Accountancy Board of Ohio

About this board

Only a licensed CPA may sign an audit opinion, and only a registered firm may hold itself out as a CPA firm in Ohio. Banks and investors who rely on audited or reviewed financial statements have a direct interest in the license behind the signature, and verifying it takes seconds compared to the cost of relying on a bogus attestation.

The "CPA" title itself is regulated: using it without an active Ohio permit — even by someone who once passed the exam — is a violation. That makes verification useful in hiring too, since resumes sometimes say CPA when the truthful phrase would be "passed the exam years ago".

Accountancy Board by the numbers

These figures are ours, not the board's — we computed them from the full State of Ohio licence file so you can see this board in context rather than one record at a time. Data as of September 2026.

Only 55.5% of the 53,828 licences this board has on record are currently active — the other 44.5% belong to people who retired, moved, changed careers, or simply let a credential lapse. That gap is the single best reason to verify a licence rather than assume a name in a database means somebody may practise today.

Most common licence types

When a licence from this board is not active, the most common reason recorded is suspended (14,385 records), followed by retired (5,869). Our status dictionary explains what each label actually means.

0.8% of this board's licences carry a recorded board action (428 of 53,828), against about 1.6% across all Ohio professions. A board action covers everything from an administrative consent agreement to revocation, and it is cumulative over a licence's whole life — see how we measured that before reading much into it.

Computed by OhioLicenseCheck from the State of Ohio eLicense dataset (issued licences only; application records excluded). Refreshed daily.

Who verifies these licenses?

• •Lenders receiving audited or reviewed financial statements
• •Businesses engaging a new accounting firm
• •Employers confirming a candidate’s claimed CPA credential
• •Attorneys vetting expert witnesses on financial matters

Verification tips

• Verify both the individual CPA and the firm registration for attestation engagements.
• An "inactive" CPA registration means the person may not use the title in practice — status matters, not just presence in the system.
• Out-of-state CPAs may practice in Ohio under mobility rules, but firms performing attest work for Ohio clients have registration obligations.

Renewals and expiration

Ohio CPA permits renew on a multi-year cycle with continuing professional education (CPE) requirements, including ethics hours. Firms track every professional’s permit centrally; solo practitioners can put their own renewal on autopilot with an expiry alert.

Frequently asked questions