Candidates search "NAB exam pass rate" and the internet obliges with confident percentages that NAB never published. This page does the opposite: it separates what NAB actually publishes from what it does not, and then walks through the thing you can act on, which is how retakes work and how to plan around them.
NAB does not publish a national pass rate for the Core of Knowledge or Line of Service exams. We checked NAB's exam information page and its score interpretation page directly in July 2026: candidates receive an individual PASS or FAIL and a domain-level score report, and no aggregate pass percentage appears anywhere in NAB's public materials.
So when a prep site tells you "the NAB pass rate is X%", one of three things is true: they are citing a single state board's numbers for that state's candidates, they are citing something old and unsourced, or they made it up. Some state boards do publish limited statistics for their own candidates, and those are real data for that state; they are not a national figure. If you see a percentage, ask for the source before you let it calibrate your confidence in either direction.
Here is what the absence of a published pass rate means for you as a candidate: nothing. Whatever the population-level number is, your attempt is a sample size of one, and the variables that decide it (your domain coverage, your calculation fluency, your pacing) are the same regardless. The published facts below matter more.
| Fact | Published value (July 2026) |
|---|---|
| Passing score | Scaled score of 113, on a 50-to-150 scale, for all Core and Line of Service exams. Raw scores convert through statistical equating; there is no fixed passing percentage. |
| Attempt limit | Effective January 1, 2026: up to 4 attempts per exam per examination cycle (July 1 to June 30) for the Core and NHA exams. The count resets each July 1. States may allow fewer. |
| Application fee | Core + NHA combined application: $480, effective February 1, 2026. Fees change between editions; the current handbook governs. |
| Result delivery | A preliminary pass/fail report at the testing center, with scores reported to your state board and a domain-level breakdown on the score report. |
Source: NAB's published exam information and score interpretation materials as of July 2026. Verify against the current NAB Candidate Handbook before relying on any figure.
If one exam does not go your way, the mechanics are less dramatic than the moment feels:
A failed attempt hands you one genuinely valuable thing: a domain-level breakdown of exactly where the points went missing. Treat it as a targeting document. If Care, Services & Supports carried you and Operations sank you, your retake plan is not "study everything again harder", it is a weighted rotation that hits the weak domain daily while keeping the strong ones warm. The domain map in The Core Domains Explained shows what lives inside each domain so you can translate the report into topics.
Two retake-specific study notes, from how the exams are built:
A retake costs the reapplication fee, the calendar time of a new ATT and scheduling window, and, for candidates whose study subscriptions lapse between attempts, the cost of restarting prep from cold. That last one is worth planning for deliberately: whatever study system you use, know what happens to your access if you need a second window. On this site, the 4-Month and 12-Month plans include Retake Protection, a 90-day access extension, precisely because the gap between attempts is when structured practice matters most; details are in the Terms.
The passing score, attempt limits, fees, and retake mechanics above come from NAB's published materials as of July 2026 and change between handbook editions. Each state board also retains authority over its own rules, including allowing fewer attempts than NAB. The current handbook and your board are the final word.
NAB does not publish a national pass rate. Sites quoting a specific percentage are estimating or inventing it. Some state boards publish limited statistics for their own candidates, but there is no official national figure to cite.
Effective January 1, 2026, up to four attempts per exam per examination cycle (July 1 to June 30) for the Core and NHA exams. The count resets each July 1, and your state board may allow fewer.
No. You retake only the exam you failed, unless your state says otherwise. The retake runs through a reapplication to NAB: a new Authorization to Test and a new 90-day scheduling window.
Any waiting period is set by the current NAB Candidate Handbook and your state board rather than one fixed national number. The reapplication process itself builds in calendar time. Verify the current rule before you plan a date.
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