Once I get my CISA, is it mine forever? What are the requirements to keep it active? I assume I have to do CPE credits, but what is the annual requirement?
The CISA certification remains active contingent upon the annual payment of maintenance fees, the completion of 20 CPE hours annually, and a total of 120 CPE hours earned within a rolling three-year cycle.
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I remember sitting in my office back in 2012, staring at the ISACA dashboard realizing my three-year cycle was about to reset and I was short on my technical hours. It is a common oversight when you get bogged down in internal audits and forget that professional certifications are effectively rented from the governing body.
Maintaining the CISA requires a disciplined approach to tracking your education credits and ensuring your maintenance fees are settled on time every single year. If you treat it like a set-it-and-forget-it asset, you will find your designation revoked by the next audit cycle without any recourse.
Your CISA is not yours forever; it stays active only as long as you pay the annual maintenance fee and log the required Continuing Professional Education credits. You need 20 hours of CPE per year and a total of 120 hours over a three-year reporting cycle, alongside paying your annual dues to ISACA.
