The Big 4 Articleship Roadmap: Eligibility, the Four Rounds, Stipends and a Study Plan

Where you do your articleship is not just where you learn the work. It is the line on your CV that people keep reading twenty years later. That makes it worth planning properly, and a lot of the advice circulating in coaching classes and WhatsApp groups is still built on rules that changed in 2023.

This is the current position: what you need before you can register, how the large firms actually hire, what the stipend is and is about to become, and a plan for the two years once you are in.

The rules that changed, and what they mean for your timeline

Under the scheme that took effect in 2023, five things are different from what a senior two batches ahead of you would have experienced.

Two administrative points that trip people up. The paperwork is two separate things: Form 102 is the deed between you and your principal, executed on stamp paper and kept by the firm rather than sent to the Institute, while Form 103 is the actual registration, submitted online through the Self Service Portal within thirty days of starting. Miss that window and a late fee applies. Registration itself costs nothing.

And leave is tighter than most people expect: twelve days a year, twenty-four across the whole training period. Plan exam preparation around that, not in hope of more.

How the large firms actually hire

Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG have converged on much the same four-stage process, whether you come through a campus drive, an online application or a referral. Knowing the shape of it is most of the preparation.

1. Online assessment, roughly an hour to ninety minutes. Quantitative aptitude, verbal ability, reasoning, and an accounting section. This is the stage that removes the largest share of applicants, and the one candidates most often treat as a formality. It rewards speed as much as knowledge: finishing matters. Practise against a clock, daily, for weeks before the drive.
2. Group exercise or case study. Firms have largely moved from open-topic debates to structured business problems: read a short brief, work out what a company should do, explain why. Evaluators are watching for clear reasoning and a point well made. Adding one distinct, well-argued idea beats talking the most.
3. Technical interview, forty-five minutes to an hour. With a manager or senior manager. On the audit side expect the difference between Ind AS and the older standards, audit assertions, kinds of opinion, and materiality. On the tax side expect withholding provisions, minimum alternate tax, capital gains and whatever the last Finance Act changed. What separates candidates is not the definition. It is being able to walk through a time you applied the idea.
4. Partner round. Technical depth again, plus judgement and whether you would be comfortable in front of a client. Some firms fold this together with the technical round and skip the group exercise entirely when volumes are high.

What you will be paid, and what is about to change

The minimum stipend is set by the Institute and varies by the size of the city you train in. It is a floor, not a guide: there is no ceiling, and the larger firms pay well above it, which is part of why they are competitive.

The floor is being raised. Draft amendment regulations published on 25 June 2026, on which the Ministry of Corporate Affairs has given in-principle approval, propose the following minimums. Public comments closed on 5 August 2026. This is still a draft and has not been notified, so the existing lower minimums continue to apply until it is.

What the large firms actually pay a trainee in a metro sits well above these floors and varies by office, department and year of training. Treat any single number you are quoted as one person's experience rather than a rate card.

And keep the stipend in proportion. Over two years the difference between a good stipend and an average one is real but modest. The difference in what you are exposed to, whose audits you sit on and what you can credibly claim afterwards is what compounds. If you want to see how the post-qualification numbers work once a salary replaces a stipend, the CTC breakup calculator shows where a package actually goes, and the income tax calculator what survives tax.

Who the firms are, and where they are

Each global brand practises in India through a specific registered firm, and that name is worth knowing. Job and articleship postings frequently appear under the Indian entity rather than the global brand, so searching the entity name surfaces openings a generic search misses.

Below the four sits a deep bench of firms that offer comparable training on serious clients, with cutoffs that are less punishing because far fewer people apply. There is no official ranking of these, and anyone who presents one as authoritative is guessing. What follows is simply the set of names that comes up consistently for scale and quality of work.

A disclosure, since it belongs here: I trained at ASA & Associates, which appears in the table above. It is listed because it belongs in any honest list of firms of that size, not because I trained there, but you should know the connection and weigh the mention accordingly.

A plan, in four stages

1. While you are still preparing for Intermediate. Study for both groups together. Start the CV now rather than later: academic record, anything you have built, any real exposure to spreadsheets or books of account. Shortlisting begins before you feel ready.
2. The day both groups clear. Book ICITSS immediately. It is a prerequisite and every week you delay it delays the start of your two years. Apply through your regional council's placement portal, the firms' own career pages and professional networks at the same time, because they recruit through all three in parallel.
3. Two to four weeks before the drives. Timed aptitude practice every day. Two or three structured ways to break down a business problem, rather than memorised topics. And three or four technical ideas you can each illustrate with something you have actually done.
4. From day one of training. Begin Final-level study immediately rather than at the end. Ask to move across audit, tax and advisory instead of settling into one desk. Keep a running log of every assignment, client and skill, because in two years that log is the raw material for every interview you will sit.

The mistakes that cost people the offer

What actually separates candidates

Not the marksheet. Recruiters say consistently that clearing your attempts cleanly counts for more than a few extra percent. What separates people is understanding the rules as they now are, preparing specifically for the stage that eliminates the most candidates, and building a study habit on the first day of training rather than the last.

If a friend in your batch is still planning around a three-year articleship and a one-group start, that is worth a message today rather than after their timeline is set.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long is articleship now? Two years under the scheme in force since 2023, down from three. You become eligible to attempt CA Final six months after those two years end, so plan for roughly two and a half years between starting training and your first realistic Final attempt.

Can I start articleship after clearing one group of Intermediate? No. Both groups must be cleared before you can register for practical training. This is the single biggest change from the old scheme and the one most outdated advice still gets wrong.

What is the difference between Form 102 and Form 103? Form 102 is the deed of articles between you and your principal, executed on stamp paper and retained by the firm rather than filed with the Institute. Form 103 is the registration itself, submitted online through the Self Service Portal within thirty days of starting, after which a late fee applies. Registration carries no fee.

What is the minimum stipend for an articled assistant? It is set by regulation and varies with the size of the city where you train. Draft amendment regulations published on 25 June 2026 propose ₹5,000, ₹4,000 and ₹3,000 a month in the first year and ₹6,000, ₹5,000 and ₹4,000 in the second, by descending city size. The draft has not been notified, so the older and lower minimums still apply. There is no maximum, and larger firms pay considerably above the floor.

How many leave days do I get during articleship? Twelve days a year, twenty-four across the full two years. Plan examination leave inside that, not in expectation of more.

Is a Big 4 articleship necessary to do well? No. It is a strong signal and it opens doors, but mid-tier and long-established Indian firms put trainees on serious clients with less competition for the seat and often more responsibility sooner. The firms below the top four are where most successful careers actually begin.

Which round eliminates the most candidates? The online aptitude assessment, by a wide margin. It is also the most trainable, because it rewards timed practice more than talent. Preparing for it is the highest-return hour you can spend in this whole process.

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Written 10 September 2026 and reflecting the scheme of education and training in force at that date. The stipend figures quoted are from a draft amendment that had not been notified when this was written. Recruitment processes differ by firm, office and hiring season, and the Institute's rules change. Confirm the current position on icai.org and on each firm's own careers page before you build a timeline around any of it. General guidance, not professional advice.