NCLEX Pass Rates 2019 to 2025, and the 85 Question Minimum

MedUni Exam. Checked on October 13, 2026.

The NCLEX pass rate for first-time, U.S.-educated candidates was 86.7 percent in 2025, 167,272 passing of 192,916 tested, from Table 1 of NCSBN Research Brief Volume 96, published in June 2026 and checked on September 22, 2026. Across all candidates for U.S. licensure, including repeat takers and internationally educated nurses, the 2025 rate was 69.1 percent of 328,443 candidates testing. The table holds seven years and four candidate groups. Under it come the 85 item minimum, the 0.00 logit passing standard, the USD 200 fee and the 45 day retake wait.

NCLEX pass rate by year, 2019 to 2025

The NCLEX-RN pass rate for first-time, U.S.-educated candidates was 86.7 percent in 2025 and 91.2 percent in 2024, from Table 1 of the NCSBN NCLEX Examination Statistics research briefs, checked on September 22, 2026. Every rate below is for U.S. licensure, by calendar year.

Source: NCSBN Research Brief, NCLEX Examination Statistics, Table 1 of the briefs for 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025, the newest being Volume 96, June 2026, checked on September 22, 2026.

The first-time, U.S.-educated rate fell 4.5 percentage points from 2024 to 2025. That subtraction is computed here, 91.2 minus 86.7, and is not a figure NCSBN prints. Across seven years the low is 79.9 percent in 2022 and the high 91.2 percent in 2024, the first full year after the Next Generation NCLEX launched on April 1, 2023.

One NCLEX pass rate means nothing without the group it belongs to. Inside 2025 the number runs from 86.7 percent for first-time U.S.-educated candidates to 30.5 percent for repeat internationally educated candidates, a 56.2 point spread. No 2026 NCLEX pass rate appears in any NCSBN annual brief on September 22, 2026: the newest is Volume 96, June 2026, covering calendar year 2025.

NCLEX how many questions: 85 to 150 items in five hours

How many questions are on the NCLEX-RN: a minimum of 85 questions and a maximum of 150 questions, and the NCLEX exam is five hours long including all breaks, from the 2026 NCLEX-RN Test Plan, effective April 1, 2026 through March 31, 2029 and checked on September 22, 2026. The average NCLEX-RN ran 103 items for first-time, U.S.-educated candidates in 2025, from Table 3 of the NCSBN 2025 brief.

A minimum length NCLEX-RN of 85 questions is three parts added up: 52 items from the eight Client Needs content areas (four categories, two of them divided into subcategories), 18 items forming three case studies of six items each, and 15 unscored pretest items. So the shortest NCLEX-RN scores 70 of the 85 questions you answer.

Five hours is 18,000 seconds. Divide that by 150 items and you get 120 seconds a question, and by 85 items you get 211.8 seconds, which is 3 minutes 32 seconds. Both divisions are computed here, not figures NCSBN prints. That 120 seconds is the pace printed in the question count table for ten medical exams.

Each case study item maps to one step of the NCSBN clinical judgment measurement model. The eight content areas behind the other 52 items sit with the NCLEX-RN Client Needs weightings.

NCLEX 85 questions: what actually ends the exam

Stopping at 85 questions says nothing about your result: the length of the exam is not an indication of a pass or a fail, as the 2026 NCLEX-RN Test Plan states, checked on September 22, 2026.

Three rules end an NCLEX, all on the NCSBN computerized adaptive testing page, checked on September 22, 2026. Most exams end on the 95 percent confidence rule: the computer stops once it is 95 percent certain your ability sits clearly above or clearly below the passing standard. Candidates very close to the standard get the maximum length rule instead: 150 items, then the final ability estimate decides. Last comes the clock: at five hours a candidate who has not answered the minimum number of items fails automatically, and in 2025 only 0.5 percent of first-time U.S.-educated candidates used all five hours, from Table 3 of the 2025 NCSBN brief.

Source: NCSBN Research Brief, NCLEX Examination Statistics, Table 3 of the 2019 to 2025 briefs. The 2019, 2021 and 2022 rows are first-time candidates for U.S. licensure and Canadian licensure or registration; the 2023 to 2025 rows are first-time, U.S.-educated candidates. The 2020 brief prints no Table 3 figures, because COVID-19 changes made them not meaningful, checked on September 22, 2026.

In 2025, 59.1 percent of first-time U.S.-educated candidates finished at 85 items and 20.5 percent went to 150, so 79.6 percent ended at one of the two ends, computed here. The average 103 item exam for that group took 2 hours 14 minutes, or 78 seconds an item, also computed here.

Those 2023 rows show 85 is a rule and not a verdict: when the minimum moved on April 1, 2023, the share finishing at whatever the minimum was jumped from 47.5 percent at 75 items to 71.8 percent at 85 items.

Where self-reported NCLEX results stopped: 85 items for most posted passes

Of 979 public Reddit posts that report an NCLEX pass and say where the exam stopped, 63.5 percent stopped at 85 items and 21.8 percent at 150. Of 287 posts that report a fail, 32.8 percent stopped at 85 and 53.0 percent at 150. This site counted those posts, made from October 1, 2024 to October 11, 2026. They are self-reported and self-selected: people choose whether to post, so the counts show what people post, not the odds of passing at any length.

Source: public posts in eight NCLEX and nursing subreddits, from the Arctic Shift archive of public Reddit posts, October 1, 2024 to October 11, 2026, counted by this site. Counts only, with no usernames. Download these counts as a CSV file, with the left-out titles and the two looser rules.

Both ends carry both outcomes: 94 posts report a fail at 85 items and 213 report a pass at 150. Between the two ends, 144 pass posts and 41 fail posts give a count from 86 to 149.

The official rule is the one NCSBN prints on its computerized adaptive testing page, checked on October 11, 2026. The computer stops when it is 95 percent certain your ability is clearly above or clearly below the passing standard. A candidate close to the standard goes on to the 150 item maximum, where the final ability estimate decides. A candidate who runs out of time before the computer decides fails automatically if fewer than the minimum number of items were answered, and otherwise is judged on all the answers given. The 2026 NCLEX-RN Test Plan adds that the length of the exam is not an indication of a pass or a fail.

For the measured version of the same question, use NCSBN's own count: in 2025, 59.1 percent of first-time, U.S.-educated candidates ended at 85 items and 20.5 percent went to 150, pass or fail, from Table 3 of the 2025 brief, shown in the previous section. Put all 1,266 posts together, passes and fails, and 56.6 percent stopped at 85 and 28.8 percent at 150: a smaller share at 85 and a larger share at 150 than NCSBN's count. The two are not the same people. NCSBN counts every first-time, U.S.-educated candidate, and the posts come from whoever chose to post, internationally educated candidates and repeat takers included.

How the posts were counted. The posts are the 87,208 public posts made from October 1, 2024 to October 11, 2026 in eight subreddits archived in full: r/NCLEX (13,471 posts), r/NCLEX_PH (13,157 posts), r/NclexAbroad (252 posts), r/NCLEXHighYield (384 posts), r/NursingStudent (12,976 posts), r/StudentNurse (22,747 posts), r/Nurses (7,221 posts) and r/NursesPH (17,000 posts). Only the title of each post is read, and a post counts once, whatever it says about earlier attempts. This site holds no usernames, and the published counts carry no title and no post id. The rules, in order:

• The post is in one of the four NCLEX subreddits, or its title says NCLEX.
• The title says pass, passed, passing or passes, or fail, failed, failing, fails or failure. A title that says both, such as a fail at 150 followed by a pass at 85, is left out, because it does not say which count belongs to which attempt: 106 titles.
• A title that asks or hedges instead of reporting a result ("did I pass at 85?", "I think I failed"), or that rests on the Pearson VUE trick or a pop-up, is left out: 140 titles. So are 13 that negate the result, advertise something or name a practice test as the thing passed.
• The title gives exactly one count of items, a whole number that is not a time, a price, a percentage or an attempt number. Titles with two different counts are left out (18), and so is a count outside 85 to 150, the range in force since April 1, 2023 (10). A count written as approximate, such as "120 something", is read as the number written.
• The same title posted again within six hours, in the same subreddit or another, counts once (93 repeats).

That leaves 1,266 posts with a stop count, once 287 titles are left out by the rules and 93 repeats are counted once. The share at 85 depends on how strictly the posts are read. Two looser rules, run on the same Reddit archive, find 68.2 and 57.6 percent of pass posts at 85, against 63.5 percent here. One also reads the body of each post, and the other reads titles but counts pop-up and "licensed" reports as passes. Both take any count from 70 to 160 items, neither leaves out practice tests, and both read a slightly different set of subreddits: they add r/NursingPH, which the archive holds only as a monthly sample, and leave out r/Nurses. Read the share at 85 as somewhere from 57.6 to 68.2 percent, not as one precise figure. The count is run again each quarter, and the date range above moves with it.

NCLEX passing score, pass mark and percentile

The NCLEX passing score is 0.00 logits for the NCLEX-RN, effective through March 31, 2029, from the NCSBN passing standard page, checked on September 22, 2026. For the NCLEX-PN over the same period it is minus 0.18 logits.

There is no NCLEX percentile to pass and no NCLEX score to compare against anyone. Candidate performance is reported only as a pass or a fail decision, and the 2025 NCSBN brief states that scores are never reported. So a good NCLEX score is a pass.

That standard is criterion referenced: passing depends only on your performance against the point that represents safe entry level competence, with no preassigned percentage of candidates passing. That is why the yearly rate moves while the bar stays fixed.

NCSBN raised the standard to 0.00 logits in April 2013 and retained it in April 2016, April 2019, April 2023 and April 2026, from the passing standard history in the 2025 NCSBN brief, checked on October 13, 2026. The timeline behind the April 2026 decision is in NCSBN's 2025 annual meeting update on the 2026 test plans, also checked on October 13, 2026: it scheduled the Board of Directors' evaluation of the 2026 passing standards for December 2025, with the standards taking effect on April 1, 2026. So a candidate taking the exam today meets the same 0.00 logit bar a candidate met in 2013.

Other licensing exams hand back a number: the Step 1 standard is in the Step 1 passing score and pass rates post, the MRCP(UK) Part 1 pass mark in the MRCP Part 1 post.

NCLEX percent correct: why no percentage decides a pass

No percentage of correct answers decides an NCLEX result. The NCLEX is a computerized adaptive test. After each answer the computer estimates your ability again, from all your answers so far and the difficulty of those items, and each item is aimed at your ability. That is on the NCSBN computerized adaptive testing page, checked on October 1, 2026.

The result compares your ability estimate with the passing standard, 0.00 logits on the NCLEX-RN, from the NCSBN passing standard page, checked on October 1, 2026. So the share of items you answer correctly is not what decides your result, no percent correct to pass exists, and two candidates who both pass can answer very different numbers of items correctly.

NCLEX pass rates 2025 by state and by degree type

NCSBN publishes no NCLEX pass rate by school, in the United States or in Canada, and no number or percentage of correct answers that passes, while neither the NCLEX test plans page nor the 2026 NCLEX-RN Test Plan names study hours, days or weeks, a daily practice question count or a study period after graduation, all checked on September 22, 2026.

The rates NCSBN does publish stop at the jurisdiction and the program type. The official NCLEX Pass Rates page breaks results down by educational program and by first time against repeater status, but the figures sit inside a dashboard, not a table.

The brief does print jurisdictions: the ten states with the most first-time, U.S.-educated candidates in 2025.

Source: NCSBN Research Brief Volume 96, June 2026, 2025 NCLEX Examination Statistics, Table 8, checked on September 22, 2026.

In Texas, 88.6 percent of 16,454 first-time U.S.-educated candidates passed in 2025, against California at 89.0 percent across 16,255 and Florida at 81.8 percent across 17,403, the largest count of any state. NCSBN prints these rows as jurisdictions and does not define the term in the brief, so read each row as a pool of candidates rather than a school ranking.

Degree type splits them differently: baccalaureate candidates passed at 87.6 percent in 2025, associate degree candidates at 86.1 percent and diploma candidates at 83.3 percent, a 4.3 point spread across the three degree types, next to the 56.2 point spread between candidate groups. The same total row carries a fourth line, RN Special Program Codes, at 39.0 percent across 438 candidates.

NCLEX pass rate by country of education, 2025

First-time internationally educated candidates passed the NCLEX-RN at 47.3 percent in 2025, 24,999 of 52,827, from Table 9 of the 2025 NCSBN brief, checked on September 22, 2026.

Source: NCSBN Research Brief Volume 96, June 2026, 2025 NCLEX Examination Statistics, Table 9, first-time internationally educated candidates for U.S. licensure, checked on September 22, 2026.

Candidates educated in the Philippines are the largest group by far: 22,793 first-time candidates in 2025, which is 43.1 percent of the international total, computed here, at a 45.8 percent pass rate. India follows at 33.3 percent, while Kenya at 58.2 percent and Nigeria at 54.4 percent sit above the 47.3 percent average.

Canada runs the NCLEX-RN as its own entry to practice exam, in a separate table: first-time Canada-educated candidates passed at 86.0 percent in 2025, 9,282 of 10,789, and all candidates for Canadian licensure at 58.9 percent of 26,479, from Table 2 of the 2025 brief. By jurisdiction of education, Table 10 of the same brief gives Ontario 84.3 percent of 5,152 candidates and Alberta 91.3 percent of 1,511, checked on September 22, 2026. The exam runs at 19 international locations NCSBN names, among them India, Pakistan and the Philippines.

Pacing NCLEX practice on the exam's own numbers

The exam itself sets the numbers worth planning around: 85 to 150 items in five hours, which is 211.8 seconds an item at 85 items and 120 seconds at 150, computed here on September 22, 2026. The only waiting period NCSBN publishes is the 45 test-free days between two attempts, so a week count from anywhere else belongs to whoever wrote it, including the counts that start the clock on graduation day.

First-time, U.S.-educated candidates answered faster than both of those paces in 2025, at 78 seconds an item. A session of 85 questions in three hours works out at 127 seconds an item, computed here, which sits between the two and is the pace worth rehearsing.

The preparation NCSBN points candidates to is its own: its Prepare page carries a sample pack of 3 RN case studies and 2 PN case studies, an exam preview, the 2026 Candidate Bulletin, a candidate tutorial and the test plans, checked on September 22, 2026.

An opinion, not NCSBN's: build sessions of 52 questions rather than a round number, because 52 is the count of Client Needs content items on a minimum length exam, the part of the 70 scored items a lecture deck can actually match. How many sessions a week is a separate argument, in the piece on practice questions per day.

When NCLEX results come out, the 45 day retake wait, and the NCLEX fee

Official NCLEX results come from your nursing regulatory body within six weeks of the exam, and the NCSBN retake policy sets 45 test-free days between attempts, on the NCSBN NCLEX results page, checked on September 22, 2026. NCSBN also allows eight attempts a year, and the state by state limits sit in the article on attempt limits across exams.

NCLEX results time runs on two clocks. Candidates for U.S. licensure whose board takes part in the Quick Results Service can buy unofficial results two business days after the exam, and the official result follows from the board. Candidates who do not pass receive an NCLEX Candidate Performance Report.

Source: the NCSBN passing standard, results, quick results, registration, fees and payment, and testing locations pages, all checked on September 22, 2026.

The NCLEX fee is USD 200 for U.S. licensure today, and NCSBN states that it becomes USD 350 in the United States and Australia on February 1, 2027.

NCLEX style questions written from your own notes

This site writes questions from your own nursing material: upload a lecture or a care plan, ask for NCLEX style items, and every question prints the sentence it was written from and the page that sentence sits on. This is not an NCLEX question bank and it has no connection to the NCSBN.

A guest gets 200 verified questions and a confirmed account gets 500 a month free. A 90 day Exam Pass is £39.99, and it does not turn into a subscription. Questions with no upload are on the sample exam, and the exam facts sit on the NCLEX-RN page.

Questions people ask

Is the NCLEX hard to pass?

Pass rates give the only measured answer. In 2025, 86.7 percent of first-time, U.S.-educated candidates passed the NCLEX-RN. Repeat U.S.-educated candidates passed at 52.7 percent and first-time internationally educated candidates at 47.3 percent. The standard is criterion referenced, so the exam has no quota of failures: every candidate who reaches 0.00 logits passes, in any year.

Does stopping at 85 questions mean you failed the NCLEX?

No. The 2026 NCLEX-RN Test Plan states that the length of the exam is not an indication of a pass or a fail and that a candidate may pass or fail regardless of length. The computer stops at 85 items once it is 95 percent certain your ability is clearly above or clearly below the passing standard, and 59.1 percent of first-time U.S.-educated candidates ended there in 2025.

What is a good NCLEX score?

A pass. The NCLEX reports a pass or a fail and never reports a score, so there is no good NCLEX score to aim at and no NCLEX percentile to compare against. The bar you are measured against is 0.00 logits on the NCLEX-RN, effective through March 31, 2029, from the NCSBN passing standard page checked on September 22, 2026. Your result arrives as one word.

What is the NCLEX fail rate?

For first-time, U.S.-educated candidates in 2025 the NCLEX-RN fail rate was 13.3 percent, which is 25,644 candidates of 192,916, computed here from the 167,272 who passed. Across all candidates for U.S. licensure the fail rate was 30.9 percent of 328,443 candidates testing. Repeat internationally educated candidates had the highest fail rate of the four groups at 69.5 percent, from Table 1 of the 2025 brief.

Published September 22, 2026, updated October 13, 2026.