What Is ABAR Certification?

What Is ABAR Certification, Really?

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 critically review business valuation reports - checking methodology, assumptions, and reasoning rather than producing the appraisal itself. If you've landed here searching for exam prep, the most important fact to understand up front is that ABAR is not an active, open-enrollment exam program. NACVA suspended the ABAR credentialing program in 2016, and it is now terminated for new applicants.

That doesn't make the letters meaningless. Existing holders remain recognized by NACVA subject to ongoing membership and periodic recertification, and the underlying discipline - critically evaluating another appraiser's report for internal consistency, supportable data, and defensible conclusions - is still a real, valuable skill set in litigation, M&A, and financial reporting work. This article is designed to give you an accurate picture of what ABAR is, what it currently requires of the people who already hold it, and where to look if you're hoping to build valuation-review credentials from scratch. For a broader definitional overview, see What Is ABAR? and our companion piece on ABAR Meaning.

Why NACVA Suspended ABAR in 2016

NACVA built ABAR as a specialty accreditation layered on top of core valuation credentials, intended for practitioners whose work centered on reviewing rather than authoring appraisal reports. According to NACVA's own program history, the organization suspended ABAR credentialing in 2016 and it remains closed to new applicants today. NACVA has not reopened the application pipeline, and there is no indication that a revived ABAR exam is coming back.

What NACVA did preserve is recognition for the professionals who earned ABAR before the suspension. Those holders keep their credential active as long as they maintain annual NACVA membership and complete recertification on schedule. In practice, this means ABAR today functions almost entirely as a maintenance program for a closed cohort - which is exactly the audience most of this site's content is built for, alongside people who want to understand the credential's history and how it compares to what's currently available.

What Legacy ABAR Holders Must Do to Stay Certified

For practitioners who earned ABAR before 2016, staying in good standing has two components: continuing NACVA membership and completing recertification every three years. NACVA's recertification policy sets the bar at 60 applicable continuing professional education (CPE) hours per three-year cycle, along with a $400 recertification fee.

NACVA also built in an incentive structure tied to its own coursework:

• Completing between 15 and 29 hours of NACVA courses during the cycle earns a $200 waiver against the recertification fee.
• Completing 30 or more hours of NACVA courses earns a full $400 fee waiver.

One detail that trips up long-time holders: the bonus-point and recommended-course policies that used to shape how certain courses counted toward recertification ended on December 31, 2025. If you're planning your CPE hours around older guidance from a few years ago, revisit NACVA's current recertification page rather than relying on memory or outdated worksheets. Our breakdown of ABAR certification cost walks through how these fees and waivers interact across a full cycle.

The 2025 Attestation Change and Audit Risk

Starting in 2025, NACVA changed how holders demonstrate CPE compliance. Instead of reporting every individual course as it's completed, holders now attest to having met their CPE requirement for the cycle. That's a lighter administrative lift, but it comes with a corresponding obligation: holders must retain supporting records for three years after the reporting cycle closes, because NACVA may audit any attestation.

This shift matters for anyone maintaining ABAR long-term. An attestation model shifts risk toward the holder - if your documentation isn't organized, a routine audit can turn into a scramble. Treat your CPE certificates, course transcripts, and completion confirmations the same way you'd treat tax records: filed, dated, and easy to retrieve for at least three years past the cycle in question.

What Business Appraisal Review Actually Covers

Even though ABAR is closed to new candidates, the underlying discipline it certified is worth understanding - both for legacy holders keeping their skills sharp and for readers evaluating whether review-focused valuation work is a career direction worth pursuing through an active credential. Business appraisal review, as a practice area, generally involves:

• Methodology scrutiny: Confirming the original appraiser selected and applied an appropriate valuation approach (income, market, or asset-based) for the subject engagement.
• Data and assumption testing: Checking that inputs - discount rates, comparable selections, normalization adjustments - are supported and internally consistent with the report's narrative.
• Report construction review: Evaluating whether the report clearly documents its reasoning so a third party (a court, a regulator, a counterparty) can follow the logic to the conclusion.
• Standards compliance: Assessing adherence to the professional standards the original appraisal was supposed to follow.

Because ABAR itself has no open exam today, we can't responsibly publish a live domain weighting or blueprint for it - doing so would risk importing details from an unrelated program that happens to share the acronym. If you're researching content-area breakdowns for valuation-related exams more broadly, our ABAR Exam Domains Guide discusses how domain-style thinking applies to review-oriented credentialing and where to find verified, current blueprints for active programs.

ABAR vs. Active Credentials: CVA, MAFF, and ISBA's BCA-R

A recurring question from readers is whether some other credential is "the new ABAR." It isn't, on either front. NACVA's currently open certifications for new applicants are the Certified Valuation Analyst (CVA) and the Master Analyst in Financial Forensics (MAFF) - neither is a rebrand of ABAR. Separately, the International Society of Business Appraisers (ISBA) offers its own Business Certified Appraiser in Review (BCA-R) credential, which is a distinct program from a different organization, not a continuation of NACVA's ABAR.

If your goal is to enter business appraisal review as a new professional, CVA or MAFF through NACVA, or BCA-R through ISBA, are the paths that actually accept applications today. Our ABAR Requirements guide details eligibility questions we hear most often and clarifies which apply only to legacy holders versus which are relevant if you're exploring these active alternatives.

Who Hires for Business Appraisal Review Skills

Even with ABAR closed to new entrants, the skill of critically reviewing valuation work remains in demand across several settings:

• Litigation support teams who need a second, independent set of eyes on an opposing expert's valuation report before deposition or trial.
• Law firms and courts seeking a qualified reviewer to opine on whether a submitted appraisal meets professional standards.
• M&A due diligence groups validating a target company's valuation assumptions before closing.
• Regulatory and estate/gift tax contexts where a reviewing appraiser assesses another practitioner's conclusions for defensibility.

Employers and clients in these settings care about demonstrated review competency more than the specific acronym on a business card, which is why legacy ABAR holders often pair the designation with active credentials like CVA. For a qualitative look at how review-focused experience tends to factor into compensation conversations, see our ABAR Salary Guide.

If You're Considering Certification Today

Prospective candidates frequently arrive here hoping to sit an "ABAR exam," and the honest answer is that this isn't currently possible. What is possible is building the same underlying competency through NACVA's CVA or MAFF programs, both of which remain open and both of which develop the valuation judgment that review work depends on. If your interest is specifically in reviewing rather than producing appraisals, it's also worth researching ISBA's BCA-R program directly, since it's a purpose-built review credential from a different accrediting body.

Before committing time and money to any path, it's worth reading a candid assessment of return on investment. Our Is the ABAR Certification Worth It? analysis walks through how to weigh a closed legacy credential against pursuing an active one, and you can use our practice test platform to sharpen valuation and review fundamentals regardless of which credential you ultimately pursue.

Inactive and Emeritus Status

Not every legacy holder wants to keep meeting full annual membership and CPE obligations indefinitely, and NACVA provides two separate maintenance options for qualifying existing ABAR holders who need a lighter path: inactive status and emeritus status. Each has its own qualifying criteria and its own set of allowances and restrictions on how the credential can be represented while in that status. If you're a current holder weighing whether to keep actively recertifying, stepping down to inactive, or pursuing emeritus recognition, review NACVA's specific policy pages for each option before making a decision, since the requirements differ meaningfully from standard recertification.

Planning Your Three-Year CPE Cycle

For holders who are actively recertifying, the most useful "study" work isn't exam prep - it's CPE planning across the three-year window so you're not scrambling near the deadline. A simple way to structure it:

Spacing CPE hours across the full three years, rather than cramming near the deadline, also makes it far easier to hit the 30-hour waiver threshold comfortably instead of settling for the smaller partial waiver - or missing it entirely.

Frequently Asked Questions

Understanding ABAR accurately means separating its real, historical scope from any conflicting information circulating under the same three letters. Whether you're a legacy holder managing recertification, or a newcomer deciding between CVA, MAFF, and BCA-R, the resources across our ABAR certification hub and our practice platform are built around verified facts specific to this credential.