CFA Program Refund Policy | Student Portal

To make the candidates feel pleasant, the CFA Institute provides the Refund Policy Program. This program allows the candidates to get a refund of their enrollment and registration fees if they accidentally should cancel their registration.

Keep in mind, the refund policy program has a certain period, so it would be better for you to know the period of refund, so you can prepare it beforehand. If you happen to cancel your CFA enrolment but you do not know when the best time to do so is, you can dive into our post to find the real information about it. Let’s check it out!

Get to Know About CFA Program Refund Policy

The period to pay a full refund of your enrolment fee, registration fees and any other sales tax payable that should be paid by the candidates who submit an initial registration for a CFA exam in their country of residence is available within 14 days of payment.

However, an initial registration does not include a registration that is made to reschedule an exam sitting that was either deferred by the candidate or postponed by CFA Institute. Because of fluctuating exchange rates, CFA Institute cannot guarantee the exact amount that is paid to CFA Institute will be the amount returned in currency other than US currency.

Once the 14-days period has ended, registration and enrolment fees are non-refundable, even in the event of a medical condition or other extreme circumstance. It’s important to note, registration and enrolment fees are non-transferrable.

Payments for print curriculum orders are non-refundable after the order has been placed. Furthermore, CFA Institute strongly advises the candidates against requesting a refund for an exam under those policies in an attempt to get a larger refund.

How Long Is the Refund Period?

A full refund of your registration and enrollment fees will be available within 14-days of payment (through 11:59 P.M Eastern Time on the fourteenth day if you decide to cancel your registration.

If you want to cancel your registration, you can use the self-service link you can access here. to get a refund within the 14-day period.

After that, the enrollment and registration fees are non-refundable. If you cancel your registration, CFA Institute will replace the USD amount which was originally paid. But, because of fluctuating exchange rates, CFA Institute will not guarantee that the exact amount that you paid in any currency other than US currency will be the amount returned to you.

Get to Know About Postpone Candidate Refunds

According to the terms of the Candidate Agreement, refunds will be not normally offered after registration has been accepted. Because of the extraordinary global circumstances surrounding Covid-19, the candidates twice impacted by CFA Institute exam cancellations, since the pandemic of Covid-19 have the option to defer again or to request a refund.

In this case, all fees that are paid with your original registration are refunded. Of course, it also applies to scholarship candidates as well. The details of scholarship will be informed to all eligible candidates through email.

If your registration is cancelled because of Covid-19 and you take advantage of the complimentary deferral in your account, the action is actually binding and you will forfeit your right to request a refund. Additionally, it will take up to 120 days from the date the refund request window closes to process your request because of the extraordinary nature of this situation.

What Happens If You Should Cancel Your CFA Exam?

It’s important to know what your options are and how to proceed with the cancellation if you accidentally have to cancel your CFA exam. You can request a withdrawal of your exam registration up to 5 days before the start of their exam window. However, you may not be eligible for any enrollment or registration fee refunds if you select to cancel your CFA exam.

In this case, the fees may also not be eligible for deferral to a future exam. You definitely cannot re-register for the next exam until the results of the current exam are released, which is around 60 days after the exam date if you don’t withdraw your registration 5 days before the start of the exam window.

When to defer your CFA exam? Instead of cancelling your CFA Exam, you may have the option to defer your CFA exam. In fact, there are some handful of accepted reasons for deferral including a death in the immediate family, a Covid-19 diagnosis, a natural disaster, pregnancy or also mandatory military service.

You can find a full list of the CFA Institute’s accepted reasons here. Of course, all deferral requests will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

How to defer your CFA exam? You will be required to fill out a deferral request form to defer your CFA exam. Well, those forms are only available for CFA candidates which have existing CFA exams scheduled.

At the beginning of 2022, exam documentations are really required for most deferral requests that may take up to 6 weeks for your deferral request to be processed. Furthermore, your exam appointment is still active during the testing window. That means the communication about the exam will probably continue while your deferral is being processed.

What Happens If Your Exam Is Cancelled and Not Rescheduled?

If your CFA exam is cancelled, you will gain a notification from Prometric via email from donotreply@prometric.com. You may also need to label this email address as a safe sender, so that it doesn’t make it back into your junk email.

CFA Institute will then contact you to offer you more options within 15 days of the cancellation. They will advise you of the next available testing window. Of course, you can re-register for each of those testing windows until the registration deadline. For example, if you select the November 2021 exam, you will have until July 20th to register.

If necessary, you can contact CFA Institute by making a phone call or sending an email: