1.3 Eligibility, Registration, Passport, and PSM

Administrative readiness is exam readiness

Level I preparation begins before the first formula. You must be eligible to register, able to prove identity, able to sit in an authorized center, and able to complete the Practical Skills Module (PSM). These are not study trivia — each one independently controls whether you can test and whether you receive results.

The three eligibility routes

CFA Institute offers three ways to qualify for Level I registration:

1. Bachelor's degree (or equivalent) — you have completed a bachelor's program or its equivalent.
2. Undergraduate window rule — you are an enrolled undergraduate and your chosen exam window begins 23 months or fewer before your graduation month.
3. Work and education combination — you have accumulated 4,000 hours of professional work experience and/or higher education over at least three sequential years by the registration date.

For the combination route, work and education dates cannot overlap in the hour count, and higher education is generally credited at about 1,000 hours per year. If your eligibility depends on this path, keep dated records rather than estimating casually.

Passport control

The identification rule is unforgiving: a CFA Program candidate must present a valid international travel passport to sit. No other document substitutes for it on exam day, regardless of how official it is for daily life. The name on the passport must match your CFA Institute registration. Renewals, name changes after marriage, damaged document pages, and short-dated expirations all become expensive emergencies if discovered the week before the exam. Build passport checkpoints into your calendar at 180, 90, and 30 days before the window.

The Practical Skills Module

The PSM is a mandatory online learning module — not the multiple-choice exam — and you must complete at least one PSM at each level to receive your exam results. Level I currently offers modules such as Financial Modeling and Python Programming Fundamentals; you choose one. Expect roughly 10 to 20 hours. You may start the PSM as soon as you register, so do not leave it as a post-exam surprise. Treating it as applied learning (real modeling or coding workflows) reinforces curriculum knowledge instead of being a box to tick.

Registration sequence

1. Confirm eligibility in writing.
2. Verify passport status and name match.
3. Choose a window that fits work, family, study hours, and any retake spacing.
4. Register during the early fee period if your window is realistic.
5. Schedule the Prometric appointment and protect PSM time on the calendar.

The most common administrative failure is assuming content knowledge will solve logistics. It will not. Put registration, passport, PSM, appointment, and policy checks in the same planner as your readings and mocks — the program rewards disciplined preparation in both arenas.

Worked eligibility example: the combination route

Maya finished two years of university (no degree) and has worked full time for two years. Does she qualify? Count the hours: higher education credits at about 1,000 hours per year, so two years gives 2,000 hours. Two years of full-time work at roughly 2,000 hours per year adds 4,000 hours, but the periods overlapped only if she studied and worked in the same calendar months. Because the combination route requires that education and work dates not overlap in the count, she must use only non-overlapping time.

If her study years and work years were sequential and span at least three sequential years, and the non-overlapping total reaches 4,000 hours, she qualifies; if they ran concurrently, she likely does not yet. The lesson: do the arithmetic with real dates before paying, because an eligibility rejection after payment is a costly, avoidable error.

Attempt limits and deferral strategy

Level I permits a maximum of six attempts, and where two sittings per calendar year are offered they are subject to spacing limits — you cannot register for two adjacent windows back to back without the required gap. This interacts directly with the pass-rate data: candidates testing after at least one deferral passed at only 30% in February 2026, versus 50% for first-timers. Deferring resets your momentum and often signals incomplete preparation, so plan to defer only for genuine emergencies, not as a routine hedge.

Choose a window you can realistically complete on the first attempt, and reserve your finite attempt budget rather than spending it casually.

Passport edge cases worth checking now

Three passport problems recur every cycle: a passport that expires before the exam date (some centers also flag passports near expiry), a name mismatch between the passport and your registration (common after marriage or transliteration differences), and physical damage to the photo or data page. Any of these can deny admission with no refund. Resolve them at the 180-day checkpoint, when renewal timelines are still comfortable, rather than discovering the problem in the lobby on exam morning.