2026 Level I weights · checked Sep 19, 2026
Every Level I subject's exam weight, how many of the 180 questions it is worth, and how to split roughly 300 study hours so the heavy subjects get the hours they deserve.
Ethical & Professional Standards alone is 15–20% — about 32 questions.
Based on CFA Master registered accounts and sign-in countries, September 2026.
Quick answer
The 2026 CFA Level 1 exam weights are Ethical & Professional Standards 15–20%, Quantitative Methods 6–9%, Economics 6–9%, Financial Statement Analysis 11–14%, Corporate Issuers 6–9%, Equity Investments 11–14%, Fixed Income 11–14%, Derivatives 5–8%, Alternative Investments 7–10%, Portfolio Management 8–12%. Ethical & Professional Standards (15–20%), Financial Statement Analysis, Equity Investments and Fixed Income (11–14% each) together make up about 55% of the 180 questions. CFA Institute publishes each weight as a range, so the exact number of questions per topic varies from one exam window to the next.
2 sessions of 90, 135 minutes each — about 90 seconds a question.
Weights are published as ranges. Ethics is the single heaviest topic; Derivatives the lightest.
Ethics, FSA, Equity Investments, Fixed Income together are over half the marks.
Sorted heaviest first. Click a topic to open its subject guide and learning modules.
| Topic | Exam weight | Questions (of 180) | Study hours (of ~300) | Modules | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ethical & Professional Standards | 15–20% | 27–36 (≈32) | ≈53 h | 5 | High weight |
| Financial Statement Analysis | 11–14% | 20–25 (≈23) | ≈38 h | 9 | High weight |
| Equity Investments | 11–14% | 20–25 (≈23) | ≈38 h | 6 | High weight |
| Fixed Income | 11–14% | 20–25 (≈23) | ≈38 h | 5 | High weight |
| Portfolio Management | 8–12% | 14–22 (≈18) | ≈30 h | 3 | Medium weight |
| Alternative Investments | 7–10% | 13–18 (≈15) | ≈26 h | 3 | Medium weight |
| Quantitative Methods | 6–9% | 11–16 (≈14) | ≈23 h | 11 | Lower weight |
| Economics | 6–9% | 11–16 (≈14) | ≈23 h | 8 | Lower weight |
| Corporate Issuers | 6–9% | 11–16 (≈14) | ≈23 h | 7 | Lower weight |
| Derivatives | 5–8% | 9–14 (≈12) | ≈20 h | 2 | Lower weight |
CFA Institute publishes weights as ranges; the exact mix varies by exam window. Question counts are the range applied to 180 questions, and hours are the midpoint applied to the ~300 hours successful candidates report — use them for proportion, not precision.
Every learning module, grouped by subject and ordered by exam weight. Tick modules off in the dashboard and it keeps your cheat sheets, flashcards and quiz scores against the same list.
Priority 1
15–20% · ≈32 questions · ≈53 hours
Rule: Never leave these to the end — together they are more than half the exam.
Priority 2
11–14% · ≈23 questions · ≈38 hours
Rule: Never leave these to the end — together they are more than half the exam.
Priority 3
11–14% · ≈23 questions · ≈38 hours
Rule: Never leave these to the end — together they are more than half the exam.
Priority 4
11–14% · ≈23 questions · ≈38 hours
Rule: Never leave these to the end — together they are more than half the exam.
Priority 5
8–12% · ≈18 questions · ≈30 hours
Rule: Worth a full pass and a second look at the formulas before the exam.
Priority 6
7–10% · ≈15 questions · ≈26 hours
Rule: Worth a full pass and a second look at the formulas before the exam.
Priority 7
6–9% · ≈14 questions · ≈23 hours
Rule: Cover once, do the questions, and let the mock exam tell you whether to return.
Priority 8
6–9% · ≈14 questions · ≈23 hours
Rule: Cover once, do the questions, and let the mock exam tell you whether to return.
Priority 9
6–9% · ≈14 questions · ≈23 hours
Rule: Cover once, do the questions, and let the mock exam tell you whether to return.
Priority 10
5–8% · ≈12 questions · ≈20 hours
Rule: Cover once, do the questions, and let the mock exam tell you whether to return.
Free account, no card needed. Progress saves module by module.
Weights answer three planning questions. They do not tell you what to skip — nothing is skippable.
Quantitative Methods and FSA come first because the investment subjects reuse their maths and ratios. After that, give the four heavy subjects the biggest blocks and leave Ethics for last so it is freshest on exam day.
The table's hours column is ~300 hours split by weight. An accountant can cut FSA hours; a career changer should add to Fixed Income and Derivatives. Keep the total, move the shares.
A 55% in Derivatives costs you about six questions; a 55% in Ethics costs about fourteen. After every mock, revise the subject with the largest weight-adjusted gap, not the lowest raw score.
Study each subject from your curriculum or provider, capture what matters in editable cheat sheets and the formula sheet, and revise the heavy subjects from your own repository before the exam.
Applying the published weight ranges to 180 questions gives roughly: Ethical & Professional Standards 27–36, Quantitative Methods 11–16, Economics 11–16, Financial Statement Analysis 20–25, Corporate Issuers 11–16, Equity Investments 20–25, Fixed Income 20–25, Derivatives 9–14, Alternative Investments 13–18, Portfolio Management 14–22. The exact mix is fixed per exam form and is not disclosed, so treat these as planning ranges.
Ethical & Professional Standards, at 15–20%. It is also the tiebreaker CFA Institute uses for borderline scores, which makes it the single most valuable topic to be strong in.
Rarely, and usually by a point or two on one or two topics when CFA Institute restructures the curriculum. Check the published table once per cycle; the ranges on this page were last checked on the date shown above.
No. Derivatives is 5–8%, about 9–14 questions — more than the margin most candidates fail by. Cover every topic once; use the weights to decide where second and third passes go, not what to leave out.
Start from the ~300 hours successful candidates report and split it in proportion to the weight midpoints: about 53 hours for Ethical & Professional Standards, 38 each for Financial Statement Analysis, Equity Investments and Fixed Income, and less for the rest. Then adjust for your background — an accountant needs fewer FSA hours, a career changer needs more Fixed Income.