Guide 02 · Requirements

APEGA CPD requirements: what you actually have to do each year

Last reviewed: September 3, 2026 · Checked against the Continuing Professional Development practice standard v2.0, the PACE practice guideline v1.0, and APEGA’s September 2026 notice on CPD enforcement

Independent guide. PaceTracker is not affiliated with APEGA. Requirements can change — always confirm against APEGA’s official documents, linked at the end.

APEGA’s revised Continuing Professional Development practice standard took effect on November 1, 2025, and it changed the shape of the obligation: no more counting hours. The standard now comprises two separate and distinct annual components — the learning modules and the PACE plan — and compliance is about completing them and being able to show your records, not about accumulating a number. One date has been added since: starting November 1, 2026, the revised standard becomes enforceable for each licensed professional at their next annual renewal. This guide is the annual picture: the four things you have to do, the timeline they sit on, when enforcement begins, and what happens if you are reviewed or fall short.

The standard applies to all practising licensed professionals — professional engineers, professional geoscientists, professional licensees, and licensees. It does not apply to students, examination candidates, or members-in-training, and life members and non-practising professionals are outside its scope. One detail newly registered professionals often miss: the obligation begins on your date of registration, not at your first renewal.

01 Complete the assigned learning modules

Each year APEGA assigns learning modules in its online learning management system, and completing them is a requirement in itself — separate from your CPD activities and impossible to substitute with them. The modules cover five knowledge areas: Authenticating Professional Work Products; Duty to Report; Ethical Practice; Regulatory; and Relying on the Work of Others and Outsourcing. They must be done by your CPD due date. In its September 2026 notice to licensed professionals, APEGA put a number on the effort: 6 to 8 hours in total, on average — small enough to schedule early in the period, large enough not to leave for the week before renewal.

Two details worth flagging. When you finish a module, the LMS issues a completion certificate — keep it. It is part of the written record you are required to maintain, and it is only submitted to APEGA if the Practice Review Board or an APEGA staff designate requests it. And if you are a Responsible Member, the Permit to Practice seminar every five years is a separate obligation under the General Regulation — it is not part of the CPD standard.

02 Create and follow a PACE plan

A new plan every year, revised within the year as soon as your role, responsibilities, or area of practice change enough that the existing plan no longer fits. The standard requires the plan to cover your current and any planned future practice areas, identify the skills and knowledge you need to maintain or enhance, hold the record of your completed activities, and be able to reasonably demonstrate to a professional peer who reviews it that it contributes to your continuing competence. What goes into each of the seven sections — and which are required versus recommended — is covered in our section-by-section guide.

03 Complete your CPD activities

At minimum, two per year: at least one Technical activity, and at least one from Regulatory, Ethical Practice, or Communication, Management, and Leadership. Every activity needs two companions in your record: a written explanation of how it contributed to your continuing competence, and supporting documentation as evidence of completion.

The floor is not the target. The standard itself puts the judgement on you: it is up to each professional to determine whether two activities can reasonably meet their continuing competence needs — and if your competence evaluation identified higher risks in your practice, the honest answer is usually more.

04 Declare by your CPD due date

By your CPD due date — the same date as your annual expiry — you declare, in the method APEGA specifies, that you created and followed a PACE plan and created the record of your completed activities. In practice the declaration happens in myAPEGA, and it can only be completed within the last two months of your CPD period. The plan itself is not submitted with the declaration: it stays in your records unless the Practice Review Board or APEGA staff request it.

— When enforcement starts

Two dates, and they are not the same. The revised standard took effect on November 1, 2025; from that point the new requirements were assigned to each licensed professional at their next annual renewal, and APEGA stated that compliance would be reviewed only after one full reporting period under the new rules. Starting November 1, 2026, the standard becomes enforceable — again for each licensed professional at their next annual renewal date. So the first period that is actually assessed depends on your renewal month: a November renewal is assessed on the period closing this fall, an April renewal on the period closing in spring 2027.

What enforcement means in practice is spelled out in APEGA’s September 2026 notice to licensed professionals: if the learning modules and the PACE declaration are not completed in myAPEGA by the renewal date, the CPD period is marked “non-compliant” in the registrant’s history with APEGA. That is the same registration history the Practice Review Board can look at — and it is the practical reason the record has to exist during the period rather than be reconstructed after it.

— If you report CPD in another jurisdiction

Since August 24, 2026, according to the same notice, a licensed professional whose residential address is outside Alberta, who practises mainly there, and who is registered with the engineering or geoscience regulator of that home jurisdiction can request an exemption from APEGA’s CPD requirements directly in myAPEGA. To qualify you must already be meeting your home regulator’s CPD requirements; if the request is granted, you continue to meet those instead of APEGA’s. APEGA frames this as part of the collaboration among Canada’s twelve engineering and geoscience regulators to reduce duplicate CPD reporting. Eligibility is APEGA’s decision: read the criteria in myAPEGA before submitting, and contact cpd@apega.ca if in doubt. For everyone reporting under PACE, nothing in this guide changes.

— What happened to CPD hours?

Nothing to log. The revised standard dropped the hour count entirely — APEGA describes the change as shifting the focus from the quantity of CPD hours to the quality of CPD activities. What you can no longer do is point at a number. What you must be able to do is show a plan, activities linked to it, and evidence for each one.

— If you are reviewed

The Practice Review Board administers the CPD program and can review your practice. It may request your PACE plans for the current year and multiple historic years, and it assesses them against the best practices in the PACE guideline. That is the practical reason to keep everything — previous plan versions, activity evidence, module certificates — organized and retrievable. You will be notified of the outcome of a review. How to be ready for one, in practice, is the subject of our review readiness guide.

— If you fall short

The standard is explicit about consequences. Failing to comply results in a loss of good standing, after which a PRB review may be initiated — and failing to provide adequate documentation during that review results in the cancellation of the professional’s registration. Documentation is not a formality here; it is the thing the process turns on.

If you are not practising full time, the standard’s own accommodation is to complete the learning modules and tailor your PACE plan to your circumstances. If that still does not work, contact APEGA rather than silently falling out of compliance — and note that APEGA specifically advises against entering non-practising status as a way around CPD, since returning to practice from it requires the Practice Review Board’s permission and may come with conditions.

— Quick answers