The MPRE — the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination — is a two-hour, 60-question multiple-choice exam on the established standards of lawyer conduct that NCBE develops and administers.
Every U.S. jurisdiction requires it for bar admission except Wisconsin and Puerto Rico; Connecticut and New Jersey also accept a law-school professional responsibility course in its place.
It is a separate exam from the bar exam, offered three times a year.
What is the MPRE?
The MPRE is the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination: a two-hour, 60-question multiple-choice exam offered three times a year, written and administered by NCBE.
It covers one subject — the established standards of lawyer conduct — and it stands apart from the bar exam as its own requirement, its own appointment and its own score.
For bar applicants in nearly every U.S. jurisdiction, it is part of admission.
NCBE puts it plainly: the MPRE is required for admission to the bars of all but two U.S. jurisdictions, Wisconsin and Puerto Rico.
Two more take a different route — Connecticut and New Jersey accept successful completion of a law school course on professional responsibility in lieu of a passing MPRE score.
The exam is national; the requirement is not.
Every jurisdiction that requires the MPRE draws it from the same NCBE exam, but each sets its own passing score and applies the result inside its own admission process.
That split — one exam, many thresholds — runs through everything below.
The requirement is set jurisdiction by jurisdiction
What does the MPRE test?
NCBE is explicit about what the exam is not: "The MPRE is not a test to determine an individual's personal ethical values."
It measures knowledge of established standards of lawyer conduct — how those standards apply to fact patterns, not what you personally believe is right.
The scope is published.
NCBE's MPRE Subject Matter Outline assigns each area a weight range, and the spread is telling: conflicts of interest is the highest-weighted at 12–18%, with the client-lawyer relationship and litigation and advocacy next at 10–16% each, and duties to the public the lowest at 2–4%.
| Subject matter area (NCBE outline) | Weight range |
|---|---|
| Regulation of the profession | 6–12% |
| Client-lawyer relationship | 10–16% |
| Confidentiality | 6–12% |
| Conflicts of interest | 12–18% |
| Competence/malpractice | 6–12% |
| Litigation and advocacy | 10–16% |
| Transactions with non-clients | 2–8% |
| Different roles | 4–10% |
| Safekeeping funds | 2–8% |
| Communications about legal services | 4–10% |
| Duties to the public | 2–4% |
| Judicial conduct | 2–8% |
NCBE also offers free MPRE sample questions, a key words and phrases list and the subject matter outline itself, so the exact scope you will be tested on is public before you study a page of it.
How is the MPRE different from the bar exam?
The two exams do different jobs, and no score moves between them.
The MPRE is a standalone ethics requirement: a separate two-hour exam, administered three times a year, reported on its own 50–150 scale, with each jurisdiction setting its own passing score.
The bar exam is the general licensing exam, and what it consists of depends on the jurisdiction.
Forty-two have adopted NCBE's Uniform Bar Examination (UBE), which combines the Multistate Essay Examination, two Multistate Performance Test tasks and the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) into a single score on a 400-point scale; as of October 2026, 35 of them still administer that legacy UBE, after seven switched to the NextGen UBE in July 2026.
The MBE — the bar exam's multiple-choice piece — runs six hours and 200 questions and is given twice a year.
| MPRE | MBE | |
|---|---|---|
| Length | 2 hours | 6 hours |
| Questions | 60 (50 scored) | 200 (175 scored) |
| Offered | 3 windows a year | Twice a year — the last Wednesday of February and July |
| Where it counts | Required for bar admission in every U.S. jurisdiction except Wisconsin and Puerto Rico | Administered in 44 of 56 jurisdictions, as of October 2026 |
Nothing pools between the two.
A passing MPRE score satisfies an MPRE requirement and nothing else, and the closest thing to an alternative anywhere is the Connecticut and New Jersey law-school course option.
For applicants, the practical effect is scheduling: the MPRE is booked, taken and scored as its own event, separate from bar-exam registration and bar-exam study.
What is the format and how long is the MPRE?
The MPRE is two hours of multiple choice.
Of its 60 questions, 50 are scored and 10 are unscored pretest questions; every question has four answer choices, and there is no penalty for a wrong answer — so a question left blank gains you nothing.
You take it on a computer Pearson provides, at a Pearson testing center — a network that reaches Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Registration, scheduling and the exam appointment itself all run through NCBE and Pearson, not through a law school or a state's bar admission authority.
NCBE offers the exam in three windows a year — March, August and November — so the calendar, not your preparation, sets which dates are possible.
The upcoming windows and their registration deadlines are in the timing section below.
How is it scored and what score do you need?
MPRE results are reported as scaled scores from 50 (low) to 150 (high).
There is no national passing score: each jurisdiction sets its own on that scale, and the same result can clear one jurisdiction's requirement and fall short of another's.
The thresholds cover a wide band of the scale.
Per NCBE's jurisdiction pages as of October 2026, minimum passing scores run from 75 — required in Alabama, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Mississippi, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Palau and the U.S. Virgin Islands — up to 86 in California and Utah.
In between, the landscape splits nearly evenly: 21 jurisdictions require 85 and 20 require 80, so no single number describes the requirement.
Scores are typically released within five weeks of the exam, in your NCBE Account — the same account that shows MPRE scores earned since 1999.
If a score needs to reach a second jurisdiction, NCBE charges $30 for each MPRE Score Report.
How long a score stays valid
When should you take the MPRE?
The calendar offers three chances a year.
NCBE's current schedule:
- November 12–13, 2026 — registration closed September 17, 2026
- March 23–24, 2027 — register by January 21, 2027
- August 18–19, 2027 — register by June 17, 2027
- November 4–5, 2027 — register by September 21, 2027
Two facts shape the timing decision.
Scores are typically released within five weeks of the exam, so a window has to sit far enough ahead of whatever your jurisdiction's admission process requires.
And that requirement is the jurisdiction's, not NCBE's — the deadline the MPRE has to beat belongs to the admitting authority, which is the first place to check.
Connecticut and New Jersey applicants have a decision the rest do not: a law-school professional responsibility course can replace a passing score, which is worth weighing before registering for a window at all.
How do you register for the MPRE?
Registration runs through NCBE and Pearson, and the deadline is hard: registration, scheduling and payment all have to be complete by 11:59 p.m. CT on the window's registration deadline, or you cannot test in that window.
There is no separate late fee that buys a way in past it.
Create your NCBE Account
MPRE registration starts with an NCBE Account — the same account where your scores are released afterward.Register for a window and schedule with Pearson
Choose the administration, then book your appointment at a Pearson testing center, where the exam runs on Pearson-provided computers.Pay by the deadline
The test fee is $185 for all 2026 and 2027 administrations, paid to Pearson by debit or credit card — and everything has to be finished by 11:59 p.m. CT on the registration deadline.
Two scheduling notes round it out.
Rescheduling within a window costs a non-refundable, non-transferable $25.
And applicants who need accommodations get an earlier cue: NCBE's schedule lists a recommended date to apply for accommodations in each window — November 19, 2026 for the March 2027 administration, for example.
The MPRE is one gate on the way to the license; what the license supports day to day is the subject of the attorney career guide.
Career information, not legal advice. MPRE requirements, passing scores and deadlines are set by each jurisdiction and by NCBE, and they change — confirm anything that matters to your plans with the bar admission authority where you intend to practice, and with NCBE for the exam itself.