree can take a serious bite out of either. ACCA is generous here: up to nine papers, covering all of Applied Knowledge and Applied Skills in the strongest cases, though most awards land somewhere between three and six. Nothing at Strategic Professional level is ever exempted. CIMA will typically exempt an accounting graduate from the whole Certificate level, sometimes further.

One difference worth knowing before you compare

ACCA charges for every exemption it grants: £86 per Applied Knowledge paper, £114 per Applied Skills paper. The maximum nine-paper award therefore costs £942 in fees for exams you'll never sit. CIMA charges nothing for exemptions at all. It's a small line against the total cost of qualifying, but it's the sort of detail that usually surfaces after you've committed. Several study-provider sites quote a CIMA exemption fee of around £66; CIMA's own fees page says there isn't one.

Set against ACCA's exemption policy, though, the fairer CIMA comparison is the FLP rather than CIMA's exemption list. A graduate with a strong degree might get ACCA down to seven sat exams. An FLP student sits three, whatever their background. The mechanisms are different, since one recognises prior learning and the other changes how learning is assessed, but they answer the same question: how many times do you have to walk into an exam hall and perform. Run your qualifications through both bodies' exemption calculators before deciding, because the same degree can be worth very different amounts to each.

Both publish pass rates, on different rhythms: ACCA after every sitting, CIMA once a year. The shapes are similar. Introductory papers sit high, with ACCA's BT at 87% and CIMA's E1 at 82% in the latest published figures, and the technical middle is where people come unstuck. ACCA's PM sits at 40% and AA at 46%; CIMA's P1 at 54%, with P2 lower still. The hardest papers in each are hard for the same reason, which is applying technique under time pressure rather than recalling knowledge.

We keep full, sourced tables on both: ACCA pass rates and CIMA pass rates.

This is the decision that should drive the rest. ACCA gives serious weight to audit, tax, law and financial reporting, which is the technical spine of work in practice. If you can picture yourself in an audit firm, a tax team, or preparing statutory accounts, ACCA covers that ground and CIMA largely doesn't. There is no audit paper in CIMA, and no tax paper beyond the principles level.

CIMA spends that same time on management accounting, performance management, risk and business strategy. This is the work of a finance team inside a company: budgeting, costing, investment appraisal, explaining to the business what its numbers mean. ACCA touches all of it, but for CIMA it's the centre of gravity rather than a section of the syllabus. Finance business partner, management accountant, FP&A and commercial finance are the natural CIMA roles.

Plenty of people in industry hold ACCA, and plenty of management accountants got there without CIMA. The overlap is real and employers know both. But if you already know which side of the fence you want to be on, picking the qualification built for it means three years studying things you'll actually use.

Both bodies publish their fees, so a like-for-like comparison is possible. This one assumes you start from scratch with no exemptions, pass everything first time, enter every exam at the standard deadline, and sit in the UK. CIMA's Finance Leadership Programme is included as a third column because it prices on a completely different model.

Assumptions behind the totals. Subscriptions are counted over four years for ACCA and CIMA traditional, which is the quick end of realistic; take longer and each additional year adds £140 or £150. The FLP figure is a three-year Skills Plus subscription (£6,120 at UK checkout) plus the PER application, and it's the package we've used because Skills Core doesn't cover the Case Study exams and Skills Premium is the tutor-support upgrade rather than the standard product. All FLP prices on this page are what a UK student actually pays at checkout, which is higher than the headline figure on CIMA's own pricing table. FLP's subscription covers registration, membership and exam entry, but CIMA doesn't state whether the PER application is included, so we've assumed it's payable. On the ACCA exam figure: nine of the 13 papers have centrally published fees (£160 per Applied Skills paper, £282 for SBL, £208 each for SBR and the two options), and we've rolled the £83 Ethics and Professional Skills Module in with them, since CIMA assesses ethics inside its own exams rather than charging for it separately. BT, MA, FA and LW are booked through local exam centres in the UK, which set their own prices, so ACCA publishes no UK figure for those four. We've used ACCA's own remote on-demand rate as a stand-in, at £130 each for BT, MA and FA and £144 for LW, which makes £2,320 indicative rather than exact. The CIMA exam figure is exact, using CIMA's published Tier 1 prices effective January 2026.

Reading the totals

CIMA costs more than ACCA to qualify from scratch, mostly because it's three more exams and the Case Studies are expensive. For a graduate that reverses: CIMA waives the Certificate for free, while ACCA charges up to £942 for the equivalent exemptions.

The FLP column is the one that needs care. At about £6,300 it's the biggest number in the table, but it's also the only column with tuition in it. The other two buy you exam entry and nothing else. Add CIMA's own study modules to the traditional route, which it prices at £2,700 for the professional qualification, and that column lands around £6,600. The two are close enough that money isn't really what separates them. The question is whether you want the learning bundled and the Objective Tests gone, or you'd rather choose your own tuition and sit the exams. One caveat on the FLP: it's a fixed term, so it rewards moving quickly and punishes drift.

Skills Plus also comes in shorter terms, at £2,400 for a year and £4,080 for two, if three years is longer than you need. The other two packages sit either side of it. Skills Core is £1,920 for a year but doesn't cover the Case Study exams, so you buy those credits separately when you're ready. Skills Premium runs from £3,600 for a year to £9,180 for three, adding live classes and tutor support.

For all three routes the biggest variable isn't the fee schedule. It's resits. Passing first time saves more than any decision on this page.

Choose by destination, not by difficulty. Practice, audit, tax or broad financial reporting: ACCA. Finance roles inside a business: CIMA. If you don't know yet, ACCA's breadth keeps more doors open early on, while CIMA rewards people who are already sure industry is where they're headed. Either way, the qualification you'll actually finish is the one whose content you can stand for the next three years, and that matters more than any comparison table.