MRCP Part 1 Pass Mark and Pass Rate by Diet, 2024 to 2026

MedUni Exam. Checked on November 4, 2026.

The MRCP Part 1 pass mark is 450, an equated scaled score that applies from the 2026/1 diet onward, published by the Federation of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and checked on September 21, 2026. It replaced 540, which stood from the October 2017 review through the 2025/3 diet. In May 2026 that 450 came out as 124 correct answers from 200 scored questions, and 50.7 percent of candidates passed. Results for the 2026/3 paper, sat on September 23, 2026, are due in your MyMRCP(UK) account on November 6, 2026, according to the Federation exam dates page checked on October 11, 2026. This article adds that diet's pass rate once the Federation publishes it.

What is the pass mark for MRCP Part 1?

The MRCP Part 1 pass mark is 450, and it applies to every diet from 2026/1 onward. That 450 sits on the Federation of the Royal Colleges of Physicians pass mark page, checked on September 21, 2026, as the scaled ability score applied from 2026/1.

Candidates receive an overall scaled score instead of a percentage, and for the vast majority it lands between 200 and 800. It comes from the number of questions answered correctly, adjusted for the difficulty of that paper by a process called equating.

Since equating started in September 2008 the pass mark has moved three times.

Source: the Federation equating document of October 2022 and the Part 1 standard setting exercise of October 2025, checked on September 21, 2026.

October 2025 is when the current standard was set, with an Angoff method on the 2025/3 paper and UK core medical trainees as the reference group.

Candidate threads on Reddit still quote 540 and a rule of thumb of 60 to 65 percent correct. 540 was right up to the 2025/3 diet. From 2026/1 it is 450, and the raw figure for May 2026 was 124 of 200, which is 62 percent.

How many questions do you need to get right to pass MRCP Part 1?

A pass in the May 2026 MRCP Part 1 paper took 124 correct answers out of 200 scored questions, stated in the Federation performance report for that diet and checked on September 21, 2026. The Federation prints it inside each diet performance report, and no ranking page in the search results carries it.

Source: the Federation Part 1 diet performance reports, including May 2026 and April 2024, with pass rates for 2026/02, 2026/01 and 2025/03 from the Federation pass rate page and the September 2025 date from a Federation news item, checked on September 21, 2026.

Those nine rows are every Part 1 diet with a published report or pass rate this article could source on September 21, 2026, plus the 2026/3 paper still to be marked. The 2025/2 and 2025/3 diet reports were not on the Federation site that day.

Scored question counts are not always 200: the seven published diets scored 196, 197, 198, 199 and 200 of the 200 questions asked.

Compare January 2025 with January 2026. Both papers had 198 scored questions, and 540 needed 127 correct answers where 450 needed 124. A drop of 90 scaled points moved the raw requirement by three questions.

MRCP Part 1 pass mark percentage: why it is not fixed

There is no fixed percentage to pass MRCP Part 1. Candidates get an overall scaled score instead of a percentage, and the pass mark of 450 is a point on that scale, from the Federation pass mark page, checked on October 1, 2026.

The same page explains why. No two papers have exactly the same questions, so some papers are slightly harder or easier than others, and equating works out the difficulty of each question. So the share of correct answers you need changes from paper to paper.

In the seven diets in the table above that have a published number of correct answers, the share needed ran from 59.7 percent, 117 of 196 scored questions, to 64.1 percent, 127 of 198. Read those as past results, not as a target for your own paper.

MRCP Part 1 pass rate 2026

The MRCP Part 1 pass rate for all candidates was 50.7 percent in the 2026/02 diet and 48.7 percent in the 2026/01 diet, from the Federation pass rate page, checked on September 21, 2026. That page carries the three most recent diets by candidate group.

Source: the Federation pass rate page, checked on September 21, 2026.

UK graduates and UK trainees are different groups: in 2026/02, 73.2 percent of UK graduates passed at the first attempt against 27.1 percent of UK trainees.

MRCP Part 1 pass rate 2025 and 2024

In 2025 the three MRCP Part 1 papers drew 11,766 sittings, and 45.8 percent of UK resident doctors passed across all attempts against 51.3 percent of other candidates. Those totals are in the Federation Part 1 2025 performance report, checked on September 21, 2026.

The MRCP Part 1 pass rate in 2024 ran 46.7 percent in January, 45.1 percent in April, 50.2 percent in August and 49.7 percent in October, each from that diet's Federation performance report, checked on September 21, 2026.

Source: the Federation Part 1 annual performance reports for 2023, 2024 and 2025, checked on September 21, 2026.

First attempts read differently. In 2025 UK resident doctors passed at 42.8 percent first time, 62 of 145, against 54.8 percent for other candidates, 4,124 of 7,524. The 2024 pair was 31.9 percent and 53.7 percent.

A note on that UK column: the Federation calls the small UK trainee count most likely a result of the limited training categories on the application form before the IMY category arrived in the summer of 2023. Training status is self declared.

Count the growth: 9,049 sittings in 2023 became 11,766 in 2025, a rise of 30.0 percent, on one paper a year fewer.

What is a good MRCP Part 1 score, and what does the score distribution look like?

A good MRCP Part 1 score starts at 450, and in the May 2026 paper the median candidate scored exactly 450 while the mode was 469. The MRCP Part 1 score distribution is published for every diet, with the mean, median, mode and standard deviation, checked on September 21, 2026.

Source: the Federation Part 1 performance reports for the seven diets in the table, checked on September 21, 2026.

The Federation ranks no candidate: it publishes no percentile table for Part 1 and no conversion from a scaled score to a rank, so a forum percentile is a candidate's estimate. Place a score against its own diet instead: in May 2026 the pass mark and the median were both 450, so a 450 sat in the middle of that diet. In January 2026 the mean of 437.9 sat 12.1 points below the 450 pass mark.

Scoring works the same way in 2025 and 2026, and the line moved from 540 to 450, so a 500 failed in January 2025 and passed in January 2026. An opinion, from reading the diet reports: a score below your diet's mean points at coverage, not pacing.

How many questions are in MRCP Part 1 and how long does it last?

MRCP Part 1 is 200 questions in two papers of three hours each, taken on one day, which is 1.8 minutes per question. The Federation Part 1 format page, checked on September 21, 2026, gives 100 best of five questions per paper, five options with one correct answer, one point per correct answer and no negative marking.

Source: the Federation Part 1 format page and the Part 1 diet performance reports, with minutes per question computed by this article, checked on September 21, 2026.

The 1.8 minutes is arithmetic: 200 questions across six hours is 108 seconds each, the pace of 25 questions in 45 minutes. The same count for ten other exams, from Step 1 to PLAB 1, is in the table on how many questions each medical exam has.

The blueprint sets indicative numbers out of 200: clinical sciences 25, clinical pharmacology and therapeutics 15, then 14 each for eight specialties: cardiology, endocrinology diabetes and metabolic medicine, gastroenterology and hepatology, infectious diseases, neurology, renal medicine, respiratory medicine and rheumatology. The smallest rows are 4, for medical ophthalmology and for palliative medicine. All seventeen rows are on the format page linked above, and the MRCP Part 1 page splits the 25 clinical sciences items into its seven areas.

Part 1 is computer based and run by Surpass, and the Federation moved it to delivery in a test center from the 2026/3 diet in September 2026, with Myanmar and Sudan based exams continuing by remote online proctoring. PLAB 1 runs 180 questions in three hours instead, with its pass mark diet by diet in the PLAB 1 pass mark and pass rate tables.

How many times can you take MRCP Part 1?

You can take MRCP Part 1 a maximum of six times, and a candidate who reaches six may apply for one exceptional additional attempt. That wording is on the Federation limit on attempts page, checked on September 21, 2026, which also records that the General Medical Council requires the limit. A withdrawal does not count as an attempt.

The 2026/3 diet and all three 2027 diets cost GBP 520 in the UK and GBP 696 internationally, from the Federation dates and fees page, checked on September 21, 2026. Do the sum: six attempts is GBP 3,120 in the UK and GBP 4,176 internationally. The 2026/1 and 2026/2 diets cost GBP 502 and GBP 672, so the fee rose 3.6 percent at 2026/3.

Results run about six weeks behind the paper, after MRCP(UK) moved written results from four weeks to six on September 1, 2025. Count the days: 44 from the January 28, 2026 paper to results on March 13, and 44 from September 23, 2026 to November 6, 2026.

One old limit is gone. MRCP(UK) announced on July 31, 2024 that it had removed the seven year window for completing the Diploma for candidates who passed Part 1 before the 2013/02 diet. Paragraph 3.4 of the MRCP(UK) Regulations April 2026, checked on September 26, 2026, now removes the seven year requirement for every candidate and replaces it with the limit of six attempts at each part, so a Part 1 pass no longer expires. The plan in how long to study for MRCP Part 1 counts weeks backward from the same published dates.

Is MRCP Part 1 hard, and is Part 1 or Part 2 harder?

About half of MRCP Part 1 candidates pass in a given diet: 50.7 percent in 2026/02, 48.7 percent in 2026/01 and 49.6 percent in 2025/03, from the Federation pass rate page, checked on September 21, 2026. That is the honest measure of difficulty, and it held steady across the change from 540 to 450.

More Part 2 Written candidates pass than Part 1 candidates: 58.9 percent of all candidates passed the July 2026 Part 2 Written paper, from its Federation diet report checked on October 11, 2026, against 50.7 percent in the 2026/02 Part 1 diet, and 53.4 percent against 49.6 percent in 2025/03, both from the Federation pass rate page. Part 2 Written and PACES, with their passing scores, dates and pass rates, are in the MRCP Part 2 and PACES article. Pass mark numbers across the three parts say nothing about difficulty: from 2026/1 Part 1 is 450, Part 2 Written is 444 and PACES is 126, each on its own scale.

In January 2026 candidates scored lowest in endocrinology, diabetes and metabolic medicine and highest in geriatric medicine. In May 2026 the lowest was genetics, and across 2025 it was clinical sciences, the 25 item block that ward notes rarely cover.

Source: the Federation pass rate page and the Part 1 performance reports for January 2026, May 2026 and the year 2025, checked on September 21, 2026.

Eligibility is separate. The Federation Part 1 page describes an entry level exam accessible to doctors with a minimum of 12 months of postgraduate experience, and the Part 1 FAQs page phrases it as graduating at least 12 months before the exam date, both checked on September 21, 2026.

Choosing an MRCP Part 1 course or question bank, and what its size tells you

The numbers that decide how you use any MRCP Part 1 course or question bank belong to the exam: 200 questions, two three hour papers, 196 to 200 of them scored, a pass mark of 450, and a raw requirement between 117 and 127 correct answers across the seven published diets, checked on September 21, 2026. No exam owning body publishes the size of any commercial question bank, so any bank figure comes from the seller.

Answering 65 percent of scored questions correctly under a clock would have passed all seven diets with a published raw number. Volume past that buys recognition of items you have already seen, the argument in the piece on how many practice questions a day is enough.

This site generates best of five questions in the Part 1 format from a file you upload, and each question prints the sentence and page it came from. It is not an MRCP question bank and has no connection to the Federation of the Royal Colleges of Physicians. A guest gets 200 verified questions on the sample exam, and a confirmed account gets 500 a month free. The pricing page lists a 90 day Exam Pass at £39.99, which does not renew.

Questions people ask

What was the MRCP Part 1 pass mark in 2025?

540. The Federation Part 1 2025 performance report states that the pass score for the 2025 Part 1 examinations was 540, established at the October 2022 standard setting review, checked on September 21, 2026. In the January 2025 paper that came to 127 correct answers out of 198 scored questions, and 45.9 percent of candidates in that diet passed. The 540 stood through the 2025/3 diet.

What is the MRCP Part 1 fail rate?

Arithmetic by this article on the published pass rates: 49.3 percent of candidates failed the 2026/02 diet, 51.3 percent failed 2026/01 and 50.4 percent failed 2025/03. Those come from subtracting the Federation all candidate pass rates of 50.7, 48.7 and 49.6 percent from 100, checked on September 21, 2026. The MRCP Part 1 passing rate and the fail rate have both sat close to half in every recent diet.

How long do you need to study for MRCP Part 1?

About four months, which is thirteen weeks counted backward from a published paper date. The 2027/1 paper is on January 20, 2027, and its applications closed on November 3, 2026. For the 2027/2 paper on May 26, 2027, thirteen weeks puts the start line at February 24, 2027, and applications run March 9 to March 16, 2027. The post on this site about how long to study for MRCP Part 1 splits those weeks across the blueprint specialties.

What is the MRCP Part 1 passing score?

450 from the 2026/1 diet onward. The Federation calls it the pass mark, sets it as an equated scaled score rather than a percentage, and publishes it beside the mean, median and mode for each paper. In raw terms 450 came to 124 correct answers of 200 scored questions in May 2026 and 124 of 198 in January 2026, checked on September 21, 2026.

When do MRCP Part 1 results come out?

About six weeks after the paper. MRCP(UK) moved written exam results from four weeks to six weeks on September 1, 2025, and results are released to your MyMRCP(UK) account rather than posted. Results for the 2026/3 paper of September 23, 2026 are due on November 6, 2026, which is 44 days, computed by this article from the Federation dates page checked on September 21, 2026.

Published September 21, 2026, updated November 4, 2026.