What ACCA, CIMA, CA India and the rest actually buy you in Australia — and why the membership list is not the migration list

There are two completely separate questions here and almost every summary online merges them. “Does CPA Australia recognise ACCA?” has one answer for membership and a different answer for a migration skills assessment, and the list that governs the first governs nothing about the second.

The short version: for membership, CPA Australia publishes 28 named bodies and CA ANZ publishes five pathway families; the two lists overlap only partly and each contains bodies the other omits. For a migration skills assessment, CPA Australia and CA ANZ publish no list of professional bodies at all — the gate is a degree — and IPA is the only one of the three that names bodies, eight of them, and still requires the degree.

The membership question

CPA Australia frames it as a streamlined route: “If you hold a designation with any of the professional bodies below, you may be able to access a streamlined pathway to membership with CPA Australia.” The published list runs to 28 bodies and includes ACCA, AICPA, CA ANZ, Chartered Accountants Ireland, CA Sri Lanka, CICPA, CIMA, CIPFA, CPA Canada, CPA Ireland, CFA Institute, HKICPA, IAI Indonesia, ICAB Bangladesh, ICAEW, ICAI India, ICAN Nepal, ICAS, ICMAP Pakistan, ICPAK Kenya, ISCA Singapore, MIA Malaysia, NASBA, PICPA Philippines, ROCCPA, SAICA and others.

The conditions are not uniform, and the variation is the useful part:

Body	Type of arrangement CPA Australia names	Does CPA Australia’s published condition require a degree?
ACCA	streamlined pathway	Yes — “hold a university degree recognised by CPA Australia as being at least comparable to Australian Bachelor degree level”, plus five consecutive years’ full membership
CIMA	Member Pathway Agreement	No degree condition published — completion of the CIMA professional qualification and its practical experience requirements
ICAEW	streamlined pathway	No degree condition published — all ICAEW exams, plus five consecutive years’ full membership
ICAI (India)	Mutual Recognition Agreement	Degree or experience — a degree at bachelor level “or have at least five years’ work experience in professional accounting”
CPA Canada	pathway (the MRA “expired on 30 June 2021”)	all exams or a recognised bachelor-level degree, plus five years’ membership
AICPA / NASBA	streamlined pathway	Yes — “hold a baccalaureate or higher degree”, plus the Uniform CPA Examinations and the State Board experience requirement
HKICPA	streamlined pathway	a degree recognised by HKICPA or by CPA Australia; QP registration on or after 1 July 2005
MIA (Malaysia)	Memorandum of Understanding	Yes, plus either 10 years’ membership and 10 years’ experience, or 5 and 5

Three things in that table are worth stopping on. The ICAI arrangement is the only one where professional experience can stand in for a degree — and CPA Australia adds that an ICAI member admitted under the MRA “must retain their membership with the original membership body.” The CPA Canada line is a live example of an arrangement that lapsed and was replaced by something narrower. And MIA is an MOU rather than an MRA, landing successful applicants at Associate level with CPA Program subjects still outstanding.

CA ANZ organises membership recognition differently — five published pathway families rather than one long list: Global Accounting Alliance member bodies, ACCA, the International Pathway Program, MICPA, and ISCA/ICAZ. It adds: “If you’re a member of another accounting body not listed above, please email us to check your eligibility and requirements.”

The GAA reciprocal route covers AICPA, ICAEW, CPA Canada (CA, CMA and CGA members), ICAS, Chartered Accountants Ireland, HKICPA and SAICA, for members who “qualified through the standard examination pathway”. CA ANZ notes that although the alliance has ten member bodies, “We do not have GAA reciprocity with JICPA or IDW.”

The International Pathway Program is the route for South Asian chartered accountants, and it is not a paper exercise: “The International Pathway Program (IPP) is fast track route for CAs from ICAI, ICAP, CASL, ICAB and ICAN to become a member of CA ANZ. It is a three or four day workshop, which includes a weekend”. Its published conditions include five years’ post-membership experience “including a period in a senior position such as manager, senior manager, partner, or director”, and — the condition that stops most applicants — “Currently live in Australia or New Zealand.” The same residency condition attaches to CA ANZ’s ACCA pathway.

The four asymmetries between the two lists

These are documented absences, not oversights on our part, and they matter if you are choosing which body to join:

1. CIMA has a CPA Australia Member Pathway Agreement and appears on no CA ANZ pathway we could find.
2. ICAP (Pakistan) has a CA ANZ route through the International Pathway Program and does not appear on CPA Australia’s list. ICMAP, a different Pakistani body, appears on CPA Australia’s list and not on CA ANZ’s.
3. MIA (Malaysian Institute of Accountants) has a CPA Australia MOU. CA ANZ lists MICPA — the Malaysian Institute of Certified Public Accountants — which is a different organisation. These two are routinely conflated in third-party guides.
4. CA ANZ adds a warning that applies to every one of its membership routes: “Being admitted as a CA ANZ member does not automatically grant you statutory audit rights.”

The migration question, which is a different question

Here the lists stop being relevant.

CA ANZ states the rule in one sentence: “To apply for a migration skills assessment, you must hold a qualification that is comparable to an Australian Bachelor’s degree or higher.” Professional membership enters only through a narrow door: “If you are a full member in good standing from a recognised professional accounting body listed in CEP or UK ENIC as comparable an AQF Bachelor’s degree, your studies may be considered.” And then the closing condition: “If you are not a full member, you must hold a qualification awarded at Australian Qualification Framework (AQF) Bachelor’s Degree, or its overseas equivalent.”

Its FAQ answers the two questions people actually have, without hedging. Can work experience be assessed without formal qualifications? “No.” Does membership exempt you from producing academic records? “Yes, membership in a recognised accounting body does not exempt you from presenting tertiary qualifications.” And for part-qualified applicants: “I am a student or provisional member of a recognised accounting body and do not hold another qualification comparable to an Australian Bachelor’s degree. Can I apply? No.”

Note what CA ANZ has done here. It names no bodies for migration at all; it delegates the whole question to the Country Education Profiles and UK ENIC, neither of which publishes free. So “is ACCA recognised by CA ANZ for migration?” cannot be answered from CA ANZ’s own website — only from a reference you would have to buy. We have not bought it and we are not going to guess at its contents. The same paywall problem is documented in the Country Education Profiles paywall and its free alternatives.

CPA Australia publishes no list of recognised professional bodies for migration either, and — unlike CA ANZ and IPA — publishes no explicit statement that a professional qualification alone is insufficient. What it does publish is the document list, which treats professional qualifications as evidence rather than as an entry ticket: “Professional body qualifications (if applicable) — Official membership certificate; Official examination results/marksheets, including transcripts from prior studies if you’ve received exemptions for any of your professional body examinations. Please provide examination results for all levels you have completed or have been exempted from.” The operative gate remains the degree one: “You must hold a qualification that we assess to be an equivalent to at least an Australian bachelor’s degree.” Do not repurpose CPA Australia’s 28-body membership list as a migration list; CPA Australia does not present it as one.

IPA is the only body of the three that names bodies for migration:

“We will consider the studies you have successfully completed from the following list of global professional accounting bodies if you were admitted into Associate membership obtained through a program of study and examinations and practical training.”

The eight are ACCA (UK); CIMA (UK); ICAEW; ICAI (India); ICAP (Pakistan); ICAS; the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka; and ICMAP (Pakistan). Read the condition carefully: IPA will consider the studies, for admission gained through study, examination and practical training. It is not a waiver. IPA’s own FAQ closes the door on the obvious hope: “I do not have a comparable Australian Bachelor degree, or a bachelor degree at all, will I still be eligible to apply? No.”

Notice which bodies are not on IPA’s migration list although CPA Australia recognises them for membership: HKICPA, AICPA, CPA Canada and MIA Malaysia.

The mirror-image question, where two bodies contradict each other

Does a successful migration skills assessment get you membership? The two bodies that answer publicly give opposite answers.

IPA: “If your qualification is assessed as being at the appropriate level and meets the compulsory core competency areas, a ‘Suitable’ assessment letter for migration will be issued and you are eligible to become an Associate (AIPA) member.”

CA ANZ: “The migration skills assessment is for visa purposes and job application only. It does not meet the entry requirements for the CA Program or Membership.”

CPA Australia publishes no statement either way on the pages we read. This is not a contradiction to be resolved — it is two organisations making different policy about their own membership, and both are entitled to. But it does mean the sentence “a skills assessment gets you into the profession” is true at one body and false at another, which is why we treat the two as separate gates throughout: assessment, licence and admission.

So what should you actually do

Decide which question you are asking before you read any list. If you want to practise and hold an Australian designation, you are on the membership track and the 28-body and five-family lists are the right documents — read the specific body’s page, because the conditions differ sharply between them and two of the CA ANZ routes require you to already live in Australia or New Zealand. If you need an assessment for skilled migration, stop reading membership lists: the gate is a degree comparable to an Australian bachelor’s, at all three bodies, and your professional exams are supporting evidence rather than a substitute. Then work through the competency areas, which are seven or eight depending on occupation and not nine — see the accounting competency areas compared.

What this page does not do

It does not tell you whether you personally qualify under any arrangement, and none of these bodies pre-assesses informally. Every list and condition above was read from the bodies’ own published pages on 3 September 2026; none of those pages carries a visible “last updated” date, and arrangements between professional bodies change — CPA Australia’s own page records one that expired in 2021. Check the live page for your body before acting. For visa questions go to the Department of Home Affairs or a registered migration agent; this site does not provide migration advice.