From ACC to PCC: What Do You Still Need to Complete?

If you already hold an ACC credential and want to progress from ACC to PCC, it can be surprisingly difficult to work out exactly what you need to do next.

That is because becoming a PCC is not simply a matter of completing another coaching programme.

The ACC-to-PCC requirements cover coaching education, coaching experience and ICF credentialing. What remains for you depends on what you have already completed.

This means two ACC coaches can be working toward the same PCC credential but have very different journeys ahead of them.

Before choosing another programme or comparing coaching education providers, start with a more useful question:

Based on what I have already completed, what actually remains between me and PCC?

The first thing to establish is how you reached your current position.

An ACC coach progressing toward PCC will commonly be in one of four situations.

1. You completed Level 1 before becoming ACC

Your Level 1 education forms part of the coaching education you have already completed.

To progress toward PCC, you need to establish what additional education remains and how you want to complete it, alongside the coaching experience and remaining ICF credentialing requirements.

2. You reached ACC through the Portfolio path

If you obtained ACC through the Portfolio path, eligible coaching education you have already completed can contribute toward your PCC education requirement.

Your starting point is therefore not automatically zero.

You first need to establish which previous education hours count and what remains toward the minimum 125 hours of coach-specific education required for PCC.

3. You have already completed Level 2 but currently hold ACC

If you have successfully completed an ICF-accredited Level 2 programme, your situation is different again.

Your Level 2 programme incorporates the required coaching education, mentor coaching and performance evaluation.

Your focus therefore shifts toward satisfying any remaining PCC coaching-experience and ICF credentialing requirements rather than completing another coaching education programme.

4. You started Level 2 but did not complete it

You may not need to start again.

If you have a partial-completion letter or certificate documenting the Level 2 education and programme requirements you have already completed, this can be presented to a provider offering an appropriate Bridge programme.

The provider can establish what has already been completed and what remains, allowing you to complete the outstanding education and programme requirements rather than unnecessarily repeating work you have already done.

Once you have identified your starting position, look at the PCC journey in three parts:

Coaching Education
What have you already completed, and what education remains?

Coaching Experience
How much qualifying coaching experience have you already accumulated, and what remains?

ICF Credentialing
Which remaining credentialing requirements still apply to your pathway?

Your personal route to PCC comes from putting these three pieces together.

PCC requires at least 125 hours of coach-specific education.
But that does not mean every ACC coach needs another 125 hours.

What matters is the education you have already completed and the pathway through which you intend to satisfy the remaining requirements.

For example, someone who has completed Level 1 starts from a different position from someone who has already completed Level 2.

Likewise, an ACC who previously completed eligible education through the Portfolio path needs to establish which of those hours can contribute toward the PCC requirement and what remains.

This is why the first question should not be:
Which PCC programme should I buy?

It should be:

What education have I already completed, and what education do I actually have left to complete?

Only then can you sensibly compare the routes available to you.

PCC also requires substantial coaching experience.

The current requirement is 500+ hours of coaching experience with at least 25 clients, of which at least 450 hours must be paid. At least 50 hours must fall within the 18 months before your PCC application.

If you already hold ACC, the qualifying coaching experience you accumulated previously contributes toward this total. You are not starting again from zero.

So establish:

How many qualifying coaching hours have I already completed?

How many paid hours have I completed?

How much qualifying experience remains?

And then consider one further question:

How do I want to build the hours I still need?

How you accumulate those hours can affect more than your credential progress. If you intend to build a professional coaching practice, the period in which you build experience can also contribute to developing your client base and professional practice.

For the detailed rules, different ways of building experience and how to track your hours, read:
How to Get ICF Coaching Hours: A Complete Guide for ACC, PCC and MCC

Education and coaching experience are not the same thing as the PCC credential itself.
The route through which you complete your education also affects parts of the credentialing process.
For coaches applying through the Level 2 path, mentor coaching and performance evaluation are completed as part of the Level 2 programme.

For coaches applying through the Portfolio path, additional evidence and requirements apply. These include 10 hours of mentor coaching with a PCC- or MCC-credentialed coach, completed over at least three months and including three hours of one-to-one mentoring, as well as submission of two recorded coaching sessions with transcripts for performance evaluation.

Both pathways also require successful completion of the ICF Credentialing Exam.

The important point is not to memorise every requirement before you move forward.
It is to identify:

Which parts have I already satisfied, and which parts still apply to me?

For a fuller explanation of the PCC requirements and how they affect the time required to reach PCC, read:
How Long Does It Take to Get PCC Certification?

Once you understand what remains, you can compare the ways of completing it more meaningfully.

For example, the Level 2 and Portfolio paths are not simply two different ways of obtaining the same number of education hours.

They differ in how elements such as mentor coaching and performance evaluation are completed, as well as in the ICF application process.

That means comparing pathways solely according to the apparent price or number of additional education hours can give an incomplete picture.

Consider the complete remaining journey:
• education still required;
• coaching experience still required;
• mentor coaching, where applicable;
• performance evaluation;
• Credentialing Exam;
• application process;
• time;
• financial investment;
• and the support you may need along the way.

The shortest route is not automatically the best route.

Neither is the most comprehensive.

The right question is:

Which route makes the most sense based on what I have already completed and what I still need to achieve?

There is no single timeline that applies to every ACC coach.

Someone who has already completed Level 2 but still needs substantial coaching experience has a very different timeline from someone who already has significant experience but needs additional coaching education.

Someone completing requirements through the Portfolio path may face a different application process and timeline again.

This is why the advertised duration of a programme does not necessarily tell you how long your PCC journey will take.

Before deciding which programme or provider to choose, you should be able to complete this table.

Once you know what remains, you can decide what to do next

At the beginning of this process, your question was:

What do I still need to do to reach PCC?

Once you have answered that, you have a clearer basis for deciding what to do next.

For others, the pathway may be clear but the provider decision is not. If you are still evaluating where to complete the next stage of your development, our guide to choosing the right coaching provider for PCC as an ACC coach explores what you should evaluate before making that decision.

Taymour Miri is an ICF Master Coach and Gallup-certified strengths coach, with over 30 years of leadership experience and 20 years in coaching. He has trained more than 1,500 coaches across five continents and is the founder of International Coaching Education (ICE).