- What ABAR Actually Stands For
- The 2016 Suspension: Why It Matters Today
- Who Holds ABAR and Who Hires for Review Work
- Maintaining ABAR: Recertification Mechanics
- CPE Waivers and the New Attestation Rule
- Inactive and Emeritus Status
- ABAR vs. Active NACVA Credentials vs. ISBA BCA-R
- What Business Appraisal Review Work Involves
- Planning Your CPE Cycle Around the Waiver
- Frequently Asked Questions
- ABAR means Accredited in Business Appraisal Review, a NACVA credential suspended for new applicants since 2016.
- Existing holders keep recognition through annual membership plus a three-year, 60-CPE-hour recertification cycle.
- Completing 15-29 NACVA CPE hours waives $200 of the $400 recertification fee; 30+ hours waives it fully.
- Since 2025, holders attest to CPE completion and keep records three years, subject to audit - no per-course reporting.
What ABAR Actually Stands For
ABAR stands for Accredited in Business Appraisal Review, a credential created by the National Association of Certified Valuators and Analysts (NACVA) to recognize professionals qualified to review business valuation reports for quality, methodology, and defensibility. It is not a general appraisal license, and it is not the same acronym used by unrelated organizations in other industries - a distinction that matters because searches for "ABAR" often surface content describing entirely different credentials with different fee schedules and different governing bodies.
If you landed here trying to confirm exactly what the letters mean before deciding whether to pursue, maintain, or reference the designation, this page focuses squarely on the NACVA program. For a broader definitional overview, see What Is ABAR?, and for the letter-by-letter breakdown, What Does ABAR Stand For? covers the same ground from a slightly different angle.
The 2016 Suspension: Why It Matters Today
NACVA suspended the ABAR credentialing program in 2016, and it is now terminated for new applicants. This is the single most important fact anyone researching ABAR needs to understand, because it changes what "studying for ABAR" actually means in practice. There is no current admissions exam to sit for. What remains is a population of existing holders who earned the designation before the suspension and who must continue meeting annual membership and periodic recertification obligations to stay recognized.
This history matters for two audiences: legacy ABAR holders who need to keep their credential in good standing, and prospective candidates who assumed they could still sit an ABAR exam and need to be routed toward the credentials NACVA actually accepts applications for. If you're in the second group, ABAR Requirements 2026: Eligibility, Prerequisites & How to Qualify explains eligibility history in more depth and points toward currently open pathways.
Who Holds ABAR and Who Hires for Review Work
Because the program closed to new applicants in 2016, the people who hold ABAR today are established valuation and forensic-accounting professionals - typically CPAs, CVAs, or other credentialed appraisers who added ABAR earlier in their careers to formally signal review competence. In practice, that competence gets used by:
- Law firms needing an independent reviewer to critique an opposing expert's valuation report before deposition or trial
- Litigation support teams assessing whether a report's methodology and assumptions will withstand cross-examination
- Business brokers and M&A advisors sanity-checking a valuation before closing a transaction
- Internal quality-control functions at valuation firms reviewing junior analysts' work product
None of this hiring context is tied to a current exam pipeline - it reflects how the existing credential holder pool is used in the market. If you're evaluating whether this kind of review-focused career path is worth pursuing given the program's status, Is the ABAR Certification Worth It? Complete ROI Analysis 2026 walks through that decision more thoroughly, and ABAR Jobs looks at how the designation actually shows up on job postings and resumes today.
Maintaining ABAR: Recertification Mechanics
Existing ABAR holders don't take a repeat exam. Instead, recognition depends on two ongoing obligations: annual membership with NACVA, and a three-year recertification cycle. Recertification requires 60 applicable CPE hours per three-year cycle along with a $400 fee. The 60-hour figure applies across the full cycle, not per year, which gives holders flexibility in how they pace continuing education across the three-year window.
Recertification at a Glance
What a legacy ABAR holder needs to track every cycle:
- 60 applicable CPE hours accumulated over three years
- A $400 recertification fee, reducible via CPE-hour waivers
- Attestation of CPE completion rather than course-by-course reporting
- Supporting records retained for three years after the reporting cycle
This is a meaningfully different mechanism than preparing for a scored exam, so if you came here expecting exam-format guidance, it's worth understanding that the "test" for ABAR today is really a compliance and documentation exercise, not a content assessment.
CPE Waivers and the New Attestation Rule
NACVA built in an incentive to keep continuing education tied to its own course catalog. Completing 15-29 hours of NACVA courses earns a $200 fee waiver against the $400 recertification fee. Completing at least 30 hours earns a full $400 waiver, effectively eliminating the fee for holders who concentrate their CPE hours within NACVA's own programming rather than spreading them across third-party providers.
Key Takeaway
Holders aiming to avoid the recertification fee entirely should plan to source at least 30 of their 60 required CPE hours directly from NACVA courses across the three-year cycle, not scattered across unrelated CPE providers.
Two other policy details changed the maintenance landscape recently. First, the former bonus-point and recommended-course policies ended December 31, 2025, so any credit strategy built around those older incentives no longer applies going forward. Second, and more procedurally significant: since 2025, holders attest to CPE completion instead of reporting each course individually. That means the recertification submission itself is lighter-weight - a signed attestation rather than a course-by-course log - but the documentation burden hasn't disappeared. Holders must retain supporting records for three years after the reporting cycle and may be audited, so attestation simplifies the filing, not the recordkeeping.
Inactive and Emeritus Status
Not every legacy holder wants to keep actively recertifying every three years. NACVA offers inactive and emeritus status as separate maintenance options for qualifying existing holders. These pathways exist specifically because the program is closed to new entrants - NACVA needed a way to let career-stage holders step back from active CPE cycles without simply losing the credential outright. The specific qualification criteria for each status sit outside the scope of a general overview, but the existence of both options is an important thing for any current holder weighing their next three-year commitment to know before defaulting into full active recertification.
ABAR vs. Active NACVA Credentials vs. ISBA BCA-R
Because ABAR is closed to new applicants, prospective candidates researching "how do I get ABAR" are usually better served by understanding what's actually open today. NACVA currently accepts new applicants for CVA and MAFF. Separately, the International Society of Business Appraisers (ISBA) offers its own Business Certified Appraiser in Review (BCA-R) credential - a distinct program from a different certifying body, not a renamed or rebranded ABAR, despite covering a conceptually similar review niche.
| Credential | Certifying Body | New Applicants? | Relationship to ABAR |
|---|---|---|---|
| ABAR | NACVA | No - suspended since 2016, terminated for new applicants | Original credential; legacy holders maintain via CPE and fees |
| CVA | NACVA | Yes | Separate active credential; not a renamed ABAR |
| MAFF | NACVA | Yes | Separate active credential; different focus area |
| BCA-R | ISBA | Yes | Distinct organization's review credential; not affiliated with ABAR |
For candidates who arrived at this article expecting to prep for an ABAR exam, this table is the practical takeaway: route your effort toward CVA or MAFF through NACVA, or toward BCA-R through ISBA, depending on which review-focused career path fits your goals. Pages like ABAR Certification and What Is ABAR Certification? go deeper into how the credential is positioned relative to these active alternatives.
What Business Appraisal Review Work Involves
Even though there's no current entrance exam, the underlying skill set behind "business appraisal review" hasn't gone away - it's still exercised daily by legacy ABAR holders and by professionals pursuing adjacent active credentials. Understanding these skill areas is useful both for holders maintaining relevance through CPE choices and for anyone deciding whether review-focused work fits their career.
Methodology Consistency Review
Checking whether the valuation approach (income, market, or asset-based) matches the engagement purpose and standard of value used.
- Identifying mismatches between stated purpose and chosen method
- Flagging unsupported weighting between multiple approaches
Assumption and Input Scrutiny
Evaluating whether discount rates, growth rates, and normalization adjustments are reasonable and adequately documented.
- Testing sensitivity of conclusions to key assumptions
- Comparing inputs against comparable market data
Report Compliance and Defensibility
Assessing whether a report would withstand scrutiny in a litigation or transactional setting, including internal consistency and disclosure completeness.
- Checking for internal contradictions between sections
- Confirming limiting conditions and disclosures are properly stated
These three skill areas map closely to the kind of work legacy ABAR holders were originally credentialed to perform, and they remain relevant CPE targets for holders selecting NACVA courses toward their 60-hour recertification requirement.
Planning Your CPE Cycle Around the Waiver
Because recertification is a three-year rolling obligation rather than a one-time exam, the smartest approach is to plan CPE hours the way you'd plan any recurring compliance requirement - spread out, not crammed at the deadline.
Establish the Baseline
- Confirm current membership standing and cycle end date
- Select 10-15 NACVA CPE hours in methodology and reporting topics
Push Past the Waiver Threshold
- Accumulate additional NACVA hours to cross the 30-hour mark for the full $400 waiver
- Start organizing completion certificates for recordkeeping
Close the Cycle and Attest
- Confirm total hours meet or exceed the 60-hour requirement
- Submit attestation and retain records for three years post-cycle
This kind of pacing - deciding in advance which cycle-year absorbs which type of continuing education - borrows a familiar study-planning instinct from exam prep, just applied to a compliance deadline instead of a test date. If you're coming from a background of structured exam preparation and want that same discipline applied to an active credential's study plan, ABAR Study Guide 2026: How to Pass on Your First Attempt and ABAR Exam Domains 2026: Complete Guide to All 0 Content Areas address that structured approach in more detail, and general practice resources at the main practice test hub can help build the underlying valuation-review fluency regardless of which specific credential you're maintaining.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. The ABAR credentialing program was suspended by NACVA in 2016 and is terminated for new applicants. Existing holders maintain the designation through annual membership and recertification; there is no new-entrant exam path.
Recertification requires 60 applicable CPE hours per three-year cycle plus a $400 fee. Completing 15-29 NACVA CPE hours waives $200 of that fee, and completing 30 or more hours waives the full $400.
No. CVA (Certified Valuation Analyst) and MAFF (Master Analyst in Financial Forensics) are separate active NACVA credentials with their own eligibility requirements. Neither is a rebranded or renamed version of ABAR.
BCA-R (Business Certified Appraiser in Review) is offered by ISBA, a different organization than NACVA. It covers a similar review-focused niche but is a distinct credential, not an ABAR successor or replacement.
No. Since 2025, holders attest to overall CPE completion rather than reporting each course. However, supporting records must be retained for three years after the reporting cycle, since holders may be audited.