Work Experience Requirement for CFP Certification

Download the Financial Planner Work Experience Standard.

To benefit and protect the public accessing the services of CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER professionals, and to promote professionalism among those seeking to use the CFP Marks, FPSB requires candidates for CFP certification to have worked in a financial planning-related position for a length of time that varies depending upon the amount and type of formal education the candidate has completed.

FPSB’s work experience requirement is defined as the supervision, direct support, teaching or personal delivery of all or part of the financial planning process to a client (i.e., someone who engages a practitioner and for whom professional services are rendered).

FPSB’s work experience requirement provides those interested in CFP certification with the opportunity to:

• enhance their existing knowledge, skills and abilities;
• improve the quality of their financial planning recommendations;
• develop a set of behaviors that will inform their professional practice of financial planning; and
• apply their financial planning knowledge in diverse and/or complex client situations.

Pro-bono experience is accepted as long as (1) there is a client and (2) the practitioner is acting as a financial planning professional who is capable and qualified to offer objective, integrated, and comprehensive financial advice to or for the benefit of individuals to help them achieve their financial objectives using the financial planning process.

Qualifying experience of candidates for CFP certification must fall into the following six primary elements of the financial planning process:

1. Establishing and defining the relationship with the client, including informing the client about financial planning and the financial planning professional's competencies; determining whether the financial planning professional can meet the client's needs, and defining the scope of the engagement.
2. Collecting the client's information, by identifying the client's personal and financial objectives, needs and priorities, collecting quantitative information and documents and collecting qualitative information.
3. Analyzing and assessing the client's financial status by analyzing the client's information and assessing the client's objectives, needs and priorities.
4. Developing the financial planning recommendations and presenting them to the client.
5. Implementing the client's financial planning recommendations after agreeing on implementation responsibilities and identifying and presenting products and services for implementation.
6. Reviewing the client's situation after agreeing on responsibilities and terms for review.

A candidate for CFP certification does not have to perform all the elements of the financial planning process to qualify as having met FPSB’s experience requirement; performing one or more of the primary elements is sufficient.