Securities Industry Essentials (SIE) Exam

What the SIE covers

The table follows FINRA's SIE content outline. Percentages are the official rounded allocations; the question counts refer to the 75 scored items.

What comes after the SIE?

Your passing result is valid for four years. For General Securities Representative registration, the SIE is a corequisite to the Series 7; you must also meet the applicable registration requirements. Passing the SIE is not a license to conduct securities business.

How to enroll and schedule the SIE

You do not need a firm. FINRA lets students, people considering a securities career, and formerly registered people without SIE credit enroll themselves. The path is three steps on FINRA's SIE page: create an account; enroll and pay the fee by credit card or ACH, or redeem a voucher; then schedule. FINRA adds a warning most guides skip: enroll from a Windows laptop or desktop, because users report problems enrolling on Mac, mobile and tablet devices.

Two details at enrollment follow you into your record. You must give a Social Security number or, if you have none, your mother's maiden name, and the details you enter must match exactly what you later give a broker-dealer for its Form U4; if they differ, FINRA says the result will not import into your CRD record and you may have to retest. U.S. citizenship is not required.

Once you are enrolled, FINRA posts a 120-day window in which the exam must be taken, and you book the appointment with Prometric, FINRA's test vendor, at a test center or online with a remote proctor. A test-center seat is booked on Prometric's scheduling page or by phone at (800) 578-6273, Monday to Friday 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET and weekends 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET, excluding federal holidays. Online delivery needs equipment that can show a full 360-degree view of your workstation at check-in, a movable camera or an undocked laptop with a built-in camera; without it you are not permitted to test and the fee is charged. If you need testing accommodations, schedule only after FINRA approves them: they cannot be added or changed once an appointment exists, and most are available only at a test center.

If a firm is enrolling you, it can request the SIE through your Form U4, enroll you directly, or hand you a voucher; schools and training companies can buy vouchers too. An associated person may sit the SIE and a qualification exam on the same day as two separate appointments that must not overlap, and the order you pass them in does not matter. Veterans who qualify for the GI Bill may be reimbursed for the fee.

Exam format

The SIE has 75 scored questions plus five unscored pretest items you cannot tell apart from the scored ones, for 80 total in a 105-minute sitting. FINRA cut the pretest count from 10 to 5, effective October 27, 2025, without changing the time limit or the 75 scored items. Your pass/fail result is reported immediately, with performance feedback on your weaker areas if you do not pass.

What it costs

The SIE exam fee is $100, up from $80 through 2025 under FINRA's current fee schedule. If you need to reschedule or cancel, do it at least 10 business days ahead to avoid a fee; inside that window FINRA charges $50 (3–10 business days out) or the full $100 (within 2 business days, or a no-show). Missing your enrollment window entirely forfeits the fee — FINRA does not refund it or apply it to another exam. FINRA publishes no reduced fee for a retake: each new attempt is its own paid enrollment at the current fee.

Failing shows the real cost of not passing early. Under today's rule you wait 30 calendar days between each of your first three attempts, then 180 calendar days before a fourth attempt if you have failed three times within two years — three failures followed by a pass on the fourth try runs at least 30 + 30 + 180 = 240 calendar days and 4 × $100 = $400 in fees. FINRA has already amended Rule 1210 to shorten those waits to 15 and 60 days; the change is on the books, but FINRA has not yet announced when it takes effect for candidates, so the 30/180-day waits above are what you would face today.

Scoring and what counts as a pass

FINRA reports the SIE on a scaled score with 70 as the passing mark, not a raw percentage, so that a harder or easier set of questions doesn't change what counts as passing. Applied arithmetically to the 75 scored questions, 70% works out to roughly 53 correct answers, but FINRA does not publish that conversion or promise it holds on every form — treat 53 of 75 as an estimate for judging your practice results, not the exact number your form will require.

How the SIE fits with the exams you pair it with

The SIE is one half of the registration requirement: FINRA also requires a representative-level exam matched to the job, among them the Series 6, 7, 22, 57, 79, 82, 86/87 and 99. Two exams administered alongside FINRA's program, the Series 63 and Series 65, list no corequisite at all; the Series 66 lists the SIE plus the Series 7, which FINRA labels "SIE + S7TO." None of the four substitutes for another — passing the SIE does not exempt you from any of them, and passing one does not satisfy another's requirement. FINRA also publishes a raw correct-answer count for the three state-law exams below but only a scaled percentage for the SIE and Series 7. If your registration later ends, the SIE stays valid for four years from the date that representative-level registration terminated.

Choose preparation by the help you need: explanations, feedback on mistakes or a structured schedule.

What FINRA gives you free, and what SIE courses sell

• Free from FINRA: the SIE content outline (the four domains and their exact item counts), FINRA's own exam tutorial, and FINRA's own practice test — a free, untimed set of 75 questions similar to the real exam, with feedback at the end on what you know and what to review. All three are linked from FINRA's own SIE page; the exam rules on this page come from those pages, not a course provider.
• Free here: a 709-question practice bank organized by the same four domains, a study guide, flashcards and a printable cheat sheet.
• What SIE courses sell (2026 list prices): Achievable $99 for 12 months (35+ practice exams, 2,000+ quiz questions); ExamFX $129–$249 for 90–180 days depending on format; Kaplan $149 for 5 months, with a $49 extension available; STC $129–$293 for 6 months; Knopman Marks $265–$895 for 12 months. Every provider tests the same FINRA content outline — none of them cover material the others omit.

When paying makes sense, by FINRA's own rules