CA Articleship: 2-Year Rule, Stipend Floor and Offer Checklist

CA articleship is 24 months of paid training under a practising Chartered Accountant, your principal. You can start after clearing CA Intermediate and completing ICAI's four-week Integrated Course on Information Technology and Soft Skills (ICITSS), which Regulation 51D requires before practical training begins. You are then an articled assistant.

Two years applies to everyone registered after 30 June 2023. Candidates registered on or before that date serve three years, per ICAI's Training Guide. Your principal and you sign a deed of articles (Form 102), and the registration papers go to ICAI through its Self Service Portal within 30 days of starting.

Three rules shape the term, all from the Training Guide:

• Leave: 12 days in each of the two years.
• Hours: a minimum 35-hour week, excluding lunch. You can be asked to work longer when the work needs it, but never beyond 45 hours a week, and hours above 35 earn compensatory leave.
• Industrial training: after clearing Intermediate and completing 12 months of training, you may spend 9 to 12 months in industry, with at least ₹15,000 a month. You must tell your principal three months before it begins, and ICAI treats it as service under articles.

ICAI made its digital practical training diary, the e-diary, mandatory for students starting training from 1 January 2026. You log attendance and tasks daily, and your principal reviews them every fortnight.

The minimum in force is ₹4,000 in year one and ₹5,000 in year two in cities of 20 lakh (2 million) people or more. It is ₹3,000 and ₹4,000 in cities of 5 lakh to under 20 lakh, and ₹2,000 and ₹3,000 below 5 lakh. These are the rates in ICAI's Training Guide under Regulation 48. Population is counted from the most recent Census of India.

As of 10 October 2026 the draft remains a draft. ICAI's comment window closed on 5 August 2026, and the new rates apply only from the date the final regulations appear in the Gazette. The draft table raises every cell by ₹1,000. Check ICAI's announcements the week you sign.

Here is what each table adds up to over two full years. This is our own calculation: 12 months at the year-one rate plus 12 months at the year-two rate.

The draft adds ₹1,000 × 24 months = ₹24,000 in every tier. The Gazette text also protects three-year trainees: they stay on the earlier rates.

Your principal must pay either by a crossed account-payee cheque (a cheque that can only be paid into a bank account) against a stamped receipt, or by depositing the amount every month into an account in your own name.

No. The ICAI figure is the lowest a principal may pay. Many firms pay above it, so ask for the actual figure in writing. A number from a senior, a forum or a blog is only a clue, and your signed offer decides what reaches your account.

Two habits protect you:

• Ask for the year-one and year-two amounts in rupees. "As per ICAI" is a floor, not an offer.
• Ask what happens if ICAI notifies higher minimums. Our recommendation is a clause that lifts your stipend to at least the new floor from its effective date. A firm that already pays more than the floor will not mind.

A firm paying only the floor is not wrong, but it should give you something in return: real audit, tax and Goods and Services Tax (GST) work, and leave you can plan around. Our view is that a low stipend with real training beats a high stipend with errands. To see where the training leads, read our guide to what a newly qualified CA takes home.

Treat it as a numbers-and-quality exercise: write to a named partner at each firm on a shortlist and follow up by phone. Our recommendation is a shortlist of about 20 firms, because seats are limited by rule and replies are slow.

The limit comes from ICAI. A practising Chartered Accountant can train only a set number of articled assistants, set out in the Training Guide: 1 for up to 3 years of continuous practice, up to 3 for 3 to 5 years, up to 7 for 5 to 10 years, and up to 10 beyond that. A young practice rarely has a second seat, so ask a larger firm how many openings it has.

Run the checks below before you sign the deed of articles. Each has a clear pass and fail, and any fail is a conversation to have now.

Keep proof and move if you must. Save bank statements and e-diary records. ICAI lists irregular or non-payment of stipend as a ground for transfer under Regulation 67. Its guide also says disputes between principal and trainee are to be settled amicably and that ICAI does not step in, so your protection is your paperwork and the right to transfer.

A dummy articleship is a registration on paper with no real work or pay. Our advice is to refuse it. Your e-diary now records your daily tasks, and ICAI can direct that service is not reckoned when the regulations are breached.

Fix your study blocks before you join and protect them in busy season. Our recommendation is three blocks a week: two weekday evenings of about 90 minutes and one weekend morning of about three hours, about six hours in total. The steps that make it hold:

We coach CA Intermediate in Bangalore, with offline and online batches, morning, evening and weekend options, recorded sessions and paper-wise and full-length mock exams. If you would like us to build a study plan around your articleship hours, call or message us on +91 8073702708.