How to know if you passed the NCLEX

Your nursing regulatory body is the only source of official NCLEX results, and it sends them within six weeks of the exam. If you are applying for a US licence and your board takes part, you can buy unofficial Quick Results two business days after the exam for US$7.95.

Sources checked 6 October 2026.

Official results come from your regulator

The exam is scored as you answer, but the test centre does not release results. Staff there cannot see them. NCSBN and Pearson VUE do not give results by phone either. Your regulator sends the official result, and only that result lets you move on to a licence.

Quick Results: unofficial, two business days

Quick Results is a paid service run through your Pearson VUE account. It is for candidates seeking a US licence. Candidates for Canadian registration cannot use it.

• Sign in to the Pearson VUE website two business days after your exam.
• Under "My Account", choose "Quick Results".
• If your result is available, pay the US$7.95 fee. Your card is charged only if the result is available.

The result is unofficial. It does not authorise you to practise. NCSBN lists these participating boards: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, U.S. Virgin Islands, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. American Samoa and Guam are not on the list.

Your board's licence lookup

Many boards run a public licence lookup. In a Reddit thread that ranks for this question, the top reply tells the poster to search their state board's site the next morning, and the poster reports finding a licence less than 24 hours after the exam.

Treat that as one person's experience. A licence under your name on the board's own site is the board's record. A search that finds nothing tells you nothing, because boards post at different speeds and some need other paperwork first.

The "Pearson VUE trick" is a rumour

The trick goes like this: after the exam, you try to register for the NCLEX again on the Pearson VUE site. People claim that a message blocking the new registration means you passed, and that reaching the payment page means you failed.

NCSBN does not list this among the ways to get a result. Its site names two: the official result from your regulator, and Quick Results. No official page says the registration message reflects your result, so it can be wrong in either direction.

What does not tell you anything

• The number of questions. NCSBN states that the number of questions alone does not determine or reveal a pass or a fail. See how many questions are on the NCLEX.
• How hard the last question felt. The exam keeps choosing questions near your ability, so most of them feel hard.
• How early the exam stopped. An exam that ends at 85 questions means the computer was certain. It can be certain of a fail.

REx-PN results

REx-PN has no Quick Results service. Official results come only from the College of Nurses of Ontario or the British Columbia College of Nurses and Midwives. The REx-PN site says results arrive within about six weeks. BCCNM says it emails results within a few days of the exam.

If you did not pass

Your regulator sends a Candidate Performance Report. It shows, for each area of the test plan, whether you were below, near or above the passing standard. Read what to do after failing the NCLEX, and use the retake date checker to see when you can sit again.

When you start studying again, begin with the areas the report marks below the standard. In Medibara, a topic mock covers one Client Needs area at a time, and Progress marks your weakest areas "Focus next", so you can see whether the report's weak areas are improving.