In a number of countries, 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.
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.
Variant papers are available for:
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.
Variant papers are available for:
A choice of local tax variant exams is available in Ireland, Lesotho, Malaysia, Singapore and the UK.
Please note that not all variant exams will be offered during the March and September exam sessions. Please see the exam timetables page for more information.
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.
The following exams are based on international standards for financial reporting and auditing:
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.
For more information, see the 'Accounting and auditing standards table' in the related documents on this page.