In a number of locations, you have the opportunity of taking exams based on national tax and law – referred to as variant exams.  You select which variant exam you wish to take during the online exam booking process.

ACCA Qualification

Variant papers are available for:

• Corporate and Business Law (LW)
• Taxation (TX)
• Advanced Taxation (ATX)

Please check the tax and law variants table in the related documents section for details of where variant papers are available. ACCA has a variant exam covering global corporate and business law - you should choose this option if you intend to work in a region where ACCA does not offer a national law paper.

Foundation level

Variant papers are available for:

• FTX, Foundations in Taxation

A choice of local tax variant exams is available in Lesotho, Malaysia, Singapore and the UK.

Joint exam schemes

Due to national requirements, variant exams are not offered for all Joint Examination Schemes. In such cases where the variant is not available, the UK variant will be offered for tax papers and the English or global variant for the law paper.

You have the option of taking the accounting and auditing exams based on international standards or UK standards, and for the ACCA Qualification you will also have the option of taking the exams based on national standards in certain countries.

You can select which standards you wish to follow for each individual accounting and audit exam. For example, you may wish to study UK accounting standards and international standards on auditing.

ACCA Qualification

The following exams are based on international standards for financial reporting and auditing:

• Strategic Business Reporting (SBR)

• Advanced Audit and Assurance (AAA)

In Malaysia, these exams have been adapted for national accountancy practices. If you live in a country where there are no adapted national standards then you should choose either the International or UK standards. If you live in a country where adapted national standards are available, you should choose between International or the national adapted standard.

All variant and auditing standard session exams will be offered during the December and June exam sessions. However, only a limited number of variants and auditing standard session exams take place in the March/September exam sessions. Please view the exam timetables page for information on what variant and auditing standards exams take place in these sessions.