What is the Series 65 exam?

Where the question weight actually sits

NASAA publishes four sections and their weightings. They are not equal, and the gap is the most useful thing to know before you open a book:

Two sections are tied at 30% each — 39 of the 130 scored questions apiece, and 60% of the exam between them. A study plan that gives each of the four sections a quarter of your time has misallocated most of it.

Inside the first 30%: client recommendations and strategies

This is the applied half: less about what an instrument is than about which client should hold it, in what account, and what follows in tax terms when they do.

Client types and profiles

Individuals, partnerships, LLCs, corporations, trusts, estates and charities, each with its own tax treatment — then goals, risk tolerance, time horizon, life stage, behavioral finance and non-financial criteria such as ESG screens.

Capital market theory and strategy

CAPM, Modern Portfolio Theory and the Efficient Market Hypothesis; strategic versus tactical allocation; active, passive, growth, value and income approaches; diversification, sector rotation and leverage.

Tax, retirement and estate

Capital gains, qualified dividends, basis and AMT; IRAs, 401(k), 403(b), 457, SIMPLE and SEP plans plus the ERISA layer; 529, Coverdell, UTMA/UGMA and HSA accounts; and the ownership forms that decide where assets go.

Trading and performance

Order types, short sales, cash versus margin, principal versus agency capacity — then time- and dollar-weighted, risk-adjusted and after-tax returns.

Questions here are scenarios, not definitions: you are given a client and asked what follows.

Inside the second 30%: law, regulation and ethics

The other 30% covers the regulation of advisers and their representatives, the parallel definitions for broker-dealers and agents, the registration of securities and issuers with its exemptions and exclusions, antifraud authority and enforcement remedies — plus what you may say to clients: required disclosures, unlawful representations, the prohibition on guaranteeing performance, contracts and advertising.

The block that decides most results is ethical practices and fiduciary obligations — fees, soft dollars and the disclosure of compensation; custody, discretion and trading authorization; the standard of care; and the conflicts list, from loans to and from clients through selling away and political contributions. Hence the habit worth forming early: this is a fiduciary exam, not a suitability one, and the answer that merely discloses a conflict is often wrong.

A warning on numbers. Registration thresholds, filing deadlines, de minimis exemptions and continuing-education hours are the classic trap here, and NASAA's outline publishes none of them. NASAA writes modelrules; each state decides whether and how to adopt one, so the figure that governs you comes from your state's adoption rather than the model. Check it with NASAA or your state securities administrator.

The other 40%

Economic Factors and Business Information (15%) is the one people underestimate: business cycles, monetary and fiscal policy, interest rates, yield curves and credit spreads, financial reporting and auditor opinions, and the analytical toolkit from time value of money through standard deviation, alpha, beta and the Sharpe ratio.

Investment Vehicle Characteristics (25%) is the product section: cash equivalents, fixed income, equity, public offerings, pooled vehicles from open-end funds through hedge funds and REITs, derivatives, alternatives and insurance-based products. Digital assets are explicitly in scope — but what is testable is the framework for deciding whether something is a security, a currency or an asset, because the treatment is unsettled.

How the exam is delivered

You sit 140 questions in 3 hours, multiple choice and closed book, with scratch paper on request. Only 130 of them count: the other 10 are unscored pretest items that NASAA says may come from any section, so there is no pattern to spot. Treat every question as scored.

The pass mark is a raw count, not a percentage — at least 92 of the 130 scored questions, which works out to 70.8%. It used to be 94, until the revision effective June 12, 2023 lowered it. Any rounded percentage you see, including the 70% shown elsewhere on this site, is derived from that count — so target the count.

The exam belongs to NASAA but runs through FINRA's testing system, and enrolling opens a 120-day window to sit it. NASAA's exam page listed the fee at $187 as of 2026; what the Series 65 costs covers who pays it.

Who takes it, and what passing authorizes

The Series 65 satisfies the exam requirement to register as an Investment Adviser Representative — you still register with your state to be licensed. No sponsorship and no SIE are required to sit it, so anyone can take it.

That distinction matters. Passing satisfies the examination requirement to register as an Investment Adviser Representative — the role that gives investment advice for compensation — but it is not itself a license. You register through your state securities administrator, and that state sets what you may then do. In practice the candidates are career-changers moving into advice, paraplanners formalizing their role, planners adding an advisory arm to an insurance or accounting practice, and anyone starting a registered investment adviser of their own.

Before you can take it

The Series 65 needs no sponsor and no SIE. Deciding between the adviser path and a combined exam? Compare the Series 65 and Series 66, or weigh it against the Series 63. For the workload, see how hard it is and how long it takes to study.