How to track AXP hours: a log for every experience area

What are the six AXP experience areas?

The Architectural Experience Program (AXP) has six experience areas, each with a minimum number of hours, for a total of 3,740. They follow the life of a project and the business around it, and each one lines up with a division of the Architect Registration Examination (ARE).

The minimums come from NCARB's experience requirements. The right-hand column is a plain-language guide to help you sort your week, not NCARB's definition; the AXP Guidelines define each area and its competencies, and your AXP supervisor is the person to ask when a task could go either way.

Two other rules shape the log. About half of your documented experience has to come from working at an architecture firm under a licensed architect, which NCARB calls setting A. Up to 1,860 hours can come from setting O, experience outside a firm. And each state or jurisdiction sets its own licensure requirements, so check yours in case it asks for more than the AXP.

How has AXP reporting worked since November 2025?

Experience reported within one year of when you earned it gets 100% credit. Experience older than a year at the time you submit gets 75% credit, with no limit on how old it can be. NCARB introduced this in November 2025, replacing the old five-year requirement, and applied it to experience already reported as well as new reports.

A few details from NCARB's reporting policy matter for how you keep the log:

• Two reports for mixed periods: if a backlog spans both sides of the one-year line, you submit one report for the part under a year old and another for the older part.
• Submission date counts, not approval: if your supervisor takes months to approve a report you submitted on time, it still earns full credit.
• Extensions exist: for the birth or adoption of a child (six months), military service or a serious medical condition, requested within six months of the event.
• A weekly ceiling: NCARB uses your average hours worked per week to cap the AXP hours you can report in any one week, so record the hours you actually worked.

Older pages and forum posts still describe a six-month reporting window and a five-year cut-off. If you read advice that says unreported hours expire, check its date. Under the current policy they do not expire, but every week you wait moves a week of experience from full credit to 75%.

One architect described keeping about 580 weekly spreadsheets since 2015, adding up licensure hours by hand at the bottom of each one. A reply warned that NCARB limits how far back hours can be reported. That was true under the five-year rule. Today the older hours would still count, at 75%, which makes a decade-old backlog worth reporting rather than abandoning.

What should an AXP hours spreadsheet look like?

Use one row per block of work, grouped by week. Record the project, task, hours, experience area and setting when you log the work. Sorting your work into areas once a week takes a few minutes; trying to do it a year later from old timesheets takes days, and the answers are guesses.

Here is a sample week for a designer at a small firm, logged against the firm's 42-hour timesheet:

Keep five columns at minimum: the date or week, the project and task as the firm's timesheet names it, the hours, the experience area and the setting. Add a column for the supervisor if you might change jobs, because NCARB wants a separate report for each supervisor, and pending reports approved before you leave.

Add a summary at the top or on a second sheet. Total each area across all weeks and compare it with the required minimum:

This sample is typical of someone two years into a documentation-heavy role. Documentation is nearly done, while Construction & Evaluation and Practice Management are far behind. Those two rarely fill up on their own, because they depend on being sent to site or brought into proposals. The breakdown is what you take to your supervisor when you ask for that work.

How do you keep the log in line with the firm timesheet?

Build your AXP log from the firm's timesheet rather than alongside it. The timesheet already says what you worked on and for how long; your log adds one column, the experience area. If the two disagree, your supervisor will notice when they approve the report, and you will have to explain the difference.

• Same week, same total: your AXP hours for a week should never be more than the hours on your timesheet for that week, and the difference should be the work you chose not to log.
• Split mixed entries: if the firm logs "Library, 23 hours" as one line, split it in your own log by task so each part can go to the right area.
• Keep the firm's project names: using the same names makes it quick for your supervisor to check your report against what they know you worked on.
• Sort while you remember: pick the experience area in the same week, when you still know whether those hours were code research or drawing.

Many firms track time by project phase for billing, which helps: the phases usually line up with experience areas. The architecture practice time tools comparison covers how practices set up those stages, which is often the easiest place to borrow your categories from.

How do you catch up on a backlog of unreported hours?

Report the most recent year first, because that is the experience losing value every week. Anything already older than a year earns 75% whether you report it today or next month, so it can wait a little. Anything under a year old drops to 75% on the day it passes the one-year mark.

Take a sample candidate who last reported in August 2025 and is catching up on November 11, 2026, averaging about 150 AXP hours a month:

Reporting now costs 112.5 hours on the old quarter, which is already gone. Waiting two more months would push roughly another 300 hours over the line and cost a further 75. Those 75 hours are about two weeks of full-time experience lost to paperwork, which is why the recent year comes first.

1. Gather the records: the firm's timesheets for the whole backlog, plus your calendar and project lists to fill gaps.
2. Sort the recent year: put the most recent twelve months into experience areas first, week by week.
3. Submit it: send that period to your supervisor as one report covering experience under a year old.
4. Do the older period: sort and submit it as a separate report, which earns 75%.
5. Start the weekly log: sort each week as it ends, so you never have to do this again.

If you changed employers during the backlog, each employer's period is a separate report for that supervisor. Contact a former supervisor early; they have less reason to prioritise your report than your current one.

Should you keep the log in a spreadsheet or a time tracker?

Choose a spreadsheet when you can maintain one table of entries with a summary by experience area. Keep all weeks in that table so you can total them together, rather than typing a separate total at the bottom of each weekly tab.

Choose a time tracker when you already log work hours and want it to total the areas for you. In Timen, a free time tracker, you can make a tag for each of the six experience areas, put one on each entry, and run a report over any custom date range grouped by tag to get the six totals for that period, such as the last twelve months. It does not connect to NCARB, so the totals still go into your NCARB Record by hand, and your supervisor approves them there.

Here is that report for a year of sample hours, with one tag per experience area.

Whichever you use, the record that counts is the one in your NCARB Record. Check it against your own log every time a report is approved, and confirm your jurisdiction's requirements before you count the last hours.

What else matters when reporting AXP hours?

How many AXP hours do you need?

3,740 hours across six experience areas: Practice Management 160, Project Management 360, Programming & Analysis 260, Project Planning & Design 1,080, Project Development & Documentation 1,520 and Construction & Evaluation 360.

Do NCARB AXP hours expire?

Not under the reporting policy introduced in November 2025. Experience reported within one year earns full credit, and older experience earns 75% credit with no limit on its age.

Can extra hours in one area count toward another?

No. The six minimums add up to exactly 3,740 hours, so you complete the program by meeting each minimum. Extra hours in one area do not fill a gap in another.

How often should you report AXP hours?

Submit AXP reports often enough that no experience in them is more than a year old if you want full credit. Keep a weekly log and submit every few months to make reports smaller and easier for your supervisor to approve.

Where should you start this week?

Set up one log with a row per entry and a summary by experience area, sort this week's timesheet into it, and look at which areas are furthest behind. If you have unreported hours, report the most recent year first, then the older period. Check your NCARB Record and your jurisdiction's rules before you rely on any total, including your own.