- What This Cheat Sheet Covers (and What It Doesn't)
- The One-Page Snapshot
- Eligibility Checklist: The Gate Before the Exam
- Exam Facts: Verified vs. Unverified
- The Three Topic Areas and the Concepts Behind Them
- Money and Attempts Cheat Table
- Application, Proctor and Timeline Logistics
- After You Pass: Maintenance and Recertification
- Sequencing Your Review by Domain
- Common Confusions to Clear Up Before Test Day
- FAQ
- EPLS here means Estate Planning Law Specialist, run by NAEPC through its attorney-run Estate Law Specialist Board, Inc. (ELSB).
- The national exam has 80 multiple-choice questions; the current time limit and numerical passing score are not publicly verified.
- Initial application costs $500 for NAEPC-affiliated local council members and $600 for everyone else, including one sitting.
- You need five years in practice with at least 40% of full-time practice in estate planning.
What This Cheat Sheet Covers (and What It Doesn't)
This page condenses the facts that matter most for the Estate Planning Law Specialist (EPLS) credential, the attorney-only designation administered by the National Association of Estate Planners & Councils (NAEPC) through its Estate Law Specialist Board, Inc. The acronym is shared by other, unrelated credentials, so every number below applies only to the NAEPC attorney specialist designation. If you are still orienting yourself, start with What Is EPLS? and then return here for the compressed review.
One honesty note up front: several details candidates often ask about are simply not published by the issuer. Where that is the case, this cheat sheet says so rather than guessing. That is deliberate, because a wrong number memorized from a third-party site is worse than a gap you know you need to confirm with NAEPC directly.
The One-Page Snapshot
| Item | What to Know |
|---|---|
| Credential | Estate Planning Law Specialist (EPLS) |
| Issuer | NAEPC; administered by Estate Law Specialist Board, Inc. (ELSB), an ABA-accredited, attorney-run subsidiary |
| Who qualifies | Licensed attorneys with substantial estate planning practice |
| Exam length | 80 multiple-choice questions |
| Exam time limit | Not publicly verified for the current exam |
| Numerical passing score | Not publicly verified |
| Delivery | Online or hardcopy after application approval, with an attorney proctor |
| Processing | Allow 6-8 weeks for the application; four weeks for results |
| Certification term | Five years, with annual maintenance |
| Recertification | No new exam; reassessment of practice, peer review, education and good standing |
Eligibility Checklist: The Gate Before the Exam
EPLS is a gated credential. You cannot simply register and sit. The application must be approved first, and the prerequisites are practice-based rather than course-based. The issuer publishes no separate degree requirement and no mandatory training course beyond the licensure, practice and CLE standards. For a longer walkthrough, see EPLS Requirements 2026: Eligibility, Prerequisites & How to Qualify.
Prerequisites at a Glance
Confirm every item below before you pay the application fee.
- License: active law license in good standing.
- Experience: at least five years as a practicing attorney.
- Practice concentration: at least 40% of normal full-time practice in estate planning during the preceding five years. Older sources cite one-third; the current 40% threshold controls.
- Insurance: professional liability coverage of at least $1,000,000 per claim.
- Education: estate-planning CLE of at least 12 hours per year over the preceding 36 months. Some summaries state this as 36 hours total, but the standards require the annual allocation, so plan around 12 per year.
- References: eight professional referrers, at least five favorable responses, a majority knowing you for at least three years, and no relatives or same-firm colleagues.
The Reference Wording Wrinkle
The standards describe the eight referrers as estate-planning law practitioners and/or judges, while the 2024 application says a majority must be knowledgeable attorneys or judges. The two phrasings differ slightly, so if your reference list includes anyone outside the clearest category, ask the issuer which wording governs before you send requests. Choose referrers who will respond promptly, since returned references are part of the process clock.
The Two-Year Clock
The whole certification process, meaning application completion, the examination and returned references, must finish within two years of the date your application is received. If it does not, the file closes and you must reapply. Treat that as a hard project deadline, especially if you plan to use retakes.
Exam Facts: Verified vs. Unverified
Candidates frequently see confident claims about EPLS timing and scoring. Here is a clean split between what the issuer publishes and what remains unconfirmed.
| Topic | Status |
|---|---|
| 80 multiple-choice questions | Published |
| Passing the national exam is required | Published |
| Online or hardcopy delivery after approval | Published |
| Proctor must be an actively licensed attorney, unrelated to you and outside your firm | Published |
| Code/Regulations tables supplied on the exam | Stated in the official sample introduction |
| Current time limit | Not publicly verified |
| Numerical passing score | Not publicly verified |
| Scored vs. unscored question split | Not publicly verified |
| General open-book rule, calculator policy, adaptive testing | Not publicly verified |
| Commercial webcam remote-proctoring policy | Not publicly verified |
For why the passing score question matters and how to think about it without a published number, read EPLS Passing Score 2026: Exactly What You Need to Pass. For an honest look at difficulty, see How Hard Is the EPLS Exam? Complete Difficulty Guide 2026.
The Three Topic Areas and the Concepts Behind Them
The issuer's sample-question introduction points to three broad preparation areas: estate and gift tax, planning, and ethics. These are unweighted topic phrases pulled from the issuer's prose, not a formally enumerated blueprint with percentages, so no domain can be declared "largest." Treat them as the scaffolding for your review and verify depth by working issuer-listed materials. A fuller breakdown lives in EPLS Exam Domains 2026: Complete Guide to All 3 Content Areas.
Domain 1: Estate and gift tax
The sample materials emphasize computation and valuation themes, so expect questions that require working through numbers, not just recalling definitions.
- Estate valuation and what gets included in the gross estate.
- Gift tax transfers, including how taxable gifts interact with the estate tax computation.
- Marital deduction concepts and QTIP treatment.
- Powers of appointment and their transfer tax consequences.
- Basis rules for inherited and gifted property.
- Use of Section 7520 interest rates in valuing interests.
Domain 2: Planning
Planning questions test whether you can choose and structure the right vehicle for a client fact pattern.
- Trust design and how trust terms drive tax and non-tax outcomes.
- Applying marital deduction and QTIP strategies in a planning context.
- Gifting strategies and their transfer tax effects.
- Generation-skipping transfer tax and income taxation of trusts and estates, which public review-course objectives also highlight as supplemental subjects.
- Coordinating basis consequences with lifetime versus at-death transfers.
Domain 3: Ethics
As an attorney credential, EPLS includes professional responsibility in estate planning practice.
- Identifying the client and managing conflicts when planning for families.
- Confidentiality and communication duties.
- Competence and supervision in a specialized tax-driven practice.
- Advertising limits: state-specific rules govern how you may advertise a specialist designation, and a state-bar specialization is a separate credential with its own rules.
One more caution about scope: the issuer's study-materials page lists categories like Code and Regulations and text materials. Those are resource categories, not extra exam domains. The practice-involvement categories on the application are eligibility evidence, also not domains. Keep your mental model to three topic areas.
Money and Attempts Cheat Table
These are issuer figures in USD from the current standards. Archived review-course pages may show older fees or event discounts, but current issuer fees take precedence. For a full breakdown, see EPLS Certification Cost 2026: Complete Pricing Breakdown.
| Fee or Rule | Amount / Detail |
|---|---|
| Initial application (includes one exam sitting), NAEPC-affiliated local council member | $500 |
| Initial application (includes one exam sitting), other applicants | $600 |
| Each retake | $200 |
| Annual renewal | $350 |
| Five-year recertification | $400 |
| Council membership | Encouraged, not required |
Retake Timing Rules
- A second attempt is allowed 90 to 365 days after the first attempt.
- A third attempt must be at least 90 days after the second and within 365 days of the first.
- After three failures, you must wait at least six months and reapply.
Key Takeaway
The $100 gap between member and non-member application pricing is small relative to the full process, but compare it to the cost of local council membership before deciding. Remember that your two-year completion window also constrains how many retakes are realistically available.
Application, Proctor and Timeline Logistics
Logistics trip up more candidates than content does. Build backward from the two-year clock.
- Assemble eligibility evidence: license status, practice-percentage documentation, insurance declaration and CLE records.
- Select and brief references: eight referrers, with no relatives or same-firm colleagues, and a majority with at least three years' acquaintance.
- Submit the application: allow 6-8 weeks for processing.
- Arrange the proctor: an actively licensed attorney who is unrelated to you and outside your firm.
- Choose delivery: online or hardcopy, available after approval.
- Sit the exam: 80 multiple-choice questions.
- Wait for results: allow four weeks.
Because exam timing is tied to application approval rather than fixed public testing windows, scheduling works differently than with commercial testing-center credentials. See EPLS Exam Dates 2026: Testing Windows, Deadlines & Scheduling for how to plan around this. Note that no Pearson VUE, PSI or Prometric provider is identified for this exam.
After You Pass: Maintenance and Recertification
Passing is not the end of the obligations. Certification lasts five years, with annual maintenance that includes an insurance declaration and 15 estate-planning CLE hours each year, plus the $350 annual renewal fee. At the five-year mark, recertification reassesses your practice involvement, peer review, education and good standing, with no new examination, for a $400 fee.
| Cycle | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Every year | 15 estate-planning CLE hours, insurance declaration, $350 renewal |
| Every five years | Recertification: practice involvement, peer review, education, good standing; $400; no re-exam |
Whether the investment pays off depends on your practice, and market evidence on credential-specific earnings is thin. For a measured discussion, see Is the EPLS Certification Worth It? Complete ROI Analysis 2026 and EPLS Salary Guide 2026: Complete Earnings Analysis.
Sequencing Your Review by Domain
Because EPLS candidates are working attorneys with limited time, sequencing by domain beats a generic schedule. The logic below is tied to the exam's structure: computation-heavy tax topics need repeated practice, planning builds on them, and ethics benefits from a short late review.
Estate and gift tax foundations
- Work valuation, marital deduction/QTIP and gift tax computations by hand.
- Practice with the issuer's sample themes, flagging every historical assumption (2001 dates, 7% Section 7520 rate) so you do not memorize outdated inputs.
- Use current Code and Regulations as your rule source.
Planning applications
- Apply powers of appointment, basis rules and trust structures to client fact patterns.
- Add GST tax and income taxation of trusts and estates as supplemental depth.
Ethics and mixed review
- Review conflicts, confidentiality, competence and specialist-advertising limits.
- Run a full-length set of 80 multiple-choice items to test stamina and pacing.
For a complete preparation framework, including resource selection, see EPLS Study Guide 2026: How to Pass on Your First Attempt. To test yourself against exam-style items, use the EPLS practice test site and the question bank there.
Common Confusions to Clear Up Before Test Day
EPLS vs. AEP
The Accredited Estate Planner (AEP) designation is a separate NAEPC credential with a multidisciplinary scope, while EPLS is limited to attorneys. They share an issuing association but serve different professionals and have different requirements. Do not borrow fee, eligibility or exam details from one to describe the other.
State-Bar Specialization vs. EPLS
A state-bar specialization is a separate credential governed by its own state rules. Holding EPLS does not automatically grant a state specialty, and advertising rules for the designation vary by state. Check your jurisdiction before you put the designation on marketing materials.
Third-Party Practice Products
User-uploaded question sets with the exact credential title may have unverified alignment and quality. Check any practice material against the three topic areas above, current law and the issuer's own sample themes. Quality practice should include explanations, not just answers, and should state which tax-year assumptions it uses. You can compare against the question formats on the main practice site.
Pass Rates
No verified pass rate is published, so be skeptical of any specific percentage you see quoted. For what evidence does exist and how to interpret it, see EPLS Pass Rate 2026: What the Data Shows.
FAQ
The national examination has 80 multiple-choice questions. The scored versus unscored split, the current time limit and the numerical passing score are not publicly verified, so confirm them with the issuer.
The initial application, which includes one exam sitting, is $500 for NAEPC-affiliated local council members and $600 for other applicants. Retakes are $200 each, annual renewal is $350, and five-year recertification is $400.
Licensed attorneys in good standing with at least five years in practice, at least 40% of full-time practice in estate planning over the preceding five years, $1,000,000 per-claim professional liability coverage, required CLE and eight professional references. The application must be approved before you sit.
A second attempt is allowed 90 to 365 days after the first. A third must be at least 90 days after the second and within 365 days of the first. After three failures, wait at least six months and reapply.
No. Certification lasts five years, and recertification reassesses practice involvement, peer review, education and good standing without another examination. You must also complete annual maintenance, including 15 estate-planning CLE hours and an insurance declaration.