SIE Exam Pass Rate: Why There Is No Official Number

FINRA does not publish a pass rate for the SIE exam. No official number exists. Any percentage you find in a blog post or a forum thread came from somewhere other than FINRA.

That leaves you hunting for a figure that could not tell you much anyway. A pass rate describes a crowd of past candidates. It says nothing about your score.

Three things shape your result: the passing score of 70, the section weights, and how many practice questions you work through. This page covers all three.

FINRA publishes the exam details, not the results

FINRA is open about how the SIE works. The official SIE exam page lists the question count, the time limit, the $100 fee, and the passing score. The content outline lists every topic and its weight.

Neither document carries a pass rate. So when a site quotes one, the number came from a smaller sample, or from another site that also had no source.

Where the unofficial numbers come from

Source	What it measures	Why to distrust it
Prep providers	Results reported by their own paying students	A self-selected group, and the reporting is voluntary and unaudited
Forum and social threads	People who chose to post after their exam	Big wins and hard failures get posted; ordinary results often do not
Articles citing other articles	A number copied from an earlier page	Follow the chain back and it usually ends with no source

Each of these reports a real slice of candidates. The slice is small and self-selected, so the number moves depending on who answered. Old figures also age badly, because FINRA updates the content outline over time.

A pass rate would not change your study plan

Even a verified figure would describe people, not the exam. Your score comes from your answers.

The SIE passing score is equated. Equating keeps the standard the same across different versions of the exam, so a slightly harder form does not punish you. You are measured against that fixed standard, not against the people who sat the exam the same day. Whether they passed changes nothing for you.

If you want a read on how hard the exam actually is, our post on SIE exam difficulty is more useful than any pass rate.

What a passing score of 70 means

The passing score is 70, reported as an equated score. That is not the same as getting 70% of the questions right. FINRA does not publish a percent-correct equivalent, so treating 70 as a raw percentage gives you a false target.

The exam you sit looks like this:

Item	Detail
Scored questions	75
Unscored pretest questions	5
Questions you see	80
Answer choices per question	4
Time limit	1 hour 45 minutes
Passing score	70, equated
Fee	$100

You cannot tell which five items are unscored, so treat all 80 the same. There is no penalty for guessing. Answer every question before the clock runs out, even the ones you are unsure about.

The clock gives you about 78 seconds per question. That is enough time to read carefully and still finish, as long as you do not stall on one item. Practicing under the real time limit is the only way to know your pace.

Passing the SIE keeps you eligible for four years. It does not register or license you on its own. You still need a firm to sponsor you plus a top-off exam, such as the Series 6 or Series 7. Our page on the SIE license explains where the exam sits in that process.

Section weights tell you where the marks are

The 2025 content outline splits the 75 scored questions like this:

Section	Weight	Scored questions
Knowledge of Capital Markets	16%	12
Understanding Products and Their Risks	44%	33
Understanding Trading, Customer Accounts and Prohibited Activities	31%	23
Overview of Regulatory Framework	9%	7

Products and risks carries 33 questions on its own. Add trading, customer accounts and prohibited activities, and those two sections cover 56 of the 75 scored questions. A weak spot there costs you far more than a weak spot in the regulatory framework section.

Let the weights set your study hours. Start with the products and risks overview, then the trading and accounts rules. Fill in capital markets basics and the regulatory framework after that. Our free course runs 30 lessons in the same order.

Track your own numbers instead

The only pass rate you can act on is your own. Three measures are worth writing down:

• Your accuracy in each of the four sections, over your last 100 questions.
• Your score on full mock exams taken under the real time limit.
• The topics you keep missing, listed by name.

These numbers respond to your work. A national figure never would.

Use this rough readiness guide. The percentages below are our study targets, not FINRA scoring rules, because FINRA does not publish a percent-correct equivalent for 70.

Signal	Not ready yet	Getting close	Ready to book
Section accuracy	Under 65% in any section	70% to 79% across all four	80% or better in all four
Timed mock exams	None finished	One finished	Two or three finished, all clearly above your target
Repeat mistakes	The same topics keep coming back	Fewer repeats each week	Misses are scattered, not clustered

Volume is what moves those numbers. SIE Exam Ready includes 750 practice questions and full-length mock exams. You can start with the free SIE practice test, or work through the free practice tests by topic to find your weak sections first. For drilling one area at a time, use our SIE practice questions.

If you fail, the retake wait is set by rule

You can retake the SIE. FINRA sets a waiting period first, and it grows with each attempt:

• 30 days after a first failed attempt.
• 30 days after a second failed attempt.
• 180 days after a third or later failed attempt within a two-year period.

Each attempt costs the $100 fee again, so a retake is a real cost in time and money. FINRA has approved shorter waiting periods and will announce the start date, so check finra.org before you plan around the current waits.

Our post on what happens if you fail the SIE walks through the retake steps in detail.

The short version

• FINRA does not publish an SIE pass rate, and no unofficial number is worth planning around.
• The passing score is an equated 70, with no published percent-correct equivalent.
• You see 80 questions in 1 hour 45 minutes, and 75 of them count.
• Two sections carry 56 of the 75 scored questions, so study in proportion to the weights.
• Your own section accuracy and timed mock scores are the numbers that predict your result.

For the full study plan, read how to study for the SIE exam and pass the SIE exam first time. When your practice scores hold up, see how to register for the SIE exam and what to expect on exam day.