During the September 2025 meeting of the AICPA’s Government Performance and Accountability Committee (GPAC), Tim Montgomery, executive director of the Arkansas State Board of Public Accountancy, presented a legislative update. His presentation covered statute and rule changes intended to strengthen professional accountability and modify oversight in Arkansas. The following contains highlights from the presentation.
Arkansas’s 2025 CPA regulation updates emphasize integrity, accountability, and modernization. By improving education standards, licensure pathways, and oversight through reimbursement programs and practice reviews, the board stays consistent with national initiatives while safeguarding the profession’s credibility.
These revisions, outlined below, strengthen public trust and ensure CPAs remain competent, ethical, and responsive to evolving expectations.
2025 statutory amendments per the Arkansas State Board of Public Accountancy:
Arkansas Code Annotated (ACA) 17-12-309 focuses on experience requirements for CPA licensure.
Among the biggest updates is a revision to ACA 17-12-309. The amended language states that CPA candidates must demonstrate a minimum of one year’s relevant professional experience before being granted certification. This change demonstrates the board’s commitment to ensuring that new licensees have acquired sufficient practical exposure to the profession.ACA 17-12-311 addresses the topic of substantial equivalency.
The board is now authorized to determine equivalency standards and promulgate rules necessary to promote reciprocal practice rights both within Arkansas and across state lines. The statute gives the board the continued authority to define substantial equivalence and to be able to do so by board rule.Amendment to ACA 17-12-504 strengthens renewal procedures.
Any license or registration for which a reinstatement application has not been received on or before July 1, 2025, following the lapse of a license shall, after notice and a hearing, be revoked by the board and shall not be subject to renewal or reinstatement. This update strengthens renewals and emphasizes accountability for maintaining active registration.
Upcoming: Proposed board rule changes
Looking ahead, the board previewed a slate of rule proposals under the Code of Arkansas Rules (CAR) that include updates to definitions, examinations, professional standards, ownership of firms, and procedures governing hearings and communications.
Amendment to ACA 17-12-504 strengthens renewal procedures.
Covering education, examination, and experience, CAR 17-236-302 would revise requirements for CPA candidates to include a rule that CPA candidates complete at least 18 upper-level semester credit hours in accounting, earning a “C” or higher grade.Under CAR 17-236-308, testing fees may be waived or reimbursed.
The reimbursement or exemption is available to CPA candidates who qualify for special programs adopted by the board. For example, the Arkansas Resident Initial Exam Reimbursement (ARIES) Program is a $250,000 pilot program spanning three years that reimburses exam section fees for the initial CPA exam (currently $262.64 per section). Applicants must be Arkansas residents and sit for the exam within the state’s jurisdiction.According to CAR 17-236-311, CPA candidates must hold at least a bachelor’s degree.
Proposed rule changes would reduce specific coursework from 150 hours to 27 hours for upper-level accounting courses in areas such as financial, managerial, taxation, auditing, and accounting information systems and 24 hours of work in a business environment.Experience requirements mandate at least 2,000 hours of professional services over one to three years. Proposed rule changes will establish another pathway to licensure in addition to the existing pathways. The proposed pathway will consist of a bachelor’s degree with an accounting concentration and two years of experience.
Under CAR 17-236-501, CPAs who are licensed in another state may practice in Arkansas.
This update does not require CPAs to have additional licensure, provided they meet CPA Exam, education, and continuing professional education requirements. Firms that do not have an office in Arkansas may also provide services, except for audits, if they comply with licensure, peer review, and home-state legal standards.Under CAR 17-236-1302, the board conducts an annual Practice Review Program.
Each year, one-third of licensees are notified to complete a review covering their recent practice period. Licensees must declare whether or not reports, compilation reports, or attest reports were issued.If a licensee did not issue any type of compilation or attest report during the practice review period, they shall complete the online process entitled “No Reports Issued.”
If a licensee issued compilation reports and did not issue any attest reports during the practice review period, they shall complete and submit a Practice Review Survey form to the Arkansas State Board of Accountancy and follow the procedures outlined in the Quality Review Program in CAR 17-236-1303.
If a licensee issued attest reports during the practice review period, they shall complete and submit a Practice Review Survey form and follow the Peer Review procedures outlined in Subpart 19.
About the experts
Tim Montgomery, CPA, CISA, joined the Arkansas State Board of Public Accountancy as an investigator in 2013. He became executive director in May 2023. Montgomery graduated from the University of Houston with a BBA in Accounting in 1992 and passed the CPA exam in 1993. Before joining the state board, Montgomery spent most of his career in internal auditing, including internal audit director for USAble Life and Dyersburg State Community College in Tennessee.
Ross Baldwin, CPA, CGMA, CFE, CIA, is senior auditor for Arkansas Legislative Audit, with years of experience auditing numerous entities, including institutions of higher education, school districts, counties, and municipalities. In 2017, Baldwin graduated from the AICPA Leadership Academy and is involved with the Arkansas Society of CPAs, where he currently serves on the board of directors as well as its finance and policy committees. In addition to being a CPA and having earned the Chartered Global Management Accountant® designation, he is a Certified Fraud Examiner and Certified Internal Auditor.
About the AICPA’s Government Performance and Accountability Committee
Comprising 12 volunteer committee members, and in collaboration with staff at the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants®, the Government Performance and Accountability Committee advises government officials, regulators, and stakeholders, advocating issues that matter to the accounting and finance profession. If you’d like to learn more about GPAC, please email Lori Sexton.