HI-RES Pass Rate 2026: What the Data Shows

What "Pass Rate" Actually Means for HI-RES Candidates

Anyone researching the Hawaii Real Estate Salesperson Exam (HI-RES) eventually asks the same question: what percentage of people actually pass? It's a fair question, but the honest answer is more nuanced than a single headline number. The Hawaii Real Estate Commission, which governs licensing, and PSI Services LLC, which administers the exam itself, do not publish a rolling public pass-rate statistic the way some other testing programs do. What candidates can find is the structural data that determines pass rates in the first place: the passing score, the question format, the domain weighting, and the retake rules.

That structural data is actually more useful than a single percentage, because it tells you exactly what you're being measured against. This article walks through what the available facts say about difficulty and pass dynamics, without inventing numbers that don't exist in the official bulletin.

Why Hawaii Doesn't Publish a Public Pass Rate

Some states and national testing bodies release aggregate pass/fail statistics by school or by testing period. Hawaii's current PSI candidate bulletin-effective January 16, 2026-does not include this kind of aggregate reporting for the salesperson exam. Instead, it focuses on what candidates need to know to qualify and sit for the test: eligibility, content outline, scoring rules, and administrative logistics.

This means the most reliable way to estimate your odds isn't a borrowed statistic from a blog post-it's an honest self-assessment against the actual content outline. If you want a full breakdown of every content area the exam covers, the HI-RES Exam Domains 2026: Complete Guide to All 20 Content Areas is the most direct way to map your preparation against what's actually tested.

The Real Numbers Behind the Exam

While a pass-rate percentage isn't published, the exam's structural numbers are fully documented and worth memorizing before you ever schedule a test date:

• 130 scored questions - 80 from the uniform (national) portion and 50 from the state portion.
• 5-10 unscored experimental questions may appear within the same testing time, indistinguishable from scored items.
• 240 minutes total testing time for both portions combined.
• 70% required on each portion separately - passing the national portion doesn't offset a weak state score, and vice versa.
• $61 exam fee, covering one or both portions.
• Closed-book, computer-based format, available at PSI test centers or via remote proctoring. Handheld calculators are prohibited.
• Test-center candidates receive scratch paper; remote candidates receive neither scratch paper nor scheduled breaks.

That last detail matters more than most candidates expect. If you're used to working real estate math problems on paper, and you choose remote proctoring, you'll need to practice doing those calculations mentally or on-screen before test day. For a deeper look at how these mechanics translate into actual difficulty, see How Hard Is the HI-RES Exam? Complete Difficulty Guide 2026.

Domain Weighting: Where Points Are Won or Lost

The clearest signal of where the exam concentrates difficulty is domain weighting. The national portion breaks down across eleven domains, and the largest single domain by far is Contracts at 19%-nearly one in five national questions touches contract law, formation, and enforceability concepts.

On the state side, weighting isn't broken into published percentages the way the national portion is, but the Commission identifies State - Professional Practices and Conduct as the largest state domain. Given that this domain governs licensee discipline, ethical obligations, and Hawaii-specific conduct rules, it deserves outsized attention relative to the other eight state domains. A full domain-by-domain walkthrough, including all twenty content areas, is available in the HI-RES Exam Domains 2026: Complete Guide to All 20 Content Areas.

The National vs. State Split and What It Means

The exam's two-portion structure is one of the most important things to understand before you study a single flashcard. The 80-question national portion draws on eleven domains covering property ownership, land use controls, valuation, financing, contracts, agency, disclosures, property management, transfer of title, general practice, and calculations. The 50-question state portion draws on nine Hawaii-specific domains, including ownership types, title and conveyances, escrow and closing statements, and financing as practiced under Hawaii law.

Because each portion is scored and passed independently at 70%, candidates sometimes pass one portion and not the other on a given attempt. Understanding exactly how the passing threshold is calculated-and what "passing each portion" really requires-is covered in more detail in HI-RES Passing Score 2026: Exactly What You Need to Pass.

Retake Mechanics: What Happens If You Fail One Portion

One of the most overlooked pieces of "pass rate" data is what happens after a failed attempt, because it directly affects how many people eventually get licensed even if they don't pass on their first try. A passed portion remains valid for two years, which means if you clear the national portion but fail the state portion, you don't have to retake the national side-you can retest on state content alone within that two-year window.

However, there's a second deadline layered on top: your license application must also be filed within two years of passing the exam. Missing that window means your passed scores expire for licensing purposes even if you never officially "failed" anything. This two-clock system is one of the more confusing parts of the Hawaii licensing process, and it's covered thoroughly in HI-RES Requirements 2026: Eligibility, Prerequisites & How to Qualify.

Who Tends to Pass on the First Attempt

Without an official pass-rate figure, the most reliable way to reason about first-attempt success is to look at where the exam concentrates risk structurally, and then check whether your own preparation matches that risk profile. A few patterns show up consistently among candidates who report a smooth first attempt:

• They treat the 60-hour prelicense course as a foundation, not a substitute for dedicated exam review, since the course and the exam are governed separately.
• They weight their study time toward Contracts and Agency on the national side, since those two domains alone account for 32% of the national portion.
• They don't neglect the state portion just because it's shorter-50 questions at 70% still requires roughly the same mastery level as the national portion.
• They rehearse the exact test conditions in advance, including whether they'll test at a PSI center (with scratch paper) or remotely (without breaks or scratch paper).
• They understand the fee and scheduling mechanics upfront-at $61 per sitting, unnecessary retakes are a real cost, not just a time cost.

If you're still deciding how to structure your prep timeline, the HI-RES Study Guide 2026: How to Pass on Your First Attempt walks through a complete plan built around these exact weighting patterns. You can also run full-length practice sessions modeled on the real 130-question format at the HI-RES practice test hub to get a feel for pacing across 240 minutes before test day.

A Domain-Weighted Study Timeline

Generic study techniques only help when they're mapped to the exam's actual weighting. Since Contracts (19%) and Agency (13%) together make up nearly a third of the national portion, and Professional Practices and Conduct dominates the state side, your calendar should reflect that imbalance rather than splitting time evenly across all 20 domains.

This kind of weighted schedule beats an evenly-split calendar because it mirrors how the actual scored questions are distributed. For a more granular version of this plan, along with quick-reference summaries of every domain, check the HI-RES Cheat Sheet 2026: One-Page Review of Must-Know Facts.

Frequently Asked Questions

For a complete cost breakdown that goes beyond the $61 exam fee-including course costs and application fees-see HI-RES Certification Cost 2026: Complete Pricing Breakdown, and when you're ready to test your readiness under real conditions, head to the practice exam platform to run a full timed simulation.