CMA Institute (ICMAI): Coaching, Study Material and Online Classes

What the CMA institute is

ICMAI was set up on 28 May 1959 under the Cost and Works Accountants Act, 1959, as ICWAI, and has used its present name since 1 February 2012. It has 4 regional councils, 112 chapters and 11 overseas centres, and as part of regulating the profession it enrols students for the CMA course and "provides coaching facilities to the students" (CMA Prospectus 2025). Our guide to ICMAI, its full form and role covers its history and structure in more detail.

Do you need a coaching institute for CMA?

You need ICMAI's coaching; a private coaching institute is your choice. ICMAI's prospectus says that a student eligible for admission to a course "has to undergo and complete Coaching for the relevant course", and you pick one of two modes when you are admitted to Foundation, register for Intermediate or enrol for Final (CMA Prospectus 2025, Coaching Scheme):

• Postal coaching (e-learning): ICMAI sends the study material for each subject to your registered address. Students from abroad can take postal coaching only.
• Oral coaching: you join a regional council, chapter, recognised oral coaching centre or accredited institution with coaching facilities. It lasts 4 months for Foundation or for each Intermediate or Final group, with at least 240 lecture hours of 45 minutes, the centre holds an exam in each subject, and it gives you the study material.

Admission, registration or enrolment under either mode must be completed at least four months before the exam; at Intermediate and Final you enrol for the coaching of both groups at the time of registration or enrolment. ICMAI lists its chapters by region on its Chapters page and its approved centres on its list of accredited institutions, which is where to look for an oral coaching centre near you.

What ICMAI's coaching costs

The tuition fee is the same for postal and oral coaching (CMA Prospectus 2025, Annexure IX):

Fees are subject to GST where it applies, and the instalment option is not open to foreign students. Changing from postal to oral coaching, oral to postal, or from one centre to another costs ₹500 and is allowed once, within 30 days of admission, registration or enrolment. Coaching revalidation costs ₹800 per group at Intermediate and ₹1,000 per group at Final, and the last dates are 15 March for the June exam and 15 September for the December exam.

ICMAI study material

ICMAI publishes its Syllabus 2022 study material for every paper on icmai.in, in separate lists for Foundation (Papers 1 to 4), Intermediate (Papers 5 to 12, with Paper 7 split into Section A, Direct Taxation, and Section B, Indirect Taxation) and Final (Papers 13 to 20). Most files are PDFs on ICMAI's own document server; several Final papers open as Google Drive files linked from ICMAI's page. Students under postal or oral coaching also receive the printed study material.

ICMAI's prospectus adds that students "should refer to other text books for a subject for in-depth study", and Annexure IV lists recommended books for every paper. For practice, ICMAI's E-Learning Knowledge Resources page links to work books, supplementary material, model question papers (MQP), revision test papers, an MCQ portal and postal test papers. Our guide to ICMAI's study material explains where to download each item and how to use it.

ICMAI online classes

ICMAI's E-Learning page links to "Online Coaching Classes" on its Event Portal for students. You log in with your registration number and date of birth and choose your course and coaching type (Foundation, Intermediate or Final, oral or postal). The classes run on Microsoft Teams, on a laptop, desktop or the Teams mobile app, and the link for each class opens 60 minutes before it starts. The prospectus also lists an E-Class Library of recorded webinars among its student services.

Private institutes sell live and recorded CMA classes as an extra. Our guide to CMA online classes compares them with ICMAI's classes and covers what to check level by level.

Certificate courses from ICMAI

Besides the CMA course, ICMAI runs shorter professional courses. The CMA Prospectus 2025 (Annexure XIII) lists career-oriented courses run by three ICMAI bodies:

• Board of Advanced Studies and Research: for example, the Diploma in Forensic Audit, the Diploma in Information System Security Audit and the Certificate Course in Data Analytics for Finance Professionals.
• Tax Research Department: for example, the Certificate Course on GST, the Certificate Course on TDS and the Advanced Certificate Course on GST.
• Banking, Financial Services and Insurance Board: for example, the Certificate Course on Concurrent Audit of Banks and the Advance Certificate Course on FinTech.

These are separate from the CMA course and do not replace any of its levels. Check the current list, mode and fees on icmai.in under Courses before you apply.

How to choose a private CMA coaching institute

If you decide to add private classes to ICMAI's coaching, these are the points we suggest checking before you pay:

• Syllabus: the course teaches Syllabus 2022, with the same paper names and numbers as ICMAI's study material lists above.
• Teachers: the faculty's qualifications and teaching experience, and sample lectures or a trial class so you can judge the teaching yourself.
• Study material: whether the notes follow ICMAI's study material and how the institute's own question practice and mock tests fit in.
• Doubt solving and revision: how you ask questions, how quickly they are answered and whether revision classes are included before the exam.
• Mode and travel: for classroom coaching, how far the centre is from home; time spent travelling is time not spent studying. Online classes avoid this but need more self-discipline.
• Fees: what the fee covers (papers, groups, books, tests) and the refund terms, in writing.

For classroom options in the capital, see our guide to CMA classes in Delhi.