CIA Part 3 – Business Knowledge for IA - Exams in 2025

CIA Part 3 – Business Knowledge for IA - Exams in 2025 udemy course free download

CIA Exam, Internal Audit, Internal Control, ACCA, Risk Management, COSO, updated 2025

Part 3 – Business Knowledge for Internal Auditing

100 questions | 2.0 hours (120 minutes)

The Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) certification is the most well-known and highly regarded certification in the internal auditing industry. In fact, the CIA is so prestigious that it is the gold standard in internal auditing.

On January 1, 2019, the syllabus for each CIA exam part changed. Using the results of their 2017 global job-analysis survey, the IIA updated the exam to better test candidates on the knowledge and skills necessary for today’s internal auditor. The IIA also redistributed the exam content between each part and minimized overlap. As a result, the exam changes reduced the number of content areas in Part 3 from 8 to 4. However, the syllabus hasn’t changed again since 2019, so the following outlines the existing CIA exam syllabus.

The CIA exam Part 3 includes four domains focused on business acumen, information security, information technology, and financial management. Part Three is designed to test candidates’ knowledge, skills, and abilities, particularly as they relate to these core business concepts.

Domains

I. Business acumen (35%)

II. Information security (25%)

III. Information technology (20%)

IV. Financial management (20%)

CIA Exam Part 3 Pass Rate

While we may like to know the exact CIA exam Part 3 pass rate, we can’t. That’s because the IIA only releases the overall CIA exam pass rate for the year, not the pass rates for each part. So, the latest CIA exam pass rate comes from 2021. (The IIA hasn’t released CIA pass rates for 2022 or 2023.) But according to IIA data, the most recent CIA pass rates are 45% for CIA Part 1, 50% for CIA Part 2, and 54% for CIA Part 3.

Passing Score: How to Pass CIA Part 3

The passing score on the CIA exam Part 3 is the same as the CIA passing score on the other exam parts. Therefore, the computer grading system of the CIA exam converts all raw IIA CIA Part 3 scores into a reporting scale of 250-750 points. On that scale, the passing score is 600.