FDModule 1 · FDE
Foundational Development, the first exam you will write

Five hours, entirely objective format, and extremely technical. For most candidates entering the new program this is the first exam of the four.

Join the mailing list →The whole program

Format50 questions + testlets

Length5 hours

Reference materialsHandbooks, ITA, ETA

First sittingSeptember 15, 2027

What the exam looks like

Half the exam is stand-alone questions and the rest is testlets — sets of questions built on one shared scenario.

Format
50 stand-alone objective questions, worth 33% of the exam
The other 67%
Four to eight testlets, each designed to take 20 to 60 minutes
What a testlet is
A set of questions built on one shared scenario
Question types
Multiple choice, multiple select, fill in the blank, drop-down list
Length
5 hours
Reference materials
Handbooks, Income Tax Act, Excise Tax Act
Publicly disclosed
No
Module starts
May 15, 2027
First sitting
September 15, 2027

The content and how it is weighted

Topic weights for the exam.

TOPIC WEIGHTSFoundational Development
Management decision-making
15 to 25%
Financial reporting
10 to 20%
Data analytics, ethics and governance, finance, non-financial reporting, strategy
5 to 15% each
Assurance and tax
5 to 10% each
lower bound
upper bound

What this exam actually asks of you

What this exam rewards, and the part of it most candidates have never seen.

Know the rules and apply them accurately

Foundational Development is the most technical exam in the program after the Knowledge Assessment, and it rewards precision rather than argument. There is no case to write and no marker to persuade: an answer is right or it is not. Reference materials are allowed, so knowing your way around the Handbook and the Income Tax Act quickly is worth as much as memorising them.

The testlets are where the time goesA testlet can take up to an hour on its own, and there may be as many as eight of them. Practising under time on a shared-scenario set is a different skill from answering stand-alone questions, and it is the part of this exam most candidates will not have seen before.
Coming 2027
GCPA resources for Foundational Development

We are building our coaching for the new program against the published blueprints, the same way we built the CFE and PEP courses. Nothing is for sale yet. Join the mailing list and we will email you once, when this one is ready to buy.

Join the mailing list →

One email per course, nothing else. The list closes once every course has launched.

Everything we have published on the new program

The program is new and CPA is still releasing detail, so this is general to the whole transition as well as to this exam.

October 19, 2026CPA Foundational Development Exam explainedA closer look at the first exam in the new program: the testlets, the question types and how to study for it.Read the article →October 6, 2026Analyzing the new CPA Professional Program exam blueprintsEvery exam in the new program: format, length, topic weights, and which ones let you use reference materials.Read the article →October 4, 2025Everything you need to know about the 2027 CPA Professional ProgramThe full breakdown: transition rules, module structure, exam formats and every key date.Read the article →
ON YOUTUBEWatch the walkthroughsFree, no signup. Updated as CPA Canada releases more.
▶CPA Professional Program 2027: First Module FD Exam 1 Format, Testlets & Requirements▶CPA Canada 2027: New Exam Blueprints Finally Released!▶CPA Canada 2027: Less Technical, But Harder Than You Think?
See the whole channel →

Source: the CPA Professional Program Exam Guide, issued August 27, 2026. We update these pages as CPA publishes more. Back to the CPA Professional Program →