CFP Board faces backlash over expanding continuing education business

The CFP Board is drawing criticism from the advisor community after prominent financial planner and content creator Michael Kitces raised concerns about the credentialing body using fees to build an in-house continuing education (CE) business that competes with its paid members.

CFP certificate holders, of which there are more than 107,000 in the U.S., are required to complete 30 hours of CE programming every two years to maintain their certified financial planner (CFP) certification. The CFP Board charges approved CE providers a reporting fee of up to $1.25 per CE hour/credit for the programs they offer. Starting next year, the CFP Board is raising its required CE standard from 30 to 40 hours every two years. 

Kitces, who offers CE programming through his website, made a recent LinkedIn post that claimed “the CFP Board implemented fees on CE providers to generate revenue to hire their own people at CFP Board to compete against the CE providers,” in reference to fee increases and the nonprofit's recent hire of Ben Roberts as managing director of program development. Kitces also serves as head of planning strategy at Focus Partners Wealth.

“To be fair, the new reporting fees originally had stated objectives of public awareness, workforce development, advisor diversity and research, consumer research on the impact of planning, and enforcement,” Kitces wrote. “Yet now they appear to be getting repurposed, to allow CFP Board to compete against its CE providers instead.”

The CFP Board reiterated its plans to produce its own CE programming in addition to supporting the more than 1,200 CE sponsor providers it partners with, saying it is investing in services and technology to assist CE providers’ registration and program maintenance, according to a statement sent to InvestmentNews.

“CFP Board will continue to offer CE in connection with the content we develop, as part of our commitment to supporting CFP professionals. At the same time, we remain focused on developing programs, products, and services that add value for our certificants and we are committed to working alongside the CE provider community, who together meet the demand for millions of hours of continuing education each year.”

As of October 2025, the CFP Board raised its annual certificate fee from $455 to $575, a 26 percent increase used to fund an annual advertising campaign. Separate to its annual certificate fee, the CFP Board charges CE providers a tiered reporting fee that ranges from 50 cents to $1.25 per CE hour, depending on the volume of CE hours reported. The current tiered fee structure for CE providers was implemented in 2022.

“It seems like [CFP Board] instituted that cost, they raised that cost, and now they're going to be bringing it in house,” said Justin Stevens, president O’Keefe Stevens Advisory. “It’s like a fox watching the chicken coop kind of thing. They should be the people who are upholding the stance for quality control, but how do you police yourself?”

Many advisors engaged in agreement with the critiques raised by Kitces, with his post garnering over 460 likes and 160 comments. “I'm truly mystified how their Board of Directors could vote 'yes' on something so egregiously conflicted as the CFP Board going into direct competition with the CE providers it regulates,” wrote Kitces, who added that his CE provider costs paid to the CFP Board have increased from $13,000 to $90,000 over the past three years.

“The CFP gets paid on both sides of it, and they can afford to be cheaper because they don't have to pay the $1.25 per CE,” said Gabriel Shahin, founder of the California-based RIA Falcon Wealth Planning. “Heck, those days of free CEs may be gone. You lose money to do free CEs. So they literally created a whole new market for it.”

Kevin Keller has been CEO of the CFP Board since 2007 but is set to retire soon. Current chief operating officer K. Dane Snowden will replace Keller as CEO in March. Stevens, whose independent RIA manages $600 million in assets, says CFP Board certification remains critical as the industry’s top credentialing body, despite his sentiment of advisors getting “nickel and dimed every step of the way” amid the cost increases over the past few years.

"The CFP Board did do a big push for consumer awareness for CFPs that I thought was a really good use of additional dollars over the last couple of years, so there is some tangible evidence that they're doing good things with member fees," said Stevens. "I would love some more transparency to see where member money goes. Maybe it's out there, and I just don't know about it, but I'm unaware that granular detail exists for CFP members."

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated how CFP Board’s CE reporting fees are charged and calculated. CE reporting fees are paid by CE providers on a tiered basis, not by certificants.