KS-RES Pass Rate 2026: What the Data Shows

The Pass Rate Reality for the KS-RES

Search for a published pass rate for the Kansas Real Estate Salesperson Exam and you'll mostly find speculation. The Kansas Real Estate Commission and Pearson VUE do not publish a rolling public statistic that candidates can point to with confidence, and any number you see floating around without a clear source should be treated skeptically. What we can say with certainty comes directly from the exam's own structure: a scaled score of 70 is required on the national/general portion and a scaled score of 70 is required on the Kansas portion - and you must clear both.

That two-part passing requirement is the real story behind "pass rate" conversations. It's not one hurdle, it's two, administered in the same sitting but scored independently. A candidate who is strong on national real estate concepts but weak on Kansas-specific statutes can still fail the exam outright, and vice versa. This is why serious prep treats the KS-RES Exam Domains 2026: Complete Guide to All 13 Content Areas as two separate study problems rather than one long list.

How Scoring Actually Works

Understanding the mechanics of the KS-RES score report is more useful than chasing an unverifiable statistic. Candidates get 2.5 hours for the national/general portion and 1.5 hours for the Kansas portion, and each section is scored on its own scale, with 70 as the passing threshold on both. If you clear one portion but not the other, you'll need to retake only the portion you failed - but the clock on your eligibility keeps running regardless.

That clock matters a lot. Kansas requires your complete license application to reach the Commission within six months of the earlier exam date. If you pass the national portion in January and don't clear the Kansas portion until July, you may already be past the deadline tied to your January result. This single administrative detail - easy to overlook, painful to discover late - is covered in more depth in KS-RES Exam Dates 2026: Testing Windows, Deadlines & Scheduling.

Breaking Down the 125 Questions

The exam delivers 125 total questions, but not all of them count toward your score. The breakdown is:

• 80 scored national/general questions - covering Domains 1 through 8
• 30 scored Kansas questions - covering Domains 9 through 13
• 15 unscored pretest questions - used by the Commission to evaluate future exam items

Because the unscored pretest items are mixed in and not identifiable during the exam, candidates should approach every question - all 125 of them - with equal seriousness. There is no way to "skip the ones that don't count" because you won't know which those are.

Domains That Cause the Most Retakes

Two domains deserve outsized attention because of their weight within their respective sections. Real Estate Contracts and Agency (Domain 4) is the largest domain on the national/general side - meaning a shaky grasp of agency relationships, contract formation, and contract remedies can quietly cost you more points than a weak spot in a smaller domain like Real Estate Math Calculations.

On the Kansas side, BRRETA - the Brokerage Relationships in Real Estate Transactions Act (Domain 13) - is the largest domain. BRRETA governs how Kansas licensees establish and disclose brokerage relationships, and it's dense with statutory language that doesn't always mirror general agency concepts from the national portion. Candidates who study agency law generically and assume it transfers directly to BRRETA often get surprised.

For a full walkthrough of how each domain is tested and what examiners expect you to know, KS-RES Exam Domains 2026: Complete Guide to All 13 Content Areas breaks down all 13 areas individually. If you're still trying to gauge whether your current knowledge level is exam-ready, How Hard Is the KS-RES Exam? Complete Difficulty Guide 2026 covers the difficulty profile in more detail.

Registration, Fees, and Retake Mechanics

The KS-RES is a computer-based exam administered by Pearson VUE, under the authority of the Kansas Real Estate Commission, at a cost of $70. Before you're eligible to register, you must meet several prerequisites:

• Be at least 18 years old with a high school diploma or equivalent
• Complete a 30-hour Principles of Real Estate course within one year before passing both exam portions
• Complete a 30-hour Kansas Practice Course within six months before application
• Satisfy fingerprint and background-check requirements
• Affiliate with a supervising Kansas broker

These aren't optional formalities - missing any one of them can delay or invalidate an otherwise passing exam result. The KS-RES Requirements 2026: Eligibility, Prerequisites & How to Qualify guide lays out the sequencing so you complete each step in the right order relative to your test date.

Once you've registered and sat for the exam, remember: the six-month application deadline is measured from your earlier passing exam date, not your later one. If you fail a portion and retake it, that retake doesn't reset the clock started by the portion you already passed. Understanding exactly what "70" means on each scaled score is worth reviewing separately - see KS-RES Passing Score 2026: Exactly What You Need to Pass for the specifics.

Who's Actually Sitting for This Exam

The KS-RES isn't an academic credential pursued in isolation - every candidate is working toward an active salesperson license under a supervising Kansas broker. That means the population sitting for this exam skews toward people already mid-transition: career changers entering real estate sales, individuals who've completed their 30-hour Principles of Real Estate course and Kansas Practice Course back-to-back, and applicants who have already lined up brokerage affiliation before testing.

This context matters for how you interpret "difficulty." Because the population taking the KS-RES has already cleared coursework and background-check hurdles, the exam itself is the final screen - not an entry-level filter. If you're weighing whether the licensing path and exam investment make sense for your situation, Is the KS-RES Certification Worth It? Complete ROI Analysis 2026 and KS-RES Salary Guide 2026: Complete Earnings Analysis address the career-outcome side of that question.

A Weighting-Based Study Timeline

Rather than a generic study calendar, allocate your weeks around the exam's actual weight distribution: 80 scored questions on national/general topics (Domains 1-8) and 30 scored questions on Kansas topics (Domains 9-13). That's roughly 2.5 to 1 in favor of national content, which should be reflected in how you split early study weeks - even though the Kansas portion, especially BRRETA, needs dedicated, undiluted attention closer to test day.

This kind of sequencing - heavier early weeks on the larger national domain, a dedicated late push on BRRETA - is expanded on with practice-question strategy in KS-RES Study Guide 2026: How to Pass on Your First Attempt. Pairing your review with timed practice sets on our practice test platform lets you simulate the 2.5-hour and 1.5-hour splits before test day, so pacing itself doesn't become the reason you run out of time on Domain 13 questions at the end of the Kansas section.

National Portion vs. Kansas Portion

Notice that the Kansas portion gives you less time (1.5 hours) for fewer questions (30) relative to the national portion's 2.5 hours for 80 questions. That's roughly three minutes per question on both sides, but the Kansas questions tend to hinge on precise statutory language rather than broad concept application - a different kind of reading demand than the national section. Reviewing a condensed reference before test day, like the one in KS-RES Cheat Sheet 2026: One-Page Review of Must-Know Facts, can help you move through those Kansas-specific statute questions without second-guessing definitions.

Frequently Asked Questions