Real Estate Exam Passing Score by State: A Full Breakdown
By the AgentExamHub team | Updated July 15, 2026
Real estate exam passing scores typically run 70% to 75% of scored questions correct, but the exact threshold and how it’s calculated both vary by state. Some states, including California and Florida, use a raw percentage of questions answered correctly; others, including Pennsylvania and North Carolina, report a scaled score of 75 on a 0 to 100 range that isn’t literally your percent correct.
Two different states can both tell candidates “you need a 75” and mean two different things by it. Knowing which kind of number your state actually uses changes how you should interpret a practice-test score while you’re still studying.
What passing score does each state actually require?
| State | Passing score | Scoring type | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | 70% national (56/80) and 70% state (28/40), scored separately | Raw percentage | Pearson VUE Texas Candidate Handbook |
| California | 70% overall | Raw percentage, single combined exam | California DRE |
| Florida | 75% (75 of 100), single combined exam | Raw percentage | DBPR Candidate Information Booklet |
| Georgia | Commonly reported as 75% on each section | Raw percentage, confirm your current bulletin | GREC PSI candidate bulletin |
| Pennsylvania | Scaled score of 75, each portion separately | Scaled score, 0 to 100 range | Pearson VUE Pennsylvania Candidate Handbook |
| Illinois | 70% national and 75% state (entry-level Broker license) | Raw percentage | Illinois PSI candidate booklet |
| North Carolina | Scaled score of 75, each section separately | Scaled score | NCREC, Real Estate Licensing in North Carolina |
| New York | Commonly reported near 70%; NY reports pass/fail only, not a numeric score | Pass/fail only | NY Dept. of State |
What’s the difference between a raw percentage and a scaled score?
A raw percentage is exactly what it sounds like: the number of questions you answered correctly divided by the number of scored questions. Florida’s 75-of-100 threshold is a raw percentage; get 75 or more of the 100 scored questions right, and you pass.
A scaled score adjusts your raw result against the statistical difficulty of the specific test form you happened to receive, since testing vendors rotate multiple question forms of varying difficulty to protect exam security. Pennsylvania and North Carolina both report a scaled score of 75 as passing, and both handbooks explicitly warn candidates that this number isn’t their literal percent correct. Practically, scaled scoring is calibrated to land close to a percentage-equivalent target, so treating 75% correct as your working study goal is a reasonable planning shortcut, just not a literally accurate description of how the number on your score report is calculated.
Do national and state portions need separate passing scores?
In every split-format state we verified, yes. Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and North Carolina all require candidates to clear the passing threshold on the national portion and the state portion independently, in the same sitting or across separate retake attempts. A strong national score doesn’t offset a weak state-portion score in any of these states; miss the bar on one portion, and you retake only that portion, not the full exam.
Combined-exam states, California, Florida, and New York, skip this issue by design, since there’s only one score to clear in the first place.
Is the broker exam passing score higher than the salesperson exam?
Sometimes, and where it’s higher, it’s not by a huge margin. Texas requires 75% national and 76% state for its broker exam, versus 70% and 70% for the salesperson exam, per the Pearson VUE Texas Candidate Handbook. California requires 75% for its broker exam versus 70% for salesperson, per the California DRE. Illinois’s Managing Broker exam requires 74% national and 75% state, close to its entry-level Broker exam’s 70% and 75%. The gap is real but modest; the bigger difference between the two exam levels is usually the added content, brokerage management, trust accounts, supervision, rather than a dramatically harder passing bar.
How to use this when you’re studying
Know your state’s exact number and exact scoring type before you start timing practice sessions against a target, since studying to “75%” when your state actually requires a scaled score, or studying to a national blog’s generic “70 to 75%” range when your state requires something more specific, wastes the calibration value of timed practice. Pull your own state’s current candidate handbook, confirm the number, and set your practice benchmark to that exact figure.
Run timed, full-length practice sections in the AgentExamHub practice quiz tool and score them against your own state’s actual passing threshold, not a generic estimate, so you know precisely how much margin you’re carrying into test day.
The AgentExamHub free study guide includes a state-by-state scoring reference alongside the content walkthrough, so you’re studying to the number that actually applies to you.
FAQ
Is 70% a passing score in every state? No. Verified thresholds range from 70% (Texas and California salesperson exams) to 75% (Florida, Pennsylvania’s scaled score, and Illinois’s state portion), and the calculation method itself varies between raw percentage and scaled score.
What is a scaled score, in plain terms? A score adjusted against the statistical difficulty of your specific test form, reported on a fixed range like 0 to 100, so that a 75 means the same level of achievement across different, differently-difficult test forms. It’s not the same number as your raw percent correct.
Do I need to pass the national and state portions with the same score? Not necessarily the same number, but you do need to clear each portion’s own threshold independently in split-format states. Texas’s broker exam, for example, requires 75% national and a separate 76% state passing score.
Does New York report a numeric passing score? No. New York reports results as pass or fail only, without publishing a specific numeric score, according to the state Department of State’s own candidate guidance.
Is the broker passing score always higher than the salesperson score? Usually, but the gap tends to be small, often just a few percentage points, in the states we verified. The larger difference between broker and salesperson exams is typically added content, not a steeper passing bar.
Bottom line: confirm your own state’s exact passing threshold and whether it’s a raw percentage or a scaled score before you set a study target, since a generic “70 to 75%” range can mean a meaningfully different number depending on where you’re testing.