Build Your Personalized BAR Study Plan
Five quick questions. We'll build a BAR plan from the 2026 AICPA Blueprint: weighted topic priorities, a schedule for your timeline, and strategies for where you're stuck.
Where you are
Where are you in your BAR preparation?
What BAR actually tests (2026 AICPA Blueprint)
Plan for roughly 130 hours of focused study for BAR (most candidates land between 120 and 150). The personalized plan above tailors this to your stage, timeline, and biggest challenge. Here is the blueprint it is built on.
BAR content areas and weights
Area I: Business Analysis
40-50% · ≈ 58 hrsCurrent-period and historical analysis, including the use of data (ratio, variance, and financial statement analysis); prospective analysis, including the use of data (forecasts, projections, budgeting, and cost/managerial accounting).
Area II: Technical Accounting & Reporting
35-45% · ≈ 52 hrsThe advanced technical-accounting topics, including revenue recognition, financial instruments and derivatives/hedging, leases (lessor), stock-based compensation, business combinations and advanced consolidations, employee benefit plans/pensions, R&D and software, intangibles and goodwill, and public-company reporting topics (segments, SEC reporting, XBRL).
Area III: State & Local Governments
10-20% · ≈ 20 hrsFormat and content of the financial section of the annual comprehensive financial report; deriving government-wide statements and reconciliations; typical items and specific transactions (measurement, valuation, calculation, and presentation).
If you are coming from FAR, know that the 2026 Blueprint moved most of FAR's advanced topics INTO BAR. Pensions and employee benefit plans, stock-based compensation, business combinations, derivatives and hedging, lessor accounting, indefinite-lived intangibles and goodwill, internally-developed software, R&D, and the advanced consolidation topics (variable interest entities, noncontrolling interests, foreign-currency translation) are all tested here now, not in FAR. Expect Area II to be the technical heart of the exam, and do not assume FAR-era topic boundaries.
BAR study plan FAQ
How many hours should I study for BAR?
Plan for roughly 130 hours of focused study for BAR. Most candidates spend between 120 and 150 hours, depending on their background, how consistently they study, and their timeline.
Which areas are most heavily weighted on the BAR CPA exam?
Under the 2026 AICPA Blueprint, BAR covers 3 weighted areas: Area I: Business Analysis (40-50%); Area II: Technical Accounting & Reporting (35-45%); Area III: State & Local Governments (10-20%). Allocate your study time to match these weights, because that is where the exam awards its points.
What should I know about BAR under the 2026 Blueprint?
If you are coming from FAR, know that the 2026 Blueprint moved most of FAR's advanced topics INTO BAR. Pensions and employee benefit plans, stock-based compensation, business combinations, derivatives and hedging, lessor accounting, indefinite-lived intangibles and goodwill, internally-developed software, R&D, and the advanced consolidation topics (variable interest entities, noncontrolling interests, foreign-currency translation) are all tested here now, not in FAR. Expect Area II to be the technical heart of the exam, and do not assume FAR-era topic boundaries.