Is the CPA exam harder than the bar exam?
There is no single answer: the two exams belong to different professions — the bar exam is the licensing step for lawyers, while the CPA Exam is the CPA credential's exam — and their pass rates count different test-takers.
The numbers we have bracket it — 2025 graduates taking the bar for the first time passed at 84.2% across ABA-approved schools, while reported 2025 CPA Exam pass rates ranged from about 42% to 78% per section, figures we could not confirm with the AICPA.
Below, the comparison: format, pass rates, study time, and which exam a tax law career needs.
Format: two different exam structures
Start with structure, because it shapes everything else.
In UBE jurisdictions the bar exam is one two-day administration: the UBE consists of the Multistate Essay Examination (MEE), two Multistate Performance Test (MPT) tasks and the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE), with the MEE and MPT on the Tuesday and the MBE on the last Wednesday of February and July.
NCBE's own comparison puts the legacy UBE at 12 hours of testing over two days, and the NextGen UBE at 9 hours over 1.5 days.
The bar exam overview maps every component and who runs it.
The CPA Exam is built the other way around.
AICPA scoring materials describe three Core sections — AUD, FAR and REG — plus one Discipline section of the candidate's choice (BAR, ISC or TCP), and a scaled score of 75 passes a section.
So in a UBE jurisdiction the lawyer's exam is a single two-day sitting you train toward, while the CPA Exam is a set of sections each passed at 75.
And the bar itself is not one national test: California, which does not use the UBE, is one example — its written exam is five one-hour essays and one 90-minute performance test, typed on the applicant's own laptop or handwritten, with the multiple-choice MBE answered on paper Scantron sheets and no laptops for that portion.
Pass rates: what the numbers show
Start with California, where the State Bar publishes pass-rate statistics by administration.
In July 2025, 54.8% of General Bar Exam takers passed overall — 69.7% of first-time takers and 12.4% of repeaters — and first-time graduates of California ABA-approved schools passed at 84.4%.
In February 2026 the overall rate was 30.8%, with 44.0% of first-timers and 23.1% of repeaters passing.
February's lower rate reflects its larger share of repeat takers: 2,475 of its 3,931 takers were repeaters.
Nationally, the ABA's 2026 bar passage report puts the aggregate first-time pass rate for 2025 graduates at 84.2% — 29,300 of 34,806 first-time takers across 195 ABA-approved schools.
The CPA side is thinner, and we will flag it honestly: the AICPA's pass-rate page did not load when we researched this piece, so the figures below come from a summary of AICPA data that we could not confirm.
That summary put 2025 cumulative pass rates at about 48% for AUD, 42% for FAR, 63% for REG, 42% for BAR, 68% for ISC and 78% for TCP.
Check AICPA's current published figures before relying on any of them.
Read the two sets of numbers side by side with care.
The CPA figures are cumulative rates for individual sections; the bar figures are whole-exam rates on which first-time and repeat takers fare very differently.
Different candidate pools, different units — the numbers bracket the difficulty question rather than settle it.
What they do show: a 2025 graduate taking the bar for the first time passed most of the time (84.2%), while in the unconfirmed CPA figures three of the six listed sections — AUD, FAR and BAR — sat below 50%.
Study time: what we can and can't tell you
The honest answer first: our research found no official study-hour figure for either exam — no recommended number of bar study hours from NCBE or any bar examiner, and no confirmed CPA-side figure either.
What is fixed is what comes before, and the exam itself.
The bar exam sits at the end of law school: most JD programs are three years full-time, and part-time programs take about four.
The exams have set lengths too — the legacy UBE is 12 hours of testing over two days — while the CPA Exam spreads its content across three Core sections and one Discipline section rather than a single paper.
Plan backwards from the administration you are targeting, and confirm the current rules with the body behind your exam: the bar admission authority in your jurisdiction for the bar exam, and the AICPA's current CPA Exam materials for the CPA side.
Confirm the current rules before you plan
Which exam matters for a tax law career
If the goal is practicing law, only one of the two exams is on the path.
The BLS puts it plainly: lawyers typically need a law degree and a state license, and the license usually requires passing a bar examination.
For a tax lawyer, that is the exam that matters.
The two professions do meet in tax practice, and the meeting point is a rule, not an exam.
Under Treasury Circular 230 (31 CFR 10.3), attorneys and CPAs who are not under suspension or disbarment may practice before the IRS by filing a written declaration, and enrolled agents may also practice.
Attorneys are a named qualifying profession on their own — the IRS-practice route for a lawyer does not run through the CPA Exam.
In U.S. Tax Court the split is even more explicit.
The Court admits attorneys with a certificate of good standing issued within 90 days of applying; nonattorneys can be admitted only by passing the Court's own nonattorney examination under Tax Court Rule 200.
For a CPA weighing the switch, the BLS's Occupational Outlook Handbook puts the median annual wage for accountants and auditors at $83,680 in May 2025, with 5% projected employment growth from 2025 to 2035; the median annual wage for lawyers was $159,670.
Both figures are BLS medians for the same month — they describe whole occupations, not any one switcher's outcome.
For the role itself — the work, the settings, the hiring — the tax attorney career guide maps the profession.
And if you are weighing the two careers rather than the two exams, its tax attorney vs CPA comparison owns that decision.
Career information, not legal advice. Exam structures, pass rates and practice rules change; confirm current requirements with the bar admission authority in your jurisdiction and with the AICPA for the CPA Exam.