Free Tool · Study Planner
CFA Study Plan: Build Your Free Week-by-Week Study Planner.
Pick your CFA®, FRM® or ACCA® exam, start date and weekly hours to get a week-by-week plan with a feasibility check, shown after a short form.
Pick your CFA®, FRM® or ACCA® exam, start date and weekly hours to get a week-by-week plan with a feasibility check, shown after a short form.
Pick your exam and how many hours you can give each week. The planner splits your weeks into learn, practice and mock phases and checks them against the official study-hours guidance.
Enter your details to see your full week-by-week plan now. It is free and takes 10 seconds.
Updated 10 October 2026 · Official figures checked in October 2026
Quick answer: A CFA study plan starts with CFA Institute's own benchmark: successful candidates report spending over 300 hours on average preparing for each level. Divide those hours by the weeks before your exam. Spend a little over half your weeks learning topics in line with their exam weights. Give about a quarter to practice questions and the last 15–20% to full mock exams. Illustrative example: 25 weeks at 12 hours a week gives 300 hours.
The planner above does this maths for the CFA® (Chartered Financial Analyst), FRM® (Financial Risk Manager) and ACCA® (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) exams. It also tells you if your hours fall short.
Plan for at least 300 hours per CFA level. CFA Institute says successful candidates report spending over 300 hours on average preparing for each level. So treat 300 as a floor, not a number to shave. For the FRM, GARP (the Global Association of Risk Professionals, which runs the exam) says candidates spend about 240 hours on average. ACCA publishes no official hours.
Think of the benchmark like the cooking time on a recipe. You can check early, but halving it rarely gives the same result.
| Exam | What the official body says | What the planner uses |
|---|---|---|
| CFA, each level | "Over 300 hours on average" (CFA Institute) | 300 hours |
| FRM | "About 240 hours" on average; a survey range of under 100 to over 400 hours (GARP, not split by part) | 240 hours for the part you plan |
| ACCA, each paper | No official figure | Your own target |
Only CFA Institute and GARP publish a study-hours figure; for ACCA you set your own number.
Already studied some topics? Tick them in the planner. It assumes covered work still needs half its usual time, for practice and revision. That is the planner's own rule, not an official one.
Split your hours by each topic's official exam weight. CFA Institute gives every Level I topic a weight range, such as 11–14% for Fixed Income. The planner takes the middle of each range and shares your hours in that ratio. Big topics get more time. No topic is skipped, because every topic can appear on the exam.
| CFA Level I topic (2027 exams) | Exam weight | Share of 300 hours (illustrative) |
|---|---|---|
| Ethical and Professional Standards | 10–15% | 36.5 h |
| Quantitative Methods | 11–14% | 36.5 h |
| Economics | 6–9% | 22 h |
| Financial Statement Analysis | 11–14% | 36.5 h |
| Corporate Finance | 6–9% | 22 h |
| Equities | 11–14% | 36.5 h |
| Fixed Income | 11–14% | 36.5 h |
| Derivatives and Risk Management | 6–9% | 22 h |
| Alternative Investments | 6–9% | 22 h |
| Portfolio Construction | 8–12% | 29.5 h |
| Total | 300 h |
Five topics (Ethics, Quantitative Methods, Financial Statement Analysis, Equities and Fixed Income) take about 61% of your study time.
The 2027 table applies from the February 2027 window. The November 2026 exams still use the 2026 table, where Ethics is 15–20% and Quantitative Methods is 6–9%. The planner picks the right table from your exam window. For Levels II and III it uses the weights on CFA Institute's Level II and Level III exam pages.
A study plan works like training for a long race. First you learn the route: each topic, in order. Then you do practice runs: question sets, topic by topic. Last come race-pace rehearsals: full timed mock exams. The planner gives learning a little over half your weeks, practice about a quarter, and mocks the last 15–20%.
Divide 300 hours by the weeks you can study, after setting aside one or two buffer weeks. With 24 study weeks, you need 12.5 hours a week. With 12 study weeks, you need 25 hours a week. That is hard to keep up beside college or a full-time job.
| Study weeks (after buffer weeks) | Hours a week to reach 300 hours |
|---|---|
| 12 weeks | 25 |
| 16 weeks | 18.75 (about 19) |
| 20 weeks | 15 |
| 24 weeks | 12.5 |
| 30 weeks | 10 |
Starting 24 study weeks out keeps CFA Level I near 12.5 hours a week; starting 12 weeks out doubles it.
Exam windows and registration deadlines change each year. Check the CFA exam dates page before you lock in a plan. The planner reads the same official windows and shows when its data was last checked.
Yes. Choose FRM Part I or Part II and the planner uses GARP's average of about 240 hours. GARP lists its topic areas openly, but its weights sit in a downloadable document, so the planner spreads hours evenly. For ACCA, pick your paper and enter your own target hours, because ACCA publishes none per paper.
"Short" means your planned hours are below 80% of what you need. "Tight" means 80–99%, and "on track" means 100% or more. These bands are the planner's own rule. You have four ways to close a gap: add weekly hours, use your buffer weeks, tick topics you already know, or move to a later exam window.
Illustrative example: 17 planned weeks at 10 hours a week gives 170 hours, which is 57% of 300. That is short. Adding 8 hours a week (18 in total) closes the gap. Moving to a window about 30 weeks away, at the same 10 hours a week, gives about 282 planned hours. You would still add an hour or so a week.
CFA Institute says successful candidates report spending over 300 hours on average preparing for each level. Use 300 hours as your minimum. Add more if finance or maths is new to you.
At 12 hours a week, 300 hours takes 25 weeks, so start about six months before your exam window. At 20 hours a week, 15 weeks is enough. Add one or two buffer weeks on top.
GARP says candidates spend about 240 hours studying on average. In a GARP survey, study times ranged from under 100 to over 400 hours. GARP does not split the figure by part, so the planner uses 240 hours for the part you choose.
GARP publishes its topic weights inside a downloadable Learning Objectives document. We could not confirm them on GARP's open web pages in October 2026, so the planner splits hours evenly. Check GARP's document and move hours to heavier or weaker areas.
ACCA does not publish official study hours per paper. Enter your own target in the planner, based on your tutor's advice or your pace on earlier papers. The planner then checks whether your weeks and weekly hours reach it.
A buffer week is a spare week with no new topics. It absorbs illness, college exams or a busy week at work. The planner puts buffer weeks just before your mock exams, so anything that slipped gets finished first.
Yes. After the short form you can download a calendar file (.ics) with a milestone for every week, your exam date and key registration dates. It opens in Google Calendar, Apple Calendar and Outlook. You can also download a PDF or share the plan on WhatsApp.
No. QuintEdge built this free planner from figures published by CFA Institute, GARP and ACCA, checked in October 2026. Always confirm exam dates and rules on the official websites before you register.
This free planner is not an official CFA Institute, GARP or ACCA tool. It uses figures published by those bodies, checked in October 2026. Exam dates and rules can change, so confirm them on the official websites. Study-hour benchmarks are averages reported by candidates, not a guarantee of any result. CFA Institute does not endorse, promote or warrant the accuracy or quality of the products or services offered by QuintEdge. CFA® and Chartered Financial Analyst® are registered trademarks owned by CFA Institute. GARP does not endorse, promote, review, or warrant the accuracy of the products or services offered by QuintEdge of FRM® related information, nor does it endorse any pass rates claimed by the provider. Further, GARP is not responsible for any fees or costs paid by the user to QuintEdge nor is GARP responsible for any fees or costs of any person or entity providing any services to QuintEdge. FRM®, GARP®, and Global Association of Risk Professionals™ are trademarks owned by the Global Association of Risk Professionals, Inc. ACCA® is a registered trademark of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants.
