2026–2027 Pilot

AP® Business Challenge — Official Rules & Guidelines

Effective for the 2027–2028 program year. Last updated October 23, 2026.

1. About the Challenge

The AP Business Challenge is an entrepreneurship competition for students enrolled in AP Business with Personal Finance (AP BPF). Working from the course’s Business Canvas Project, students develop and pitch an original business concept and are evaluated on the quality of their entrepreneurial thinking. Success is measured by what students learn from the entrepreneurial process — not by launching a profitable business.

2. Eligibility

• Each participant must be currently enrolled in AP Business with Personal Finance at the time of registration.
• Each participant must be a member of Business Professionals of America. Membership is required to compete.
• For the 2027–2028 pilot, the Challenge is open to students whose high school is in a pilot state: Delaware, Idaho, Michigan, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Minnesota, Indiana, China. Students in other states may join the interest list and will be contacted if the Challenge opens in their state.
• Every member of a team must independently meet all eligibility requirements.

3. Teams and Individuals

• A student may compete as an individual or as part of a team of two or three students.
• Teams may span classrooms or schools within the same state; every member must still meet the eligibility requirements above.
• A student may appear on only one entry per program year.
• Roster changes after submission are allowed only with prior approval from the program coordinator and only before the applicable round’s deadline. No single member owns the team’s idea.

4. What You Submit

Each stage is judged on its own rubric, and you submit what that rubric asks for. Nothing from a later stage is required to enter Stage 1.

Stage 1 — Tip-Off (School)

• Your business idea. The name of your good or service, and a short description of it and the customer problem, need, or want it addresses.
• A pitch of your Business Canvas. Presented to the judges at your school. Half of the Stage 1 rubric scores the pitch: how clearly you communicate the canvas, how the team works together, your delivery, and how well you establish the problem, the solution, and your competitive advantage.
• Your roster and acknowledgements. Each team member’s details and course enrolment, the required consents, and a parent or guardian consent where a participant is under 18.
• Your completed AI Usage & Documentation Form. Required for every phase, signed by every team member. Your Business Canvas Project is NOT uploaded at Stage 1 — Stage 1 is judged at your school.

You no longer retype the canvas into this form. Earlier versions asked more than twenty long-form questions covering the same ground as the project itself; the project is uploaded once instead.

Stage 2 — Championship (State)

• Your Business Canvas Project, uploaded. The project you produced in AP Business with Personal Finance, as a PDF, Word, PowerPoint or image file. Stage 2 is the first round BPA judges, and judges score this document itself — so include your customer, product, organization, operations, market and financial work in it.
• Your roster, AI documentation and acknowledgements again. Stage 2 is a registration of its own, so its roster is the team as it stands now and its AI documentation covers the work you are submitting now.

Remaining requirements are published with the Stage 2 rubric.

Stage 3 — National Finals

Published with the Stage 3 rubric. Teams that advance from their state register for the National Leadership Conference and are notified of the requirements.

All work must be the student’s own and produced in connection with the AP BPF course. Files must be free of viruses or malicious content.

5. Timeline

Several teams per school may register for Stage 1. Each phase is registered for separately, in its own window — entries not submitted by the applicable deadline will not advance.

6. Stages and Advancement

The Challenge runs in three stages:

1. Tip-Off (School). Entries are reviewed at the school level. 1 winning entry per school advances to the State Championship.
2. Championship (State). Entries are judged at the state level. The top 3 entries per state advance to the National Finals.
3. National Finals. Advancing entries are evaluated by a national panel to determine final placements.

Ties are broken by the judges’ scores and, where necessary, by the program coordinator. A team that cannot attend a round should notify the coordinator in advance; non-attendance and substitution policies are set by the program and applied consistently.

7. Judging

Each stage has its own rubric. Judges score each numbered criterion by choosing the written level that matches the work — Emerging, Developing, Proficient, or Distinguished — and the total is reported as a score out of 100.

Stage 1 rubric

12 criteria, 48 raw points, scaled to 100:

• Part A · Business Canvas Project Deliverables — 24 points
  • 1. Customer Problem Identification (Skill 2.A · Topic 1.1.A)
  • 2. Product and Solution Idea (Skill 2.A, 2.C · Topic 1.1.A to B)
  • 3. Market and Competitive Advantage (Skill 2.C, 3.A · Topic 1.2, 1.1C, 3C)
  • 4. PESTEL and External Environment (Skill 3.A · Topic 1.3)
  • 5. Vision and Mission (Skill 1.A, 1.C, 5.A · Topic 1.5)
  • 6. Production and Supply Chain Plan (Skill 1.A, 1.C · Topic 1.8)
• Part B · Business Canvas Project Pitch — 24 points
  • 7. Communication of the Business Canvas (Skill 4.A, 4.B)
  • 8. Team Collaboration (Skill 5.A to 5.D · Topic 1.7)
  • 9. Engagement and Delivery (Skills 4.A, 4.B)
  • 10. Problem Definition (Skill 2.A · Topic 1.1.A)
  • 11. Solution and Value Proposition (Skills 2.A, 2.C · Topic 1.1.A–B)
  • 12. Market and Competitive Advantage (Skills 2.C, 3.A · Topic 1.2)

Download the Stage 1 rubric (PDF)

Stage 2 and Stage 3 rubrics

Coming soon. They will be posted here before their stages open, and scoring for a stage stays closed until its rubric is published.

Judges apply the rubric independently and must score every criterion — a partly completed score card is not accepted. Judges complete the program’s compliance requirements (including a background check and code-of-conduct and liability agreements) before evaluating entries. Judges’ decisions are final.

8. Academic Integrity and Original Work

All work must be the students’ own and produced in connection with the AP BPF course. Fabricated data, plagiarism, and misrepresentation are prohibited and are grounds for disqualification. Research that involves people (for example, customer interviews or surveys) must be conducted honestly and respectfully.

9. Use of Artificial Intelligence

The Challenge follows BPA’s Artificial Intelligence Usage & Citation Policy for competitive events. The Challenge is a Level 2 event: generative AI is permitted with citation.

What counts and what does not:

• Generative AI — tools that produce new text, code, images, audio, or data from a prompt. Disclose and cite every one you use.
• Routine assistive technology — spelling and grammar checkers, calculators, search engines, autocomplete, and accessibility tools. This is not AI use and needs no citation.

Permitted uses include ideation and planning, drafting and editing, code or asset generation where the event allows it, and summarising or analysing data to inform the entry.

Your responsibilities

• You are fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of your submission, regardless of AI assistance.
• Verify every AI-generated fact or source independently. Fabricated or unverifiable citations are a violation.
• Do not enter personally identifiable, confidential, or copyrighted information into public AI tools.
• Follow each tool’s terms and minimum age requirements.

How to cite AI (MLA format)

The prompt is the title and the tool is the container:

“Prompt description” prompt. Tool, Version, Developer, Date, URL.

For example: “Outline a marketing plan” prompt. ChatGPT, GPT-4o version, OpenAI, 9 Mar. 2026, chatgpt.com. In text: (“Outline a marketing plan”).

AI Usage & Documentation Form

Required with every Challenge submission. It records the tools and versions you used, when, how, and for what purpose, and carries your affirmation that the work is substantially your own. On a team entry, each member signs a copy.

Download the AI Usage & Citation Policy and Documentation Form

If you used no generative AI, submit the form with “No” selected — it then serves as your AI-free originality affirmation.

Prohibited, undisclosed, or uncited AI use violates the BPA Honor Code and may result in penalty or disqualification under the BPA Academic Integrity Policy.

10. Intellectual Property and Confidentiality

The Challenge is an academic exercise. No single team member owns the team’s idea, and submissions may become publicly accessible through showcase and promotional activities. Students should not submit information they consider proprietary or wish to keep confidential. Where a participant is a minor, a parent or guardian should review these terms with the student. Participants retain ownership of their original work except as needed for BPA to administer, judge, and promote the Challenge.

11. Media and Showcase

By participating, students and (for minors) their parent or guardian consent to BPA’s use of the entry, pitch, video, name, school, and likeness for Challenge showcase and promotional purposes. Students under 18 must have a parent or guardian complete the parent/guardian consent form. Consent may be withdrawn in writing for future use by contacting the program coordinator; material already published may remain in circulation.

12. Code of Conduct

Participants, teachers, and judges are expected to act with honesty, respect, and professionalism. Harassment, discrimination, dishonesty, and disruptive behavior are not tolerated. Violations may result in removal from the Challenge.

13. Disqualification

An entry may be disqualified for ineligibility, missed deadlines, incomplete submissions, exceeding word limits after notice, academic-integrity or AI-policy violations, or code-of-conduct violations. The program coordinator determines disqualifications.

14. Privacy

Personal information collected at registration is used to administer the Challenge and is handled in accordance with BPA’s privacy practices. Student names collected for administration are not reported to the College Board.

15. Changes and Contact

BPA may amend these Rules & Guidelines; the current version is the one published here. Questions about the Challenge or these rules should be directed to your CTSO state advisor or the program coordinator.

AP® is a registered trademark of the College Board, which does not endorse this program.