Most states don't publish a real estate exam pass rate at all. Of the 22 states we checked for this post, only eight put an official figure on a regulator's own website, and no two of them count the same people. So when a site hands you a neat pass rate for every state, ask where the number came from. Usually nobody can tell you.
An earlier version of this page had a table like that too. We went back to the state regulators' own documents, and most of its numbers didn't hold up. This is the rebuilt version: only figures we could trace to a regulator, with the document linked next to each one.
The States That Publish a Number
Every figure below comes from the regulator or its exam vendor. Read the "Who's counted" column before you compare two rows. It matters more than the percentage.
| State | Pass Rate | Who's Counted | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | 69.5% | First-time salesperson exams, summed by us across all 107 school rows (AREC posts no statewide row) | Previous 12 months, as posted 2026-11-10 | AREC exam pass rates by school |
| Colorado | National 63.5%, State 55.8% | First-time examinees, broker exam (Colorado's only license), portions graded separately | Calendar year 2025 | Colorado DRE first-time pass rates 2025 |
| Florida | 48% | First-time takers, Sales Associate exam (repeaters: 32%) | Fiscal year 2025-26 (July 2025 to June 2026) | Pearson VUE exam performance summary, FY 25/26 |
| Hawaii | National 50.5%, State 34.1% | First-time ('ORIGINAL') salesperson examinees, portions reported separately | April 2025 to March 2026 | Hawaii Real Estate Commission pass/fail report |
| North Carolina | 75.5% | Applicants (people) examined during the year, all license exams; 1,386 of 5,658 failed | July 2024 to June 2025 | NCREC annual report (G.S. 93B-2) |
| South Carolina | State 56%, National 57% | First-time salesperson examinees, portions reported separately | January 2026 (one month) | SC Real Estate Commission exam statistics |
| Texas | 56.1% | Sales agent candidates passing both portions on the first attempt, attributed to an approved provider | December 2023 to November 2025 | TREC provider exam passage rates |
| Virginia | State 43.0%, National 36.4% | All salesperson exam attempts, first or repeat, portions reported separately | Calendar year 2024 | DPOR 2024 pass rates by school |
What Each Number Actually Measures
Florida has the cleanest data of any state here, and it's also the most sobering. Pearson VUE reports Florida's results to the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, and in the 2025-26 fiscal year 24,965 people took the Sales Associate exam for the first time. 12,086 passed. That's 48%. People retaking it did worse: 8,320 of 26,386 repeaters passed, which is 32%. Read that twice. Your second attempt is not easier than your first. It's harder. My read: most people who fail go back in having changed too little about how they study.
Texas publishes a statewide row on TREC's education provider page. A student counts as a pass only if they passed both the national and state portions on the first attempt. Over the two years from December 2023 to November 2025, 16,824 of 29,980 sales agent candidates did that, or 56.1%. TREC uses this number to police schools: a provider has to reach 80% of the statewide rate to stay approved.
Alabama doesn't print a statewide total. The Alabama Real Estate Commission posts every school's first-attempt and overall results for the previous 12 months, so we added up all 107 school rows ourselves. First-time salesperson candidates passed 1,653 of 2,378 exams, which is 69.5%. Counting retakes, the rate drops to 54.9%.
Colorado has no single pass rate, and anyone quoting one is mixing two numbers. Colorado licenses brokers only, and the national and state portions are graded separately. For first-time examinees in 2025, the Division of Real Estate reports 63.5% passing the national portion and 55.8% passing the state portion. In Colorado the state portion is the harder one, which is why its state law deserves more of your study time than the question count suggests.
Hawaii reports the same two portions, and its state portion is the toughest number on this page. From April 2025 to March 2026, 50.5% of first-time salesperson candidates passed the national portion. Only 34.1% passed the state portion. If you're testing in Hawaii, the state law section is where your exam will be decided.
South Carolina splits results the same way. Its most recent statistics file covers only January 2026: 56% of first-time salesperson examinees passed the state portion and 57% passed the national portion. One month is a small sample, so treat it as a rough reading, not a trend.
Virginia counts every attempt, first or fifth, which pulls its numbers down. In 2024, 43.0% of salesperson state-portion attempts passed and 36.4% of national-portion attempts passed. Don't read that as "Virginia is twice as hard as Texas." It's a different measurement.
North Carolina reports people, not attempts. The Real Estate Commission's annual report under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 93B-2, for July 2024 to June 2025, lists 5,658 applicants examined and 1,386 who failed, which means 75.5% passed. It counts people examined during the year, not first attempts, so it doesn't line up with the first-attempt rows above.
How We Checked These Numbers
We opened each regulator's document directly, not a search summary, on November 10, 2026. Where a state posts only school-level rows (Alabama), we summed them and say so. Where a state posts monthly reports, we used the regulator's own annual total when one exists (Florida's fiscal-year summary) instead of building our own. We didn't use prep-company or aggregator figures for anything, and that includes numbers we published here before.
The States That Publish Nothing
The other 14 states in our check publish no pass rate that we could find on the regulator's own site: Alaska, Arizona, California, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Wyoming. We looked at each regulator directly, not at search results.
California is the one that surprises people. The Department of Real Estate reports how many exams it gave each year, but not how many people passed. New York publishes no pass rate and doesn't even give candidates a numeric score. Arizona used to post an exam performance summary, but the link now returns a 404 and the department's site has nothing to replace it. If you see a confident percentage for any of these states, it's an estimate wearing a costume.
What This Means for You
A state's pass rate tells you how the average candidate did. It says nothing about you. The average candidate in Florida, for example, has a coin-flip chance on the first try, and a worse chance on the second. That's the only lesson in this data I'd stake anything on: your first attempt is your best attempt, so don't spend it as a practice run.
Prepare for the exam you'll actually sit. Know how many questions you'll get, how long you'll have, and how the national and state portions are scored in your state. Our guide to exam length in all 50 states has the format for each one, and your state's page has the details. Then spend real time on state law. Colorado and Hawaii show why: first-time candidates in both did noticeably worse on the state portion than on the national one, and in Hawaii the gap is 16 points.
The team at License Professor builds practice exams around each state's actual format, national and state portions included, so the first time you see that structure isn't on exam day.
Ready to prep for your state exam?
Find your state's complete exam prep guide — practice questions, pass rates, and everything you need to know.
See all 50 states →About the Author
MJ Kim is a licensed real estate professional in California with 8 years in real estate education. A UCLA grad originally from New York, MJ brings a detail-oriented, legally sharp perspective to exam prep and she will make sure you know the statute, not just the summary.