2.1 Education Standard, AXP Hours, Settings & Reporting Rules
Key Takeaways
- The AXP requires a minimum of 3,740 hours: PcM 160, PjM 360, PA 260, PPD 1,080, PDD 1,520, and CE 360.
- At least 1,860 hours must be earned in Setting A, under an AXP supervisor licensed in the United States or Canada.
- Setting O has no minimum but caps each opportunity individually, such as 320 hours for construction work and 40 hours for a mentor site visit.
- Since November 18, 2025, experience reported within one year earns 100% credit and older experience earns 75% credit with no age limit.
- A four-year pre-professional degree is not NAAB-accredited and does not by itself satisfy the education standard in most jurisdictions.
Licensure in the United States is granted by 55 jurisdictional boards, not by the federal government and not by NCARB. Every board builds its standard on the same three pillars — the Three E's: Education, Experience, and Examination — and NCARB administers the national programs that satisfy two of them.
Education: The NAAB-Accredited Degree
The benchmark education requirement in most jurisdictions is a professional degree accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB):
- Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch): a five-year undergraduate professional degree.
- Master of Architecture (M.Arch): a graduate professional degree, typically two years after a four-year pre-professional degree in architecture, or three-plus years for candidates entering from an unrelated undergraduate field.
- Doctor of Architecture (D.Arch): a professional doctorate offered by a small number of accredited programs.
A four-year pre-professional degree — a B.S. in Architecture or a B.A. in Architectural Studies — is not an accredited professional degree and does not by itself satisfy the education standard in most jurisdictions.
Alternatives to the Accredited Degree
- NCARB Education Alternative: allows candidates without an accredited degree to satisfy NCARB's Education Standard through a documented portfolio rather than a specific credential.
- Jurisdiction experience equivalency: several boards (California, New York, Washington among them) allow extended documented employment under a licensed architect in place of an accredited degree. These paths are set by the board, not by NCARB, so verify the rule in the jurisdiction you intend to enter.
Experience: The Architectural Experience Program (AXP)
The AXP requires a minimum of 3,740 documented hours across six experience areas that map one-to-one onto the six ARE divisions. That mapping is deliberate — work you do on Friday is meant to be testable content on the following Saturday.
| AXP experience area | Required hours | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Practice Management | 160 | Running a firm: business management, marketing, winning work, client relationships |
| Project Management | 360 | Delivering to contract: budgeting, coordinating, overseeing, executing a project |
| Programming & Analysis | 260 | Pre-design: client requirements, codes and zoning, site data, feasibility |
| Project Planning & Design | 1,080 | Schematic design: layout, code review, consultant coordination, client communication |
| Project Development & Documentation | 1,520 | Post-schematic: construction documents, regulatory approvals |
| Construction & Evaluation | 360 | Construction administration and post-construction: site visits, punch lists |
| TOTAL | 3,740 |
Source: NCARB, Your Guide to the AXP.
Note the shape of that table. PDD alone is 1,520 hours — 41% of the entire program, and PDD plus PPD is 2,600 hours, roughly 70%. PcM at 160 hours is the smallest by an order of magnitude. Candidates consistently finish PPD and PDD hours long before they finish PcM and PA hours.
Experience Settings
- Setting A — Architecture. Experience gained while employed by an architecture firm under an AXP supervisor licensed to practice architecture in the United States or Canada. You must earn at least 1,860 hours in Setting A. There is no maximum; all 3,740 hours may be Setting A.
- Setting O — Other Experience Opportunities. Everything else. There is no minimum for Setting O, but each opportunity carries its own maximum. Examples from NCARB's published table:
| Setting O opportunity | Where hours go | Maximum |
|---|---|---|
| Other work under licensed professionals (engineer, landscape architect, etc.) | Any experience area | Up to 1,860 hours |
| Design or construction related employment | Any experience area | Up to 320 hours |
| Community-based design center / collaborative | Any experience area | Up to 320 hours |
| Construction work | Construction & Evaluation | Up to 320 hours |
| Site visit with a mentor | Construction & Evaluation | Up to 40 hours |
| NCARB's Professional Conduct CE series | Construction & Evaluation | 40 hours |
The exam-relevant takeaway is the asymmetry: Setting A has a floor (1,860) and Setting O has ceilings. A candidate cannot assemble a complete AXP out of Setting O opportunities.
The Reporting Rule
NCARB's reporting policy changed on November 18, 2025, and the old eight-month/five-year framework is retired. Under the current rule:
- Experience submitted within one year of being gained earns 100% credit.
- Experience older than one year at the time of submission earns 75% credit, and there is no limit on how old that experience can be.
Hours previously credited at 50% under the retired policy were automatically increased to 75% for candidates who were not yet AXP complete. NCARB may grant a reasonable extension to the reporting policy in defined circumstances.
The practical consequence is unchanged even though the numbers moved: report promptly. A candidate who lets 1,000 hours age past a year converts them into 750 credited hours and has to work an extra 250 hours to make up the difference.
Supervisors and Mentors
Every reported hour must be approved by an AXP supervisor with direct knowledge of your work. A mentor is a separate, optional relationship used for specific Setting O opportunities such as site visits.
Exam Tip: AXP questions on PcM and PjM are rarely about the hour totals themselves. They are about who may supervise what, in which setting, and what happens to late-reported hours. Learn the 1,860-hour Setting A floor, the per-opportunity Setting O caps, and the one-year/100% versus older-than-one-year/75% reporting split.
An emerging professional is tracking AXP progress and has completed the hour requirement for every experience area except Project Development & Documentation. How many hours does that single area require, and what fraction of the 3,740-hour total is it?
A candidate has been working for two years under a licensed civil engineer rather than at an architecture firm, and has accumulated 2,000 hours. How do NCARB’s experience settings treat that work?
A candidate performed 800 hours of qualifying architecture firm work 18 months ago but never submitted the experience report. Under NCARB’s current reporting policy, how much AXP credit can those hours earn?