Level I of the CFA® Program: the 2027 topic weights and what they mean

The first five areas form session 1, the last five session 2. In brackets: our rough question count, the range multiplied by 180 and rounded.

Four ranges moved; Economics, Financial Statement Analysis, Corporate Finance, Equities, Fixed Income and Portfolio Construction keep their 2026 ranges.

Corporate Issuers became Corporate Finance, Equity Investments became Equities, Derivatives became Derivatives and Risk Management, and Portfolio Management became Portfolio Construction. The 2027 outline still heads the derivatives area simply "Derivatives"; it is the same area. On content, Quantitative Methods was reorganised and gains a reading on data science, AI and large language models, Equities was substantially updated, and Ethics now follows version 12 of the Standards of Practice Handbook. Older study material may not cover these changes.

A range is not a fixed quota. The question counts above are our own arithmetic; CFA Institute does not disclose how many points each topic carries, and every question has the same weight. What the ranges do show is concentration: Ethics, Quantitative Methods, Financial Statement Analysis, Equities and Fixed Income together account for 54–71% of the exam, roughly 97 to 128 questions.

Successful candidates report more than 300 study hours on average per level. On a 300-hour basis, an 11–14% area suggests about 33–42 hours and a 6–9% area about 18–27 hours. Adjust for your background: an accountant may need less time for financial reporting, an engineer less for quantitative work.

Ethics drops from about 27–36 to 18–27 questions but remains one of the larger areas, and its questions reward careful reading. Quantitative Methods almost doubles, from about 11–16 to 20–25 questions, so budget more time there than 2026-era plans did.