Overview
Buying the wrong CE category is the most common reason customers contact Adviser CE support. It is also the easiest to avoid: a minute in FinPro before you buy tells you exactly which courses you need. This article explains how the annual requirement is split, how to check what you still owe, and which product to buy.
How the Annual Requirement Is Split
Per NASAA, every registered investment adviser representative must complete 12 CE credits each year, split into two halves that are tracked separately:
Category | Credits required each year |
Ethics & Professional Responsibility | 6 |
Products & Practices | 6 |
The two halves are not interchangeable. Completing 12 credits of Products & Practices does not satisfy the requirement — you would still be short all 6 Ethics credits, and you would have 6 Products & Practices credits that cannot be carried forward to next year.
Step 1: Check What You Actually Owe
Before purchasing, log in to your FinPro account and review your CE history. You are looking for which of the two categories still shows an outstanding requirement.
There are three possibilities:
You owe Ethics only — for example, your firm already provided Products & Practices training, or you completed that half elsewhere
You owe Products & Practices only
You owe both — the usual case at the start of a compliance year
If you have taken Adviser CE courses before, also review your Adviser CE dashboard, since a course you have already completed will not count a second time.
If you are also registered with a broker-dealer as a Registered Representative, check this first
Do not buy a Products & Practices bundle before checking whether you already satisfy it. Under the NASAA rules, an IAR who is dually registered with a broker-dealer as a Registered Representative may apply completed FINRA Regulatory Element CE — or FINRA's Maintaining Qualifications Program (MQP), which includes the Regulatory Element — toward the 6-credit Products & Practices component.
If that applies to you, you may owe only the 6 credits of Ethics & Professional Responsibility, and buying a 12-credit bundle would mean paying for a half you did not need. Completed Regulatory Element should be visible in your FinPro record, which is another reason to check it before purchasing.
The Ethics & Professional Responsibility component cannot be satisfied this way — no FINRA requirement substitutes for it. Firm training may qualify only where NASAA has approved it specifically; check with your compliance team rather than assuming.
Step 2: Buy the Matching Product
What you owe | What to buy |
Both halves (the full 12 credits) | |
Ethics & Professional Responsibility only | |
Products & Practices only | |
Products & Practices already covered by FINRA Regulatory Element or the MQP (dually registered) | Ethics & Professional Responsibility 6-Credit Bundle only — see above |
A specific number of credits to top up a partial deficiency | Individual courses — each course page lists its credit value and category |
Every bundle page lists the courses it contains, the credits each carries, and the category those credits count toward.
Bundles vs. Individual Courses
This is the second most common purchasing mistake, after buying the wrong category. The two look similar in the catalog but are not the same thing:
A bundle is a package of several courses sold together, covering a full 6 or 12 credits.
An individual course is one course, worth 1, 2, or 3 credits on its own.
Buying an individual course when you needed the bundle leaves you well short of your requirement — and because credits are reported per course, the shortfall is not obvious until you check FinPro.
Rule of thumb: if you owe a full 6 or 12 credits, buy the bundle. Only buy individual courses when you are closing a gap smaller than 6 credits.
If you bought an individual course and then also bought a bundle that contains it, the overlapping purchase is refundable as a duplicate — contact us with both order numbers. (That holds when both purchases are on the same account, which is the usual case here.)
Worked Examples
Your situation | What to buy |
New compliance year, nothing completed yet | 12-credit bundle |
FinPro shows 6/6 Products & Practices done, 0/6 Ethics | Ethics & Professional Responsibility 6-credit bundle |
Your firm provided Ethics training; you owe Products & Practices | Products and Practice 6-credit bundle |
You are dually registered and have completed FINRA Regulatory Element or the MQP | Ethics & Professional Responsibility 6-credit bundle — your Products & Practices half may already be satisfied |
You have 5 of 6 Ethics credits and need 1 more | A single 1-credit Ethics & Professional Responsibility course |
You need 2 more Products & Practices credits | One 2-credit course, or two 1-credit courses, in that category |
You completed our bundle last year and owe the full 12 again | This year's 12-credit bundle — editions share no courses, so nothing repeats |
When topping up a partial gap, check the category on the course page, not just the credit count. A 1-credit Products & Practices course does nothing for an Ethics deficiency.
Watch Out For These
Year editions are different courses. A course labeled 2026 Edition is a different course from the 2025 Edition of the same title, and both can be completed for credit. The year in the title identifies the edition; it does not restrict when you may complete the course. See Understanding Adviser CE Course Editions and Yearly Differences.
A course counts only once. Repeating a course you have already completed will not earn additional IAR CE credit, in the same year or a later one.
Excess credits do not carry forward. Credits earned beyond the 6 required in a category are not applied to the following year, so buying more than you owe does not bank anything for next year.
Your firm or state may require more. The 12-credit NASAA requirement is the baseline. Confirm any additional requirements with your firm's compliance team, and check state-specific requirements through NASAA: https://www.nasaa.org/industry-resources/investment-advisers/state-investment-adviser-registration-information/
Buying for a team? Volume discounts apply automatically based on the number of seats in a single order — no code needed. See Volume Discounts.
If You Have Already Bought the Wrong One
Contact us promptly. Refunds are available within 7 days of purchase provided less than 10% of the course has been completed. See Refunds, Cancellations, and Purchasing the Wrong Course.
Need Help?
If you are unsure which bundle matches your outstanding requirement, contact the Adviser CE support team at [email protected] with your CRD number and we can help you identify what you still need.