The ACCA Practical Experience Requirement is the work-based part of qualifying as an ACCA member: 36 months in a relevant accounting or finance role, plus nine performance objectives signed off by a qualified supervisor, all recorded through the MyExperience tool in your MyACCA account. It sits alongside your exams and the Ethics and Professional Skills module, and you can work on all three at the same time.
The 36 Months of Relevant Work
The time element asks for 36 months in a role involving accounting or finance tasks such as financial reporting, auditing, tax, or management accounting.1ACCA Global. 36 Months Practical Experience It does not have to come from one employer or run in a single stretch. Job changes, industry moves, and career breaks are fine; ACCA adds up the qualifying periods from each role.
Part-time hours and partially relevant jobs still count, but on a pro-rata basis. When you enter your weekly hours and the share of your time spent on accounting tasks, MyExperience adjusts the credited months accordingly.1ACCA Global. 36 Months Practical Experience Half-time work in a fully relevant role takes roughly six calendar years to reach 36 credited months.
Experience From Before You Registered
Work done before you registered as an ACCA student counts, and there is no formal cut-off on how far back it can go.2ACCA Global. Student FAQs on the PER The practical problem is finding the person who supervised you at the time and getting them to sign off. ACCA also suggests thinking carefully about whether experience older than five years still reflects current practice.
Self-Employment
If you are self-employed, basic bookkeeping or similar services provided directly to the public do not count. Accounting work you perform under the supervision of a qualified person, such as subcontract work for a firm, can count as long as that supervisor can verify your output.2ACCA Global. Student FAQs on the PER
The Nine Performance Objectives
Logging time is only half the requirement. You also have to demonstrate competence by achieving nine performance objectives: all five Essentials objectives plus any four from a bank of 17 Technical objectives.3ACCA Global. Performance Objectives
The five Essentials apply to every candidate regardless of career path:4ACCA Global. Achieve Performance Objectives Handbook
- Ethics and professionalism
- Stakeholder relationship management
- Strategy, innovation, and sustainable value creation
- Governance, risk, and control
- Leadership and management
The four Technical objectives are drawn from categories that map to common accounting career paths, including corporate and business reporting, financial management, management accounting, taxation, audit and assurance, advisory and consultancy, and data, digital, and technology.4ACCA Global. Achieve Performance Objectives Handbook Pick the four that match what you actually do day to day.
Writing the Statements
Each objective is backed by a written statement of 200 to 500 words describing what you did and what you achieved.3ACCA Global. Performance Objectives Each one also carries individual elements covering specific skills; you claim those elements before submitting the statement. Generic descriptions of your job will not pass. Reference specific projects, reports, client engagements, or problems you solved, including the judgment calls you had to make and the standards you applied. Supervisors are looking for evidence that you performed the work yourself.
You can work on several objectives in parallel and submit them in any order. Sending them to your supervisor in batches as you finish them is more manageable than saving everything for one marathon review at the end.5ACCA Global. Recording Experience
Who Can Sign Off Your Work
Every performance objective must be signed off by a Practical Experience Supervisor who is a qualified accountant, meaning a member of an IFAC-recognised body or someone recognised by law in your country as a qualified accountant.6ACCA Global. Practical Experience Supervisors They need to know your work well enough to confirm that what you describe is real.
If Your Manager Is Not a Qualified Accountant
A line manager without an accounting qualification can still verify your time in a relevant role. In that case you nominate an additional qualified supervisor, such as a senior manager elsewhere in the organisation, a consultant, or your firm’s external auditor, to sign off the performance objectives. The additional supervisor must have a business connection to your employer.6ACCA Global. Practical Experience Supervisors
The Remote Supervisor Programme
If no qualified supervisor is available at all, you can apply to ACCA’s Remote Practical Experience Supervisor programme. ACCA matches you with a member who verifies your work remotely in coordination with your line manager.7ACCA Global. Remote Practical Experience Supervisor Programme FAQs Allow roughly three months for the remote supervisor to understand your role before they begin signing off objectives. You cannot pick an ACCA member directly; matches run through the programme.
Friends and Family
ACCA discourages using a friend or relative as your supervisor, but it is not banned outright. Where no other option exists, you may use one and must disclose the relationship when you apply for membership.6ACCA Global. Practical Experience Supervisors Because the remote programme exists for the “no qualified supervisor nearby” case, going the family route invites extra scrutiny.
Recording Everything in MyExperience
All PER activity runs through the MyExperience tool inside your MyACCA account. For each period of employment you enter the employer’s name and address, your job title, start and end dates, weekly hours, and the percentage of your time spent on accounting tasks. The tool uses that to calculate your credited months.5ACCA Global. Recording Experience
You invite your supervisor to register in the same system so they can review and approve submissions electronically. Supervisors cannot sign anything off until their own registration is complete, so set that up early rather than at the point you want to submit.
ACCA strongly recommends recording your experience as you go, not after the fact.8ACCA Global. Regularly Recording Your PER The details are fresher, your statements come out stronger, and you can spot gaps in your objective coverage early enough to seek out the right projects.
Submitting for Sign-Off
Once a statement is complete and inside the 200–500 word limit, the request sign-off function sends it to your supervisor. They receive a notification, log in, review your statement alongside your time records, and either approve the objective or return it with feedback.5ACCA Global. Recording Experience
If you change jobs during the PER, each employment period needs its own supervisor sign-off. Keep former supervisors’ contact details current; a supervisor who moved companies and changed emails two years ago is a headache worth avoiding with a quick check-in message when you leave a role.
How the PER Fits With the Rest of Qualification
The PER is one of three requirements for ACCA membership. The other two are passing your exams and completing the Ethics and Professional Skills module, an online programme of about 20 hours using business simulations to develop leadership, communication, and commercial awareness.9ACCA Global. Ethics and Professional Skills Module The module costs £81, and ACCA recommends finishing it toward the end of your Applied Skills exams and before the Strategic Professional papers.10ACCA Global. Fees and Charges It is a separate box from the PER; completing one does not satisfy the other.
Once you pass all your exams but have not yet completed the PER, you become an ACCA affiliate. The affiliate annual subscription is £163 for the first three years, then rises to £326 if you have not yet gained full membership.10ACCA Global. Fees and Charges That jump is a real incentive to finish the PER rather than let it drift.
Applying for Membership
When MyExperience shows all 36 months of experience and all nine performance objectives verified, your exams passed, and the EPSM complete, the system flags your eligibility and invites you to apply for admission.11ACCA Global. Are You Ready to Qualify The admission fee is £326.10ACCA Global. Fees and Charges After the membership team’s review, you are granted the right to use the ACCA designation.
Candidates working for an ACCA Approved Employer at the gold or platinum trainee development level may qualify for a performance objective exemption. If your employer holds this status, check with HR or learning and development; it can save real time on the objective-writing side of the PER.