ACCA Applied Skills Exams: Study Guide for 2025–26

Prepare the Applied Skills exams subject by subject: confirm each syllabus edition, learn the exam format (three hours and 100 marks for most subjects, two hours of objective testing for Corporate and Business Law, 50% pass mark), map the Audit and Assurance areas if that is your exam, and use a free practice test as a diagnostic error log rather than a score.

What the Applied Skills exams cover and which version applies

The Applied Skills level of the ACCA Qualification contains six exams: Financial Reporting (FR), Audit and Assurance (AA), Taxation (TX), Performance Management (PM), Financial Management (FM) and Corporate and Business Law (LW). Each exam follows its own syllabus edition, and Taxation and Law come in jurisdiction variants.

ACCA publishes resources for the Applied Knowledge, Applied Skills and Strategic Professional exams as distinct stages of one qualification. Applied Skills sits in the middle: it builds on the knowledge papers and prepares you for the case-study style of Strategic Professional.

Versions matter. The Audit and Assurance syllabus currently in force runs from September 2025 to June 2026, and ACCA states that the syllabus and study guide show what could be assessed in any examination session within that window. Before you study any of the six subjects, download the syllabus for your planned exam session — ACCA periodically reviews syllabuses, so an older edition can quietly omit or move topics.

Taxation and Corporate and Business Law deserve an extra check: they are offered in jurisdiction variants. The rates, statutes and legal principles you revise must match the variant you entered, not a variant a colleague or an online post studied.

Official sources: Study support resources | ACCA Global — Exam support resources page; ACCA Audit and Assurance September 2025 to June 2026 syllabus and study guide — Full document, including sections 1–12

Exam format, duration and pass mark

Most Applied Skills exams — PM, TX-UK, FR, AA and FM — are three-hour computer-based exams carrying 100 marks with a mix of objective and longer questions. Corporate and Business Law (English and Global) is a two-hour objective test. The pass mark for all ACCA Qualification exams is 50%.

The longer, constructed-response questions in the five non-law exams ask you to work as you would in a professional role, using spreadsheets and word-processing tools in your answers. ACCA frames this as testing technical and application skills rather than simple calculation ability.

For Audit and Assurance specifically, the published structure is: Section A contains three 10-mark case-based questions, each made up of five objective test questions worth 2 marks. Section B contains one 30-mark question and two 20-mark questions. All questions are compulsory, and you receive an extra 10 minutes before the exam starts to read the instructions.

Because every question is compulsory, you cannot skip a syllabus area and still pass comfortably. Time discipline matters: once the exam clock starts, there are no restrictions on when you begin producing answers, so budget your minutes deliberately.

Official sources: ACCA Audit and Assurance September 2025 to June 2026 syllabus and study guide — Full document, including sections 1–12

Audit and Assurance: the six syllabus areas

The AA syllabus divides into six areas: A Audit framework and regulation, B Planning and risk assessment, C Internal control, D Audit evidence, E Review and reporting, and F Employability and technology skills. Section B of the exam predominantly examines planning and risk assessment, internal control or audit evidence.

The syllabus opens with the nature and scope of assurance engagements, the statutory audit's regulatory environment, governance and professional ethics. It then moves through planning and risk assessment, internal control and internal audit, audit evidence, and finally review and reporting, including subsequent events, going concern and the independent auditor's report.

AA is assessed at intellectual level 2 — application and analysis — which broadly matches the Applied Skills level, though some lower-level skills continue to appear and occasional higher-level capabilities may surface. Practically, expect questions that apply a principle to a scenario, not just recall it.

Two recent changes are worth noting if you used older materials: quality-management content moved from Section B1 into A2 External audits, and 'directors' emoluments' became 'directors' remuneration'. ACCA publishes a summary of changes with each syllabus edition, so read it before recycling old notes.

For your study plan, weight Section B topics heavily, because the 30-mark and 20-mark questions predominantly draw on planning and risk assessment, internal control or audit evidence — although topics from other syllabus areas may also appear.

Official sources: ACCA Audit and Assurance September 2025 to June 2026 syllabus and study guide — Full document, including sections 1–12

Digital skills and the practice platform

AA formally assesses employability and technology skills: interacting with different question item types, managing digital information, navigating screens and presenting responses professionally. ACCA expects you to build these on the practice platform before the live exam.

Section F of the AA syllabus covers these skills, and the syllabus is explicit that they are developed by practising with the learning support content for computer-based exams available via the practice platform and the ACCA website.

Treat the platform as part of your content revision, not an afterthought. Working out a correct answer on paper but fumbling the spreadsheet or word-processing tools in the live exam costs time and marks.

Official sources: ACCA Audit and Assurance September 2025 to June 2026 syllabus and study guide — Full document, including sections 1–12

Taxation and Law: your variant and examinable documents

Taxation and Corporate and Business Law rules depend on the jurisdiction variant you entered, and on which legislation is examinable for your session. Check the examinable documents list for your exam before memorising any rates or statutes.

ACCA publishes examinable documents once a year for the financial accounting, audit and assurance, law and tax exams, indicating exactly which regulations and legislation can be assessed. For most of these exams, regulations issued or legislation passed on or before 31 August become examinable from 1 September of the following year to 31 August of the year after that.

For UK tax exams, the timing rule is session-based: exams between 1 June and 31 March generally examine the previous year's Finance Act. Exams falling between 1 June 2025 and 31 March 2026 examine Finance Act 2024, plus examinable legislation passed outside the Finance Act before 31 May 2024. ACCA also states that no devolved taxes for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are examinable.

One distinction the syllabus draws explicitly: 'issued or passed' refers to formal approval, while 'effective' refers to when a rule must actually be applied. A future-effective rule is not examinable unless the syllabus says otherwise. Learning from last year's materials without checking this list is a common way to revise rules you will never be tested on.

• Confirm your TX or LW variant matches the syllabus edition you are studying.
• Download the current examinable documents list for your exam and session.
• For UK tax depth and examinability guidance, read the examining team's Finance Act article on the ACCA website.

Official sources: ACCA Audit and Assurance September 2025 to June 2026 syllabus and study guide — Full document, including sections 1–12

Using a free practice test as a diagnostic

A practice test is most useful as a diagnostic, not a grade. This is study advice rather than an official requirement: attempt it once, score each subject separately, and log every error by type.

An overall percentage across six subjects hides more than it reveals. Record, per subject: your raw score, whether the question demanded calculation or written explanation, and whether each error came from method, from choosing the wrong rule, or from vague wording.

Then drill your two weakest subjects with worked questions, writing the full reasoning and not just the final figure. Retest with a fresh attempt afterwards and re-score by subject. This is an optional routine — a reasonable way to convert a diagnostic into a plan — not an official ACCA preparation method, and no practice score predicts your exam result.

Remember that a free practice test on a revision site is not an official ACCA assessment. It teaches content and method; ACCA's own practice platform is the resource designed to mirror the live computer-based exam.

Official sources: Study support resources | ACCA Global — Exam support resources page; ACCA Audit and Assurance September 2025 to June 2026 syllabus and study guide — Full document, including sections 1–12

Study planning and your next steps

ACCA does not prescribe learning hours for any exam, reserves the right to examine any learning outcome in the study guide, and officially recognises content from BPP Learning Media and Kaplan Publishing. Build your plan around the current syllabus and official resources, then use practice tests to find your gaps.

Because any learning outcome in the study guide is examinable, your coverage check should run through the detailed study guide section by section rather than through a topic list from a revision site. The syllabus document itself tells you the depth — each learning outcome carries an intellectual-level superscript.

For the five Applied Skills subjects beyond AA whose syllabuses this guide does not verify, download each subject's own syllabus and study guide. ACCA's exam support resources page is the single starting point that links to every current edition.

Practical next steps: confirm your exam entries and deadlines with ACCA directly, download the current syllabuses and examinable documents, work through the practice platform, and use the links below for extra practice and targeted study guides.

• Confirm the syllabus edition for each exam you plan to sit.
• Read the summary of changes in each syllabus before reusing old notes.
• Complete a practice-platform session for every computer-based exam format you will face.

Official sources: Study support resources | ACCA Global — Exam support resources page; ACCA Audit and Assurance September 2025 to June 2026 syllabus and study guide — Full document, including sections 1–12

Official sources

Facts checked against official documents: Sep 18, 2026

• Study support resources | ACCA Global
• ACCA Audit and Assurance September 2025 to June 2026 syllabus and study guide

Next steps

• free Applied Skills practice test
• study guide library