NCLEX-PN Pass Rate Figures and What They Do Not Tell You

The two labels that have to travel with the number

There is no such thing as the NCLEX-PN pass rate. NCSBN does not publish one number, and any source that quotes one has dropped something on the way.

Every figure NCSBN reports carries two labels. A candidate type, which says whether the person had tested before and where they were educated. And a calendar year, because the brief covers a fixed reporting window rather than a rolling average.

Strip either label off and the number stops describing anything. That is not pedantry. It is the difference between a statistic and a rumour, and this is a category where rumours travel fast.

What NCSBN published for calendar year 2025

The source is NCSBN's own research brief, 2025 NCLEX Examination Statistics, Research Brief Volume 96, published June 2026, covering January through December 2025.

For first-time, United States educated NCLEX-PN candidates in that window, NCSBN reports 54,818 tested and 47,470 passed, which is 86.6 percent.

Across all candidates for practical nursing licensure in the same window, NCSBN reports 68,996 tested and 53,362 passed, which is 77.3 percent.

Those two numbers describe the same exam in the same year. They differ by just over nine percentage points because they describe different populations, and the population is doing most of the work.

Why the all-candidates figure sits lower

The second group contains the first group plus everybody else.

NCSBN's all-candidates figure for practical nursing licensure pools first-time and repeat candidates, and United States educated and internationally educated candidates, into a single denominator. The first-time, United States educated figure describes one slice of that pool, and it is the slice most people reading this belong to.

So the number that actually describes your situation is usually the narrower one. Not because it is the friendlier number, but because its label matches your circumstances.

That is also why a percentage quoted with no label is worse than no percentage at all. It sounds like information. It behaves like noise.

First-time and repeat are not the same group of people

NCSBN breaks the PN results down further, and the breakdown is where the shape of the thing becomes visible.

Read the repeat rows carefully, because they are the ones most often misused. A repeat cohort is not a random sample of candidates. Everybody in it has already sat the exam and not passed it, which means the group was selected by the very outcome being measured.

So the repeat figure tells you about a population, not about a person. It is not a forecast for anyone in particular, and it is certainly not a prediction about you.

What these figures are not evidence of

They are not evidence that the exam got harder or easier. NCSBN's calendar year 2025 brief reports calendar year 2025. A single year of published statistics contains no trend, and turning one into a trend line requires data that this brief does not contain.

They are not evidence about any study product. A pass rate published by NCSBN describes candidates who sat an exam. It says nothing about what any of them studied with, and nobody who places a product next to that number is entitled to the implication.

They are also not a difficulty ranking against the RN exam. The two exams run on different test plans, use different category names, and have passing standards that NCSBN sets separately. Lining the percentages up side by side compares two instruments rather than two levels of difficulty.

The RN figures, and the exam-length statistics that sit beside them in the same brief, are picked up in why the exam stops between 85 and 150 questions.

Where the figures come from, and when they expire

These are published in a research brief rather than on a live dashboard, and that has two consequences worth holding on to.

The first is that they describe a closed window. Calendar year 2025 is finished. The figures NCSBN published for it will not move.

The second is that they age. NCSBN issues a new statistics brief on a regular cycle, so any figure has a shelf life, and a page quoting one with no year attached will eventually be quoting a number that describes nothing at all.

So check the brief rather than the summary of the brief. It is a public document with numbered tables in it, and reading the table takes less time than arguing about the number afterwards.

How to use the numbers without being used by them

There is one honest thing these figures do for you. They set expectations about the shape of the exam population, and they kill the two stories candidates tell themselves at 2am.

The first story is that almost nobody passes. NCSBN's first-time, United States educated figure of 86.6 percent for calendar year 2025 says otherwise, plainly.

The second story is that a retake is a closed door. It is not. NCSBN's own retake policy allows repeat attempts within stated limits, and the logistics of that, including waiting periods and re-registration, are covered in scheduling and retaking the PN exam.

What none of it tells you is what to study on Tuesday. For that you want the structure of the exam rather than its statistics, which starts at a different exam, not a smaller one and runs through the category that has no RN counterpart at all, Coordinated Care.

And if you are reading these figures while weighing a bridge programme, the exam on the other side is organised differently rather than simply scaled up. That comparison is in what changes on the exam.

The one-sentence rule

When you quote a figure, quote it whole. Candidate type, calendar year, and NCSBN as the source, in the same breath as the percentage.

Anything shorter is not a shortcut. It is a different claim wearing the number's clothes, and in a field where people make decisions on these figures, that matters more than it looks.