Alabama Real Estate Pass Rate 2026: 70.4% First Attempt

70.4% of Alabama real estate salesperson candidates passed the licensing examination on their first attempt. The Alabama Real Estate Commission does not publish that figure, or any statewide figure — its exam statistics page carries no grand-total row. The 70.4% is our own sum of the raw counts AREC does publish, school by school: 1,698 first-attempt passes out of 2,413 first-attempt candidates across all 105 approved schools listed on the Commission's Exam Pass Rates by School page, covering the 12 months ending with the table's August 10, 2026 refresh. Counted the other way AREC offers — every sitting, retakes included — the same 105 blocks give 55.0%. Both numbers describe the whole examination, national portion and Alabama state portion together, because Alabama does not score the two portions separately.

Every Alabama pass-rate figure available, and what each one counts

AREC publishes four numbers per school for each license type: candidates tested and candidates passed on the first attempt (1st), and the same pair counting all sittings (All). We read all 105 school blocks on August 16, 2026, summed the raw counts, and checked our arithmetic against every per-school percentage AREC prints — all 420 of those cells reconcile with the counts printed beside them. The totals below are our computation, not an AREC publication.

Figure	Portion covered	Attempt basis	Tested	Passed	Rate
Salesperson — statewide (computed)	National + state, combined	First attempt only	2,413	1,698	70.4%
Salesperson — statewide (computed)	National + state, combined	All sittings, retakes included	4,022	2,211	55.0%
Salesperson — repeat sittings (derived by subtraction)	National + state, combined	Second and later sittings	1,609	513	31.9%
Broker — statewide (computed)	National + state, combined	First attempt only	348	243	69.8%
Broker — statewide (computed)	National + state, combined	All sittings, retakes included	630	335	53.2%
Broker — repeat sittings (derived by subtraction)	National + state, combined	Second and later sittings	282	92	32.6%
National/general portion alone	80 scored items	—	Not published, and not scored as a separate pass/fail
Alabama state portion alone	40 scored items	—	Not published, and not scored as a separate pass/fail

Every row covers the same period: the previous 12 months as of the August 10, 2026 update. The arithmetic on the headline row is 1,698 ÷ 2,413 = 0.7037. AREC refreshes the table on the 10th of every month and does not stamp it with an as-of date, so the window shifts forward each month and the figures here will move.

What this number does and does not count

AREC states the basis in one sentence: the statistics "represent the number of students who have taken and passed the license examination on their first attempt (1st) and the total number of students who have taken and passed the license examination, including retakes (All)." Three things follow, and they are what most pages quoting a state pass rate get wrong.

The "All" column counts sittings, not people. Its denominator, 4,022, exceeds the first-attempt denominator of 2,413 by 1,609. There cannot be more candidates than first attempts, so the extra 1,609 are repeat sittings. That makes 55.0% a per-sitting rate and 70.4% a per-candidate rate, and it is why the two differ by 15.4 points on identical underlying data.

The two columns are not one clean cohort. Because the window rolls forward monthly, a retake that lands inside the 12 months can belong to a candidate whose first sitting fell before it. Eighteen of the 105 school blocks show an All rate higher than their first-attempt rate, which retakes alone cannot produce. Treat our 31.9% repeat-sitting figure as what it is: the difference between two published columns, not a tracked cohort of failures returning.

There is no Alabama national-portion rate or state-portion rate, and there cannot be one. The exam has both portions, but the Pearson VUE candidate handbook is explicit that they resolve to a single result: "Candidates will receive an overall score. If you fail the overall exam, you must retake the entire test." Failing candidates get section-level diagnostic information on their score report, but pass or fail is one scaled score across all 120 scored items. So Alabama's 70.4% is a whole-exam number. Setting it beside a state-portion rate from a state that scores portions separately — where the national and state figures on the same sitting can be 20 or 30 points apart — compares two different things. If you want to rank Alabama against another state, the other state's figure must also be whole-exam and first-attempt, and it is worth saying so out loud when you do it.

One coverage limit: the table counts candidates attributed to an AREC-approved school. Within it, 38 of the 105 schools recorded no first-attempt candidates at all in this window, and 37 recorded no sittings of any kind.

The exam behind the number

• Format: 120 scored multiple-choice items — 80 on the national/general portion, 40 on the Alabama state portion — plus 10 to 15 unscored pretest items mixed in.
• Time: 2.5 hours for the general portion and 1 hour for the state portion, 3.5 hours total.
• Passing score: a scaled score of 70 on a 0–100 scale. Pearson VUE equates raw scores across test forms, so 70 is neither 70 questions nor 70% correct. Numeric scores are reported only to candidates who fail.
• Fee: $73 for the salesperson exam. Reciprocal candidates sit the 40-item state portion only, 1 hour, $53.
• Eligibility: at least 19 years old, high school diploma or equivalent, and a Commission-approved 60-clock-hour prelicense course completed with a grade of at least 70.
• Windows: the exam must be passed within six months of finishing the course. Test authorization runs six months with unlimited attempts; miss that window and the 60-hour course has to be retaken. Results stay valid 90 days, and the license application is due within 90 days of passing.

What the data suggests separates passing from failing candidates

The largest gap in Alabama's numbers is not between schools. It is between the first sitting and every sitting after it: 70.4% against 31.9%. Alabama's rules sharpen that edge. There is no per-portion carry-forward, so a failed exam is retaken whole, and if the six-month authorization lapses before you pass, the 60-hour course starts over.

Because no portion split is published, the state's data cannot tell you whether Alabama candidates fail on national content or on Alabama license law. The published blueprint can tell you where the weight sits. The state portion is 40 of 120 scored items — a third of the exam — and it is unusually concentrated: 15 of its 40 items come from violations that may result in disciplinary action, and another 7 from licensing requirements. Two topics, 22 items, 18% of the entire scored exam. On the national side the salesperson blueprint runs contracts and agency 16, property characteristics and legal descriptions 11, property value and appraisal 11, real estate practice 10, ownership and transfer of title 9, disclosures and environmental issues 9, financing and settlement 7, and math 7. Math is 7 items out of 120; AREC license law detail is worth three times that.

First-attempt results by school, 12 months to August 10, 2026

Restricted to the 21 schools with at least 20 first-attempt salesperson candidates, because a school with three candidates tells you nothing. Median first-attempt rate among them: 73.5%.

School	Location	1st-attempt tested	1st-attempt passed	1st-attempt rate	All-sittings rate
Academy of Real Estate	Mobile, AL	42	39	92.9%	80.4%
Academy of Real Estate – Eastern Shore	Daphne, AL	25	23	92.0%	92.3%
Alabama Real Estate Institute	Jemison, AL	20	17	85.0%	87.5%
Career Academy of Real Estate	Birmingham, AL	81	68	84.0%	73.9%
The CE Shop, Inc.	Englewood, CO	578	485	83.9%	73.4%
Colibri Real Estate, LLC	Saint Louis, MO	291	229	78.7%	65.0%
P.A.S.S. Real Estate School	Huntsville, AL	65	51	78.5%	56.9%
Martin and Fellows Real Estate School	Montgomery, AL	72	55	76.4%	53.6%
Superior School of Real Estate	Huntsville, AL	21	16	76.2%	80.0%
Shoals School of Business, Inc.	Tuscumbia, AL	20	15	75.0%	53.1%
Orion School of Real Estate	Huntsville, AL	49	36	73.5%	50.5%
Real Estate School of South Alabama	Daphne, AL	68	47	69.1%	55.1%
RealEstateU Online, LLC	Miami, FL	89	61	68.5%	56.8%
National School of Real Estate – Huntsville	Huntsville, AL	38	26	68.4%	45.5%
The Real Estate Learning Center	Birmingham, AL	50	33	66.0%	48.3%
Kaplan Real Estate Education	La Crosse, WI	212	135	63.7%	52.1%
MY Real Estate School	Birmingham, AL	248	143	57.7%	42.8%
BrickDriven Academy	Florence, AL	37	18	48.6%	36.9%
Barnes School of Real Estate	Birmingham, AL	33	15	45.5%	38.8%
360training.com, Inc.	Austin, TX	39	15	38.5%	24.5%
University of Alabama	Tuscaloosa, AL	27	9	33.3%	51.1%

Four providers — The CE Shop, Colibri, MY Real Estate School and Kaplan — account for 55.1% of all first-attempt candidates in the state. Schools AREC badges as online-only produced 1,249 first attempts at 76.1%; classroom-only schools produced 468 at 55.1%. Those two figures share an attempt basis and cover the same exam, so the comparison is at least fair arithmetic — but it is not evidence that a format causes passing. The online total is dominated by two national providers whose students self-select, and the 46 schools with between 1 and 19 first-attempt candidates pass at 52.6% collectively, which is mostly a statement about volume, not teaching.

The bottom line

70.4% is the honest headline for Alabama: first attempt, whole exam, computed from AREC's own published counts for the 12 months to August 10, 2026. Say "first attempt" every time you say it, because the same table gives 55.0% across all sittings and roughly 32% on repeat sittings. Do not go looking for Alabama's national-portion or state-portion rate — the state scores one overall 70 across both parts and publishes neither, which also means Alabama's number does not line up against portion-level figures from other states. What the data does say plainly is that the first sitting is the one that counts, and that the 40-item state portion, a third of the scored exam and heavily loaded toward license-law violations, is the part candidates are most likely to underweight.

The most useful preparation is answering Alabama-specific questions under the same clock the Commission uses, so work through a free Alabama real estate practice exam and find your weak portion before Pearson VUE charges you $73 to find it for you.