Which states publish a real estate exam pass rate

The 10 states that publish, and what each figure counts

Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Maryland, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia publish a rate. The differences between them matter more than the numbers.

First-attempt versus all attempts is the biggest one. North Carolina and Oregon publish first-attempt rates; Hawaii, Maryland and Tennessee publish figures that include retakes; South Carolina publishes both, separately. A first-attempt rate is typically far higher than an all-sittings rate for the same exam, so quoting one state's first-attempt figure next to another's all-attempts figure produces a comparison that means nothing.

The national/state portion split is the second. Most states grade a national portion and a state portion separately and publish two rates; North Carolina publishes one number for the full exam. A single 'pass rate' for a state that grades two portions is ambiguous unless the row says which portion it describes.

Coverage period is the third. Tennessee publishes a calendar year, Hawaii a rolling twelve months plus quarters, Kansas only the previous month with no archive — so a Kansas time series has to be collected going forward, it cannot be reconstructed.

Two states worth knowing about separately

Colorado has no salesperson licence. Its 'Broker' examination is the entry-level credential, so the Colorado figure is the equivalent of another state's salesperson rate, not of another state's broker rate. Oregon works the same way.

Nebraska changed format. Editions through Q2 2022 printed an explicit statewide first-attempt figure; the current Pearson VUE layout publishes per-school tables with no statewide total row. A statewide Nebraska number today is a computation, not a publication.

The full census

Verdicts as of 2026-08-16. 'Publishes nothing' means no pass-rate publication was found on the commission's site or its testing vendor's site — prep-school pages were not accepted as evidence for any verdict. California, Texas and Florida were researched in an earlier pass and are outside this census, so the denominator is 48.

Method

• — Every verdict came from the state real estate commission's own website or from the testing vendor it publishes through (PSI or Pearson VUE). A prep school's page was never accepted as evidence, in either direction.
• — A state counts as publishing a rate only if the rate, or the raw tested/passed counts it is computed from, appears in a document the commission itself publishes or links to as its own. A vendor report republished by the commission counts; a vendor report found elsewhere does not.
• — 'By school only' is a separate verdict from 'publishes a rate' because the distinction is load-bearing: a per-school table without a statewide total row lets anyone compute a statewide figure, but the state has not published one, and presenting a computed figure as an official one is the error this census exists to prevent.
• — Three states — Alaska, Minnesota and Vermont — are marked unverified because their sites were unreachable from our environment, not because a search came back empty. They are counted separately rather than being folded into 'publishes nothing'.
• — This is a snapshot. Commissions add and remove these reports without notice; the date above is when each row was last verified.

Questions

What is the pass rate for the real estate exam?

There is no national figure, and for most states there is no official figure at all. Of the 48 state commissions we checked, 10 publish a pass rate for the entry-level licensing exam and 34 publish nothing. Where a state does publish, the figures are not comparable across states: some are first-attempt rates, some include retakes, and most report the national and state portions separately.

Why do so many websites quote a real estate pass rate for my state?

Because a number performs better than an honest 'the state does not publish one'. Most quoted figures trace back to another prep site rather than to a commission, and states that publish nothing at all frequently have several mutually contradictory rates circulating for them.

Which states publish a real estate exam pass rate?

Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Maryland, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Alabama publishes per-school counts without a statewide total, so a statewide Alabama figure can be computed from its table but has never been published by the Commission.

Can I cite this census?

Yes. Every row links to the primary source it was verified against, so you can check any individual verdict yourself. Please cite the date as well as the figure — commissions add and remove these reports without notice, and a census is a snapshot.

Is a first-attempt pass rate better than an all-attempts rate?

Neither is better; they answer different questions. A first-attempt rate tells you how well prepared candidates are when they first sit. An all-attempts rate counts every sitting, so repeat failures pull it down and it describes exam throughput rather than candidate readiness. The two can differ by twenty points or more for the same exam, which is why mixing them across states is the most common error in published comparisons.