FR is an Applied Skills exam: it moves from recording transactions to applying IFRS Accounting Standards, preparing group accounts and interpreting them. ACCA's pass rates of 48% to 52% over the last five sessions mean about half of candidates pass.
Pass mark
50%
Recent pass rates
48% to 52% (September 2025 to September 2026)
Length
3 hours, 100 marks
Written questions
40 marks in Section C
What makes it demanding
Breadth: twelve topics in section B of the syllabus alone, from leases and financial instruments to revenue, tax and foreign currency.
Section C: 2 questions of 20 marks in which you prepare or interpret financial statements for a single company or a group, with no options to choose from.
The clock: 100 marks in 180 minutes is 1.8 minutes a mark, about 36 minutes for each Section C question.
Calculation: many objective questions ask for a figure, such as a lease liability, a goodwill figure or a deferred tax balance.
What makes it manageable
The 50% pass mark leaves room for mistakes, and the same calculations come up again and again: goodwill and the non-controlling interest, unrealised profit, lease liabilities, the effective interest rate, deferred tax and the cash flow statement. Once those are secure, many questions become routine.
Where to start
The free diagnostic asks one question on every topic of the syllabus, then shows the topic to fix first and a short lesson on it.
Try 3 questions
Question 1 · Section A · Syllabus B62 marks
Leases
On 1 January 20X6 Ingleby Co leased equipment for four years. It pays $300,000 a year in advance, the first payment on 1 January 20X6. The interest rate implicit in the lease is 10%; the cumulative discount factor for years 1 to 3 at 10% is 2.487.
Ingleby Co paid initial direct costs of $13,900. The equipment's useful life is six years; ownership does not transfer and there is no purchase option.
What is the total expense for the lease in Ingleby Co's statement of profit or loss for the year ended 31 December 20X6? (2 marks)
$
Question 2 · Section A · Syllabus B52 marks
Financial instruments
On 1 March 20X5 Yelland Co bought 50,000 shares in a listed company at $6.00 each and paid transaction costs of $4,500. The shares are held for trading and measured at fair value through profit or loss.
On 30 June 20X5 Yelland Co received a dividend of $0.20 a share. On 1 October 20X5 it sold 20,000 of the shares for $6.80 each (ignore selling costs). The share price at 31 December 20X5, Yelland Co's year end, was $6.50.
What is the total effect of the shares on Yelland Co's profit for the year ended 31 December 20X5? (2 marks)
$
Question 3 · Section A · Syllabus B102 marks
Revenue
On 1 January 20X6 Kelso Co sold equipment with a carrying amount of $420,000 to a customer for $500,000. Kelso Co has a call option to buy the equipment back on 31 December 20X7 for $561,800.
The interest rate implicit in the arrangement is 6% a year. Kelso Co's year end is 31 December.
What should Kelso Co recognise in its statement of financial position at 31 December 20X6 for this arrangement, apart from the equipment? (2 marks)
About half of candidates pass: ACCA's pass rates were 48% to 52% over the last five sessions. The pass mark is 50%, and 40 of the 100 marks are written questions.
Is there much calculation in FR?
Yes. Many objective questions ask for a figure, and Section C asks you to prepare or interpret financial statements for a single entity or a group.
Which standards does FR examine?
ACCA's examinable documents list them for each session. For September 2026 to June 2027 they include IFRS 16 on leases, IFRS 15 on revenue, IFRS 9 on financial instruments and IFRS 18 on presentation.