IRS Enrolled Agent Exam (Special Enrollment Examination)

The SEE divides the tax universe into three parts, each taken as a separate appointment: Part 1 covers individual taxation — the Form 1040 world of filing statuses, income, deductions, credits and property transactions; Part 2 covers businesses — entity selection and taxation, partnerships, corporations, and business property; Part 3 covers representation, practices and procedures — Circular 230 duties, IRS collections and examinations, statutes of limitations, and the preparer rules an EA lives under.

Parts may be taken in any order, and all three must be passed within three years.

Direct costs come in three layers: a per-part testing fee paid at registration through PSI (per-part amounts are set in PSI's current Candidate Information Bulletin), the Form 23 enrollment fee paid via Pay.gov after passing all three parts, and the annual PTIN renewal that precedes everything.

The pass-within-three-years rule protects most of the investment: a passed part stays banked while you prepare the others. Candidates with unfiled returns or outstanding balances should budget time to cure them — the post-exam suitability check reviews personal tax compliance and criminal background, and enrollment waits on it.

Each SEE part is a separate computer-based, multiple-choice examination administered through PSI Services. PSI's Candidate Information Bulletin sets each part at 100 questions in 3.5 hours, of which 85 are scored and 15 are unscored pretest questions you cannot identify — the 85 scored questions per part are drawn from that part's own outline areas listed below, which sum to 85. Scores are reported on a 200–800 scale with 500 to pass, and you may attempt a part up to four times in a test window. Prep material still quoting a 40–130 scale or a passing score of 105 is describing the Prometric era; fees and scheduling windows are in the bulletin too, since those do change.

What has not changed: the exam's three-part structure, the three-year completion window, and the path that follows — Form 23 enrollment and the IRS suitability check covering tax compliance and criminal background. Certain former IRS employees with qualifying technical experience remain exempt from the exam requirement entirely.