CFP Certification Examination Exam Guide

Content follows CFP Board's 8 Principal Knowledge Domains at published weights: Retirement Savings and Income Planning (18%), Investment Planning (17%), General Principles of Financial Planning (15%), Tax Planning (14%), Risk Management and Insurance Planning (11%), Estate Planning (10%), Professional Conduct and Regulation (8%), and Psychology of Financial Planning (7%). The three largest domains interlock — retirement distributions are tax questions, investment placement is a tax question — so mastery there compounds.

CFP Board develops the exam through its Practice Analysis Study and volunteer subject-matter experts, and sets the passing standard through Standard Setting: there is no predetermined pass rate and no fixed percentage of correct answers required.

Exam registration fees are set by CFP Board and published through its registration portal; because pricing tiers shift, confirm the current fee on cfp.net when you register. What registration verifiably includes: the official full-length 170-question Practice Exam — retired real questions plus newer items, otherwise sold for $249 — comes complimentary with your exam registration, and it is the single most valuable rehearsal asset available.

Beyond registration, the main costs are the education coursework (priced by your chosen program) and review materials. The costliest failure mode is scheduling: windows come only three times a year, so a missed or underprepared attempt costs four months of calendar, not just a retake fee.

Exam day runs two 3-hour sessions: 85 questions, a 40-minute break, then 85 more, with each section subdivided into two subsections and optional breaks between them. You control your pace within each section — just over two minutes per question on average — and the practical skill is banking time on stand-alone questions to protect the case studies.

All questions are multiple choice with four options. Scoring is pass/fail against the Standard Setting competency bar, with no published percent-correct threshold, so a difficult form is difficult for everyone and leaving blanks can only cost you.