Last updated July 2026 · Source: NCSBN
National NCLEX-RN pass rate, year by year
First-time, U.S.-educated candidates. Notice the dip to 79.9% in 2022, then the jump after the Next Generation NCLEX (NGN) launched in April 2023.
First-time, U.S.-educated NCLEX-RN pass rate by year. Blue bars are post-NGN (2023 onward). Source: NCSBN annual NCLEX Examination Statistics.
All bars are first-time, U.S.-educated candidates, taken from NCSBN’s final annual briefs. The 2025 figure (86.7%) is final, not preliminary: it is published in NCSBN’s 2025 NCLEX Examination Statistics (Research Brief Vol. 96, June 2026), Table 1, covering Jan. 1–Dec. 31, 2025. The 2024 figure (91.2%) is from the 2024 brief (Vol. 94, July 2025), Table 1. RN figures are for U.S. licensure only.
Pass rate by candidate type (2025)
The headline number only describes first-time U.S. graduates. Everyone else — students repeating the exam, and nurses educated outside the U.S. — passes at a much lower rate, so the “all candidates” figure (69.1% for RN in 2025) is far below the 86.7% headline. This is the single most misread statistic about the NCLEX.
| Candidate type | NCLEX-RN | NCLEX-PN |
|---|---|---|
| First-time, U.S.-educated | 86.7% | 86.6% |
| Repeat, U.S.-educated | 52.7% | 41.7% |
| First-time, internationally-educated | 47.3% | 53.7%† |
| Repeat, internationally-educated | 30.5% | 27.6%† |
| All candidates | 69.1% | 77.3% |
Source: NCSBN 2025 NCLEX Examination Statistics (Research Brief Vol. 96, June 2026), Table 1, p. 9 (RN) and Table 12, p. 44 (PN), reporting period Jan. 1–Dec. 31, 2025. “U.S.-educated” means educated in a U.S. nurse regulatory jurisdiction; “first-time” means the first attempt in the reporting year. RN figures cover the NCLEX-RN taken for U.S. licensure only; NCSBN reports the NCLEX-RN taken for Canadian licensure in a separate table, and the two are not combined here. †Read with caution: the PN internationally-educated groups are very small (397 first-time and 439 repeat candidates), so these percentages swing on a handful of results.
NCLEX-RN pass rate by state (2024)
First-time, U.S.-educated candidates in calendar year 2024 — the most recent year for which we publish a full per-state ranking. Ranked highest to lowest. State differences mostly reflect the mix of nursing programs and candidates in each state, not the difficulty of the exam — the passing standard is the same nationwide.
| Rank | State | Candidates | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Hampshire | 836 | 96.5% |
| 2 | North Dakota | 591 | 96.4% |
| 3 | Nebraska | 1,153 | 95.1% |
| 4 | Tennessee | 4,075 | 94.9% |
| 5 | Wyoming | 326 | 94.8% |
| 6 | South Carolina | 2,964 | 94.7% |
| 7 | Massachusetts | 3,768 | 94.2% |
| 8 | North Carolina | 4,830 | 94.1% |
| 9 | Pennsylvania | 8,062 | 94.1% |
| 10 | Arizona | 4,658 | 93.8% |
| 11 | Kansas | 1,750 | 93.5% |
| 12 | Louisiana | 2,516 | 93.5% |
| 13 | Alabama | 3,748 | 93.4% |
| 14 | Colorado | 2,281 | 93.4% |
| 15 | Delaware | 519 | 93.3% |
| 16 | South Dakota | 727 | 93.3% |
| 17 | Missouri | 3,751 | 93.2% |
| 18 | Vermont | 391 | 93.1% |
| 19 | Maryland | 2,733 | 93.0% |
| 20 | Mississippi | 2,118 | 93.0% |
| 21 | Iowa | 2,091 | 92.8% |
| 22 | West Virginia | 1,621 | 92.8% |
| 23 | California | 15,499 | 92.7% |
| 24 | Texas | 15,327 | 92.7% |
| 25 | Montana | 689 | 92.6% |
| 26 | Wisconsin | 4,068 | 92.5% |
| 27 | Idaho | 1,071 | 92.4% |
| 28 | Virginia | 4,916 | 92.3% |
| 29 | Oregon | 1,829 | 92.2% |
| 30 | Washington | 2,822 | 92.2% |
| 31 | Georgia | 5,134 | 92.1% |
| 32 | Maine | 935 | 92.0% |
| 33 | Michigan | 4,915 | 92.0% |
| 34 | Rhode Island | 762 | 91.9% |
| 35 | Indiana | 4,138 | 91.8% |
| 36 | Connecticut | 2,163 | 91.7% |
| 37 | Alaska | 285 | 91.6% |
| 38 | Arkansas | 2,332 | 91.1% |
| 39 | New Mexico | 1,000 | 90.8% |
| 40 | District of Columbia | 283 | 90.5% |
| 41 | New Jersey | 4,473 | 90.5% |
| 42 | Nevada | 1,991 | 90.2% |
| 43 | Ohio | 8,713 | 89.6% |
| 44 | Minnesota | 3,488 | 89.4% |
| 45 | Hawaii | 479 | 88.9% |
| 46 | Kentucky | 3,553 | 88.7% |
| 47 | Oklahoma | 2,350 | 88.4% |
| 48 | New York | 10,927 | 87.6% |
| 49 | Illinois | 6,910 | 87.4% |
| 50 | Utah | 3,810 | 86.5% |
| 51 | Florida | 16,303 | 84.9% |
Source: NCSBN 2024 NCLEX Examination Statistics, Table 8 (first-time, U.S.-educated, Jan–Dec 2024). Territories with very small candidate counts are not ranked because a handful of test-takers makes the percentage unreliable: American Samoa (3 candidates), Northern Mariana Islands (21), Virgin Islands (30), Guam (32). Puerto Rico is absent from this table by design: NCSBN classifies it as a country of education and reports it under first-time, internationally-educated candidates (41.0%, 700 of 1,709, in 2025), so that number is not a state first-time, U.S.-educated rate and should not be lined up against the rows above. NCSBN’s 2025 brief publishes an updated per-jurisdiction Table 8; applying the same small-jurisdiction exclusions used above, the 2025 first-time, U.S.-educated rates ran from 92.9% (North Dakota) down to 77.8% (Alaska), with South Carolina and South Dakota tied at 91.6% and Utah at 79.1%.
Why did pass rates jump after the NGN?
The Next Generation NCLEX launched on April 1, 2023. First-time, U.S.-educated RN pass rates rose from 79.9% in 2022 to 88.6% in 2023 and 91.2% in 2024, then fell back to 86.7% in 2025. NCSBN did not lower the passing standard — it was reviewed and kept the same. A large part of the increase comes from the NGN’s new partial-credit scoring on the case-study and multiple-response items, which gives candidates credit for partially correct answers rather than all-or-nothing.
In 2025 the numbers came down, and the final figures are now published. First-time, U.S.-educated RN fell from 91.2% (2024) to 86.7% (2025), a 4.5 percentage-point drop; the all-candidates RN rate fell from 73.3% to 69.1%; and first-time, internationally-educated RN fell from 53.8% to 47.3%. Two things the data rules out: the RN passing standard was 0.00 logits in both the 2024 and the 2025 brief, so this is not a tougher bar, and the first-time, U.S.-educated cohort actually grew (186,760 candidates in 2024 to 192,916 in 2025), so it is not a shrinking-cohort artifact. NCSBN does not offer a cause for the decline, so we will not either.
How NCLEX pass rates are measured
The NCLEX is scored pass or fail only; a numeric score is never released. Pass or fail is decided against a fixed passing standard, not a curve or a percentage, so a “pass rate” simply counts how many candidates in a group cleared that standard. NCSBN publishes a full statistics brief once a year (in the following summer) and updates the figures each quarter. Because the passing standard is the same everywhere, differences between states and years reflect who is testing, not a different bar.
NCLEX Pass Rates (ncsbn.org) ·
2025 NCLEX Examination Statistics (PDF, Research Brief Vol. 96, June 2026) ·
2024 NCLEX Examination Statistics (PDF, Research Brief Vol. 94, July 2025).
All 2025 national and candidate-type figures come from the 2025 brief; the 91.2% (2024) comparison figure and the per-state table come from the 2024 brief. Every figure on this page is an NCSBN national statistic for the stated candidate group and reporting year — none of them is an NCLEX Key outcome. Last reviewed July 2026.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the NCLEX pass rate for first-time test takers?
NCSBN's most recent published figure is for calendar year 2025: first-time, U.S.-educated candidates passed the NCLEX-RN at 86.7%, down from 91.2% in 2024. That 86.7% is final, not preliminary — it comes from NCSBN's 2025 NCLEX Examination Statistics brief, published in June 2026. Keep in mind this headline number only describes first-time U.S. graduates; other candidate groups pass at much lower rates, and the all-candidates RN rate for 2025 was 69.1%.
What are my chances of passing the NCLEX on the second try?
Repeat test takers pass at a much lower rate than first-timers. In NCSBN's 2025 statistics, U.S.-educated repeat candidates passed the NCLEX-RN at 52.7%, versus 86.7% for first-time, U.S.-educated candidates. On the PN side, repeat U.S.-educated candidates passed at 41.7%. Internationally-educated repeat candidates had the lowest RN rate, 30.5%. These lower repeat rates are a big part of why the all-candidates RN rate for 2025 sits at 69.1%.
Why is the overall NCLEX pass rate only about 69% if first-timers pass at 87%?
Because the 86.7% figure covers only first-time, U.S.-educated candidates (2025). Repeat test takers and internationally-educated nurses pass at far lower rates — 52.7% for U.S.-educated repeaters and 47.3% for first-time, internationally-educated candidates on the RN exam in 2025 — which pulls the all-candidates rate down to 69.1%. This is the single most misread statistic about the NCLEX, so always check which group a quoted pass rate describes.
Is the NCLEX harder to pass in some states than others?
No. The passing standard is the same nationwide, so the exam is not easier or harder depending on where you test. State pass rates do vary — in 2024 they ranged from 96.5% in New Hampshire down to 84.9% in Florida for first-time, U.S.-educated candidates, and in 2025 they ranged from 92.9% in North Dakota down to 77.8% in Alaska (excluding territories with very few candidates) — but those differences mostly reflect the mix of nursing programs and candidates in each state, not a different bar.
Did the NCLEX get easier after the Next Generation NCLEX launched?
The passing standard did not change — NCSBN reviewed it and kept it the same. But first-time U.S.-educated RN pass rates did jump after the NGN launched on April 1, 2023, rising from 79.9% in 2022 to 88.6% in 2023 and 91.2% in 2024, before falling back to 86.7% in 2025. A large part of that increase comes from the NGN's partial-credit scoring on case-study and multiple-response items, which credits partially correct answers instead of grading all-or-nothing.
Is the NCLEX graded on a curve?
No. The NCLEX is scored pass or fail only, and a numeric score is never released. Your result is decided against a fixed passing standard, not a curve or a percentage of questions answered correctly. A published pass rate simply counts how many candidates in a group cleared that standard. Because the standard is the same everywhere, differences between states and years reflect who is testing, not a changing bar.
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