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Food Service & Safety

Food-safety and responsible-service certifications for restaurant and hospitality staff.

4 exams · 659 free practice questions · Verified against official sources September 27, 2026

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Exams
4
Exam families
2
Free practice questions
659
Study guides
4
Cheat sheets
4

Which exam are you taking?

Exams are grouped with their close relatives — the other tiers of the same licence, the same exam in other states. Open a group to see each exam with its free practice questions, study guide and cheat sheet.

Food handler, food manager or alcohol server — which card does your job need?

Three different credentials get lumped together as 'the food safety test', and they answer three different legal requirements. The manager certification exists because the FDA Food Code, which most states and counties adopt into their own regulations, requires the person in charge of a food establishment to be a certified food protection manager who has passed an exam from an accredited program. The food handler card is the shorter, lower-stakes training and assessment for line staff, required by some states and counties and by many employers. Responsible alcohol service certification covers servers and bartenders, and in most states it is an employer requirement rather than a legal one.

The word accredited matters for the manager credential. The Conference for Food Protection sets a standard for food protection manager certification programs, and the ANSI National Accreditation Board accredits programs against it. A health inspector accepts a manager certificate because the program behind it is accredited — ServSafe Manager is the most widely taken of those programs, and the CFPM page here explains the umbrella. The handler and alcohol programs are not covered by that standard; the local health authority or the state alcohol regulator decides what it accepts.

Delivery reflects the stakes. The manager exam is proctored, at a class, a test centre or online with a live proctor and government photo ID. The handler assessment is taken online with no proctor at all. Alcohol certification has both: a primary online exam without a proctor, and print and advanced exams that must be proctored.

Start from your role

Links go to the exam guide, where the question count, time limit, fee and passing score are verified against the program's own page.

I am the person in charge of a kitchen, or I am about to be
CFPMServSafe Manager

You need a certified food protection manager credential from an ANAB-accredited program. ServSafe Manager is one such program; the CFPM page explains the standard and the other accredited exams a health department will accept. The exam is proctored and scored on the scored questions only.

I work the line, prep or serve food and my county or employer requires a card
ServSafe Food Handler

The food handler course and assessment. No prerequisite, taken online without a proctor, and accepted where the local health authority recognises the program — some jurisdictions run their own card instead.

I serve or sell alcohol
ServSafe Alcohol

Responsible alcohol service. The primary online exam needs no proctor; the print and advanced exams do. The state alcohol regulator decides whether it satisfies a seller-server rule, and the answer is not uniform: Texas does not require certification by law at all, though employers commonly do, and recognises its own TABC program rather than ServSafe Alcohol.

My state or county has its own food manager rule
CFPMServSafe Manager

States such as Florida and Texas write the manager requirement into their own regulations and list the exams they accept; both accept accredited programs including ServSafe Manager. The state health department names the accepted programs and sets the renewal cycle, which is why a certificate valid for five years in one state must be re-earned sooner in another.

I want the credential that travels between employers and states
ServSafe Manager

An accredited manager certificate is recognised across jurisdictions that adopt the Food Code standard, which is most of them. Handler cards and alcohol certificates are far more local.

From requirement to card

  1. 01Identify which credential applies to you. The local health department sets the food manager and handler requirement and the state alcohol regulator sets the seller-server one, so a person who cooks and also serves drinks commonly needs two.
  2. 02For the manager credential, pick an ANAB-accredited program; for handler and alcohol, pick a program your authority accepts.
  3. 03Train, then sit the assessment in the form the program requires: proctored for the manager exam, online for handler, proctored or not for alcohol depending on the exam version.
  4. 04Keep the certificate current on the renewal cycle your state or county sets; manager certificates are renewed by re-examination.

Fee, format and passing standard

The 3 exams asked about most, of 4 on this page. Each figure is that exam's verified fact, cited to the regulator's page on the exam guide it links to. A blank cell means the regulator publishes no fixed figure.

ExamFeeQuestionsTimePassingWritten by
ServSafe Manager—902h70%National Restaurant Association
ServSafe Food Handler—40—75%National Restaurant Association
ServSafe Alcohol$3040—75%National Restaurant Association

Who writes these exams

FDA and state or local health departments
The FDA publishes the Food Code; states and counties adopt it into regulation and enforce the certified-manager and handler requirements through inspection.
Conference for Food Protection and ANAB
The Conference sets the standard for manager certification programs; the ANSI National Accreditation Board accredits programs against it. Accreditation is what makes a certificate acceptable to inspectors.
National Restaurant Association (ServSafe)
Runs the ServSafe Manager, Food Handler and Alcohol programs and exams. The manager exam is accredited under the Conference standard; the others are accepted program by program.
State alcohol regulators
Decide whether seller-server certification is required by law and which programs count. Texas's TABC is the model of a state that runs its own certification.

Official pages this section is drawn from

Food Service & Safety articles

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Pass-rate breakdowns and independent prep-course comparisons for food service & safety exams. Every figure links back to the body that publishes it.

Official sources

Every exam number on this page traces to a document published by the body that sets or administers the exam. These are the primary publishers cited across Food Service & Safety.

Last verified against these documents:

What you'll find on every Food Service & Safety exam

Each exam has up to four pages, one per job to be done: practice the questions, understand the exam, study the outline, or revise the morning of. Flashcards and glossary terms sit inside the study guide rather than on pages of their own.

Practice tests4
Free question banks with a worked explanation on every answer.
Exam guides4
Cost, format, eligibility and difficulty, straight from the official outline.
Study guides4
Full outline coverage, plus the exam's flashcards and glossary terms.
Cheat sheets4
One-page summaries built for the last review, with a PDF download.