How much the bar exam costs depends on where you are seeking admission — there is no single price.
The line that swings the total most, the application fee, is set by each jurisdiction's admitting authority, and it is only one layer: the exam software fee, the MPRE, the character and fitness investigation and score services are billed separately, some by the jurisdiction and some by NCBE or its vendors.
Here is every fee we could confirm, and the ones only your board can quote.
What are the fees to sit for the bar?
The bill has two payers.
Your jurisdiction's admitting authority charges an application fee it sets itself, and it is only one layer: the exam software fee, the MPRE, the character and fitness investigation and score services are billed separately — some by the jurisdiction, some by NCBE or its vendors.
NCBE develops the exams and scores the multiple-choice portions, while each jurisdiction administers its own exam.
Which exam you sit changes part of that bill.
NCBE calls the current exam the legacy UBE and says it will be administered through February 2028; the NextGen UBE, first given in July 2026, adds a $149 exam software/technology fee paid through your NCBE Account, on top of the jurisdiction's application fee — and NCBE's Examinees Guide put the legacy laptop software fees at typically $90–$150.
The bar exam overview covers what each format tests and where it runs.
Three more pieces fill out the bill: the MPRE, which costs $185 for every 2026 and 2027 administration where it is required; the character and fitness investigation, whose NCBE fee rose on October 1, 2026; and prep, where commercial providers set their own prices.
The sections below put numbers on each — state by state, where the sources allowed.
Fee schedules change — confirm before you pay
Bar exam fees by state: the table
Application fees are where the cost diverges most, because each jurisdiction prices its own.
The table gathers the exam application fees our research confirmed on board and NCBE pages as of October 2, 2026, with some of the extra charges those sources list — filing deadlines change what you pay, and several boards price attorneys, repeaters and law students differently.
| Jurisdiction | Exam application fee | What else the source lists |
|---|---|---|
| Alabama | $575 first-time | Previously admitted or applying-elsewhere applicants also pay NCBE character-investigation costs (as of October 2, 2026) |
| Alaska | $876 first-time; $618 reapplicant | February 2027 and July 2027 exams; includes a 3% transaction fee; laptop registration $129 |
| Arizona | $680 | Separate character-and-fitness fee; $125 laptop fee, paid directly to the software vendor |
| Arkansas | $1,000, non-refundable | Same fee for first-time takers, attorneys and repeaters; no laptop fee |
| California | $878 general applicant; $1,650 attorney applicant | Laptop fee $153; late fees $50, then $250 |
| Colorado | $710 timely; $910 late | 2026–27 fee schedule |
| Connecticut | $900 | Same fee for first-timers, attorneys and repeaters; NextGen UBE since July 2026, so the $149 NextGen software fee applies |
| District of Columbia | $405 | Separate NCBE character investigation fee; laptop software $150 (July 2026 exam) |
| Delaware | $700 (law school graduate) or $800 (attorney) by the early deadline; $900 / $1,000 by the final deadline (figures from the 2025 fee table) | For February 2027: early deadline November 3, 2026; final deadline December 1, 2026 |
| Florida | $1,000 for non-lawyers and lawyers admitted under 1 year | Rises to $1,600 (1–5 years), $2,000 (5–10), $2,400 (10–15) and $3,000 (15+) |
| Georgia | Fitness application $450 before the J.D. or $750 after; exam application $400 (current law student) or $550 (graduate) | Exam application adds a $107 NCBE fee and a $105 laptop/handwriting fee |
| Hawaii | $500 | In effect since February 2014; NCBE character-and-fitness and ExamSoft laptop fees extra |
| Idaho | $600 student applicant; $800 attorney applicant | Late fee $200; no refunds; re-exam $200 for each of the first three retakes, then $300 |
| Illinois | $1,200 by the first deadline; $1,475 second; $1,875 final | Effective January 1, 2026; repeat takers $650 |
| Indiana | $250 | Read from NCBE's jurisdiction profile, October 2026 |
| Iowa | $800 | Laptop fee $122 |
| Kentucky | $875 non-attorneys; $1,200 attorneys, filed by the regular deadline | Late $1,125 / $1,450; extended late $1,375 / $1,700 |
| Louisiana | $975 first-time and re-applicants | Late filing adds $850; law students who registered in 2L pay $150, then an $850 supplemental |
| Maine | $800 (never admitted, or admitted elsewhere under 1 year); $900 (admitted elsewhere 1+ year) | In effect since March 15, 2025; plus the NCBE character and fitness application fee |
| Maryland | $750; $400 repeaters | NextGen UBE since July 2026, so the $149 NextGen software fee applies |
| Massachusetts | $815 | Laptop fee $175 |
| Michigan | $400 UBE exam | Re-exam $300; late filing +$100 |
| Minnesota | $800 first-time not admitted elsewhere; $1,150 admitted elsewhere 6+ months | Rules effective September 1, 2026; late $1,100 / $1,450 |
| Mississippi | $525 registered law students; $825 others | Late $725 / $1,025; $25 fee on every application; laptop fee currently $113 (board says it may change), paid to ExamSoft; no fees refunded |
| Missouri | $1,045 by the first deadline; $1,190 by the second; $1,400 by the final | $560–$910 for those who filed a law-student character report as a 1L or 2L |
| Montana | $620 first-time non-attorney; $875 attorneys; $310 repeaters | Plus the NCBE character and fitness fee |
| Nebraska | $515 first-time | Includes a $25 payment-processing fee; rises to $615 if filed without a passing MPRE score |
| Nevada | Not confirmed in our research | Check the board's application page |
| New Hampshire | $995 | Applications due May 1 (July exam) and December 1 (February exam) |
| New Jersey | $750 on time; $950 first late; $1,200 final late | As of October 2, 2026 |
| New Mexico | Not confirmed in our research | Check the board's application page |
| New York | $250 US-educated; $750 foreign-educated | Also the UBE-transfer application fee, per Judiciary Law 465 |
| North Carolina | $850 general; $1,650 attorney; $400 repeaters | Laptop fee $125 |
| North Dakota | Not confirmed in our research | Check the board's application page |
| Ohio | $75 registration first; exam application $330 timely, $430 late | Plus NCBE's fee for the UBE components |
| Oklahoma | $650 registered law students and repeaters; $1,250 attorneys admitted elsewhere | Source lists both tiers "plus C&F fee"; late filing raises the student fee to $700 / $800; laptop $125 |
| Oregon | $1,000 | Plus a $600 investigation fee for applicants admitted or applying elsewhere; late filers pay an extra 40% of the application fee |
| Pennsylvania | $750 | Laptop fee $115 |
| Rhode Island | $975 — the same for the bar exam, the attorney's exam and a UBE transfer | Plus NCBE processing or character report fees; no late filing |
| South Carolina | $1,000 early window; $1,500 otherwise | Applicants admitted elsewhere for over a year pay $750 more |
| South Dakota | $450 | NCBE character report $395 for a first exam after graduation, or $550 later |
| Tennessee | $725 first-time or re-exam | Effective March 1, 2025; the required Tennessee Law Course costs $15 |
| Texas | $450 in-state law students; $640 out-of-state students; $1,190 attorneys licensed elsewhere; $1,290 foreign-trained; $545 re-applicants | Declaration of Intention to Study Law $190 |
| Utah | $550 student; $850 attorney | Laptop $200; NCBE investigation fee $395–$550 extra |
| Vermont | $300 | Plus a character and fitness fee; no laptop fee |
| Virginia | $575 exam application plus $575 Character & Fitness Questionnaire | All non-refundable |
| Washington | $740 general ($595 WSBA + $145+tax NCBE fee); $790 attorney | Late filing adds $300 |
| West Virginia | $500 first-time; $800 attorneys admitted elsewhere a year or more | Late filing adds $200; NCBE report fee extra (typically from $395) |
| Wisconsin | $450 initial deadline (May 3, 2027); $650 final deadline (June 1, 2027) | July 2027 UBE filing window |
| Wyoming | $750 | Raised effective October 2, 2026 |
Read across the table, three patterns matter for your budget.
Deadline tiers repeat across the table — file late and the same exam can cost hundreds more: $300 more in Washington, $850 more in Louisiana, an extra 40% of the application fee in Oregon.
And where the table prices attorney applicants separately — California, North Carolina, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Idaho, Utah, Montana, Delaware and West Virginia — the attorney figure is the higher one.
Several charges also sit outside the application fee entirely: separate character-and-fitness fees in Arizona, Vermont and Virginia, and NCBE fees stacked on top in Georgia, Ohio and Rhode Island.
The table is not exhaustive.
Nevada, North Dakota and New Mexico appear with no confirmed figure because our research did not capture one, the territories were not captured either, and each figure is only as current as the source page we read — Wisconsin's, for example, is set for the July 2027 filing window.
For any jurisdiction, the board's own application page is the number that governs.
Other costs: the MPRE, character and fitness, laptop fees and prep
The MPRE.
The ethics exam costs $185 for all 2026 and 2027 administrations, paid to Pearson, and it is required for bar admission in every U.S. jurisdiction except Wisconsin and Puerto Rico — Connecticut and New Jersey also accept a law-school professional responsibility course instead of a passing score.
There is no separate late-registration fee, but you have to finish registration by the deadline to test in that window, and rescheduling within one costs $25.
Sending a score to an additional jurisdiction costs $30 per MPRE Score Report.
The exam is given in person at Pearson testing centers, so travel is a real line if none is near you.
Character and fitness.
Every jurisdiction runs a background investigation as part of admission.
NCBE runs investigations and hosts applications for many jurisdictions but makes no decisions — each jurisdiction decides who is fit to practice.
Twenty-seven jurisdictions do not use NCBE's character and fitness services at all, including California, New York, Texas, Illinois and Pennsylvania; what their own process costs, if anything, is on their application materials.
Where NCBE does run the report, the state pages we read listed $395–$550 — but NCBE raised character report fees effective October 1, 2026, and the new amounts were not in the pages we read, so treat those figures as outdated until NCBE's current schedule confirms them.
California prices its own investigation directly: a moral character application runs $900 (general) or $1,054 (attorney applicant) under the State Bar's current fee appendix.
Laptop and software.
NextGen examinees take the exam on their own laptop at an in-person, proctored site, and the $149 software fee is separate from the jurisdiction's application fee.
On the legacy exam, NCBE's Examinees Guide put the software fee at typically $90–$150 — and jurisdiction laptop fees are listed separately too: $107 in Alabama (per NCBE's chart), $153 in California and $200 in Utah among the confirmed figures.
Prep.
Commercial courses and tutors set their own prices, and our research did not confirm current prep-course pricing — compare providers directly.
The prep-adjacent costs our research did capture are required state-law courses: Tennessee's Tennessee Law Course, required of all applicants, costs $15, and Michigan's Law Basics training rose to $129 on August 1, 2026.
Total cost estimate: how to build your number
A national total does not exist, and we will not invent one: the application fee — the line that swings the total most — is set jurisdiction by jurisdiction, and boards revise it.
What you can do is assemble your own working number from the confirmed pieces.
Start with the fixed national items.
If your jurisdiction requires the MPRE, that is $185 for any 2026 or 2027 administration.
If it gives the NextGen UBE, the software fee is $149; on the legacy exam, budget across the $90–$150 software fee range boards typically charge instead.
If a score will move between jurisdictions, each Official Bar Exam Score Transcript is $30 — as is each MPRE Score Report beyond the first jurisdiction.
Then add your jurisdiction's application fee from the table above, plus its character-and-fitness route: an NCBE report at the recently increased fee where NCBE runs it, or a separate state charge like Virginia's $575 questionnaire or California's $900–$1,054 moral character application.
Travel is the remaining category — the NextGen is sat in person on your own laptop and the MPRE at a Pearson center, so lodging and transport depend on how far your nearest site is.
Two budget rules come from the same sources.
Retakes re-bill the exam: Idaho charges $200 for each of the first three re-examinations and $300 after that, Maryland prices repeaters at $400, and Illinois at $650.
And some fees do not come back: Mississippi refunds no fees, Arkansas's fee is non-refundable, and Virginia's are all non-refundable.
Before you pay anything, one check of the board's current fee schedule confirms the number you are budgeting around.
Will a firm pay for it?
Our research captured no data on how often employers cover bar exam costs — no verified share of firms that pay fees, stipends or study leave — so this section stays practical instead of pretending a norm exists.
What the rest of this page gives you is a line-itemed ask: application fee, software fee, MPRE, character report, score reports, travel and prep.
If you are interviewing as a student or recent graduate, make the coverage question concrete at the offer stage: whether the employer pays the board directly or reimburses you, which line items that includes, and whether anything changes if you are still awaiting results at your start date.
Get the answer in the offer letter.
If you are already employed and planning to sit, ask before you pay — whether licensure costs are reimbursable is a policy question each employer answers for itself.
If you hire for a firm instead, the same list is the cleanest way to answer the question before candidates ask it: decide whether the firm covers exam fees, prep, travel or none of these, and whether repayment applies if a new associate leaves early.
A written answer at the offer stage settles it for both sides.
Career information, not legal advice. Bar exam application and character and fitness fees are set by each jurisdiction's admitting authority, and exam, MPRE and score-reporting fees by NCBE and its vendors; confirm current amounts with your board — and with NCBE where it bills — before you pay.