ATFA Continuing Education Requirements

Submitting Continuing Education Via The ATFA CE App

Note:  The ATFA CE App and detailed instructions as to its usage will be available in December 2024.

Ongoing Continuing Education Requirements

Holders of the ATFA Certification must complete forty-five hours of approved CE (for calculation purposes one hour equals sixty minutes) every three years in order to maintain their certification. The required core disciplines for CE credit are as follows:

  • Fiduciary and Trust activities
  • Financial planning
  • Tax law and planning
  • Investment management

We encourage you to attend the Trust Advisors Forum at Pinehurst. Doing so every year will meet all your ATFA CE requirements. If you attend the Trust Advisors Forum, you should record your participation in the CE App by selecting Trust Advisors Forum from the course dropdown and save your entry. The CE App itself streamlines your CE management, helping you stay compliant and on track with ease. For more details, refer to the CE App Usage Guide on tracking and recording your courses.

CE App Usage Guide

For other continuing education (CE) activities, follow the same process: Record your CE within the CE App and ensure you tag the required topics (core disciplines) correctly so that the courses count towards your total ATFA CE requirements. The core disciplines will appear as a dropdown where you select relevant ones for the CE you’re recording. Note that in submitting CE, the ATFA holder should submit for review within the CE App a timed agenda, speaker bio(s), topic description(s) and proof of attendance as to any CE program NOT on the dropdown preapproved program list.

Failure to meet the ATFA CE requirements will result in loss of the certification and the need to resubmit as well to pay an additional application fee and any annual renewal fees for the lapsed period in order to be recertified for ATFA purposes.

If you have any questions, please email patrick.alyward@hotmail.com