CFA® Level I Curriculum Changes 2027: What’s New vs 2026

If you are targeting the November 2026 exam or earlier, none of this applies to you — you are on the current 2026 curriculum. If you are targeting February 2027 or any window after it, this is the syllabus you will actually be tested on, and it is worth fifteen minutes to understand before you buy materials or commit to a study plan.

Topic-by-Topic: 2026 vs 2027

Here is every CFA Level I topic, what it was called under the 2026 curriculum, what it is called (or not) under 2027, and how much actually changed underneath the name.

Based on a module-and-learning-outcome-level comparison of CFA Institute’s official 2026 and 2027 Level I topic outlines. Exam weights and reading-level detail aren’t part of the topic outlines, so we haven’t stated weights here — confirm those against the released curriculum readings.

Cross-Topic Content Migrations

The single most confusing part of the 2027 restructuring isn’t what changed within a topic — it’s that some content moved between topics entirely. If you study strictly topic-by-topic without knowing this, you can end up with real gaps.

• Index construction moved out of Equities, into Quant. Weighting methods, index value and return calculations, and rebalancing choices used to live in the old Equity Investments module Security Market Indexes. That module is gone. The calculation content now lives in a new Quant module, Benchmarking Returns.
• Portfolio theory now appears in two places. Minimum-variance portfolios, the efficient frontier, the capital allocation line, and the capital market line get a full treatment in Portfolio Construction (unchanged from 2026) — and now also a treatment in the Quant module The Return and Risk of a Financial Portfolio. Expect some deliberate overlap; a good study plan decides which pass carries the calculation load instead of learning it twice from scratch.
• CAPM shows up in three modules. Quant now asks you to estimate CAPM inputs via regression; Equities uses CAPM (plus new arbitrage pricing theory and multi-factor model content) to estimate required return on equity; Portfolio Construction keeps its existing CAPM/security market line treatment. Same model, three angles — worth mapping out so you reinforce rather than re-learn.

The Topics That Actually Restructured

1. Quantitative Methods — Reorganised, Not Just Expanded

Quant stays at 11 modules for 2027, but the composition shifts substantially. Three 2026 modules (Estimation and Inference, Hypothesis Testing, and Parametric and Non-Parametric Tests of Independence) merge into one (Estimation and Hypothesis Testing). In their place, two modules arrive carrying migrated content — Benchmarking Returns (index construction, moved from Equities) and an expanded The Return and Risk of a Financial Portfolio (portfolio theory, echoing Portfolio Construction). The old Introduction to Big Data Techniques module is renamed and condensed into Introduction to Financial Data Science — same territory, lighter treatment, not new content. We go deeper on the full module list in our dedicated breakdown of the new Quant syllabus.

2. Equities — Effectively a New Topic

Equity Investments becomes Equities, growing from 8 modules to 12. This is the topic to treat as a rebuild, not an update. Three 2026 modules are removed entirely — Market Organization and Structure (margin, order types, market structure), Security Market Indexes (moved to Quant instead), and Market Efficiency (efficiency forms, anomalies) — and five new modules take their place, covering the shareholder voting process, equity issuance and trading mechanics, financial-statement-based valuation forecasting, analyst research reports, and CAPM/APT/factor models for equity. If you studied 2026 Equity Investments material, expect real gaps here, not just a different table of contents.

3. Ethics — One Module Per Standard, GIPS Gone

Ethical & Professional Standards goes from 5 modules to 10. The single 2026 “Guidance for Standards I–VII” module is split into seven standalone modules, one per Standard, each testing the same three skills (apply the Standard, recommend preventive procedures, identify conforming vs. violating conduct). GIPS — the Global Investment Performance Standards — is removed as a Level I topic altogether; it does not appear anywhere in the 2027 outline. Ethics has always been the topic candidates most underestimate; a more granular, Standard-by-Standard structure is, if anything, an argument for taking it more seriously earlier in your prep, not less.

What Got Dropped Entirely

Not everything in this revision is addition. Several 2026 topics disappear from the outline completely — useful to know if you’re wondering whether to keep studying something you half-remember from an older prep book.

• GIPS — all of it, gone from Ethics.
• Market efficiency — weak/semi-strong/strong form efficiency, market anomalies, and their behavioral-finance explanations are not in the 2027 Equities outline.
• Market organization mechanics — margin and leverage calculations, order types and instructions, quote-driven vs. order-driven market structures, and financial intermediary functions are gone from Equities.
• Roy’s safety-first criterion, safety-first ratio, and shortfall risk — dropped from the Quant portfolio module, with no replacement elsewhere in the outline.
• Asset-based equity valuation models — not in the 2027 Equities outline.

What This Means If You’re Preparing for Feb 2027

• Most of your 2026 materials still work. Five topics are word-for-word unchanged and two more are pure renames — that’s seven of ten topics where 2026 material is simply correct for 2027. We break down exactly what’s safe to reuse, by topic and by material type, in this companion article.
• Equities needs the most new material, not Quant. Quant is restructured but largely reshuffles existing content; Equities loses three whole modules and gains five new ones. If you’re budgeting study time for “new” content, weight it toward Equities.
• Don’t skim Ethics because you “did it before.” The Standard-by-Standard module structure means examiners can test each Standard more precisely. Surface familiarity with the old omnibus structure won’t carry over cleanly.
• Notice where content moved, not just what’s new. If your revision plan treats each topic in isolation, you can miss that index construction is now taught under Quant, not Equities.