CA Foundation May 2025 Pass Rates Drop to 15%, why Foundation level is getting tougher after ICAI's new Scheme

The CA Foundation May 2025 results have just been released and again they haven’t brought good news for most of the students. The CA Foundation May 2025 pass rate has dropped down to a meagre 15.09%. This is one of the lowest pass rates of the CA Foundation exam in recent years. A total of 82,662 candidates appeared for the CA Foundation May 2025 exam out of which only 12,474 could see that “SUCCESSFUL” tag on their scorecards. If you analyse the past sessions’ pass rates, one thing that is very evident is that this is not a sudden decline but a part of a continuous steady loss in pass rates over the last many sessions. Since the introduction of the ICAI new scheme of education and training the CA Foundation exam has seen less pass percentage. In this article we discuss in detail why the CA Foundation pass percentage is declining, year on year analysis, session-wise analysis and more.

CA Foundation May 2025 Results: Another Step in the Downward Spiral?

The CA Foundation results May 2025 were recently declared on July 6 and the results were not very pleasing. The Foundation May 2025 pass rate stood at 15.09%. A total of 43,389 male candidates appeared and 7,056 passed. The performance of female candidates was relatively poor compared to male candidates. The CA Foundation May 2025 pass percentage for female candidates was only 13.80%. The below-given table denotes the CA Foundation pass percentage for the May 2025 session.

CA Foundation May 2025 Pass Percentage

CA Foundation Pass Percentage Over the Years

Why is the CA Foundation Pass Percentage on a Decline?

Here are some probable reasons why the CA Foundation pass rate is falling continuously, especially after introduction of the new scheme:

• Unfamiliarity with the new scheme: The ICAI New Scheme of Education and Training was introduced in 2023. The change in syllabus has been a recent one and candidates are still not completely familiar with the syllabus. Also, the coaching style and study material is not fully adapted yet as it takes some time to adjust for any new syllabus. It is expected that the CA Foundation pass rate may improve once candidates get used to the new syllabus. Since 2022, ICAI shifted towards more application-based, subjective papers which demand deeper conceptual clarity.

• Increase in Number of candidates: The CA Foundation exam has seen a considerable increase in the number of candidates taking the exam.
  The Chartered Accountancy course is also becoming a trending academic pursuit for students and hence increased popularity and surge in number. In Dec 2023 a record 137,153 candidates took the CA Foundation exam. With the increased number of candidates, ICAI has most likely increased the difficulty level.

• CA exams thrice a year: ICAI is now conducting the CA Foundation and other CA exams thrice a year. The increased number of attempts in a year showed a trend that some candidates appeared for the exam with less preparation. While there were many candidates who took their first attempt just to check the difficulty level and hence underprepared resulting in lower pass rates.

• Higher evaluation standards: Another probable reason for a decline in CA Foundation pass rates can be ICAI’s approach to set quality benchmarks. Also, to balance the number of candidates taking the exam to the number of CAs required, ICAI might have tightened its evaluation criteria.

Coaching gaps after new scheme: CA students often choose coaching for studying the ICAI exams with tier 2 and 3 city students finding it hard to get good coaching institutions in their area. The ICAI new scheme of education and training required coaching institutions too to adapt according to the syllabus. Given the coaching gap in tier 2 and 3 cities, there might have been some ineptness towards the new scheme resulting in below par performances.