Securities Exams

Pick Your Exam.
Get the Right Course.

The SIE® and every FINRA®, NASAA and NFA Series exam, in each one’s real question count and clock.
All of them are in the same subscription, so you do not have to know which one you are taking before you subscribe.

Question counts, times and fees are the testing organizations’ published figures. They change — FINRA’s moved on January 1, 2026 — so confirm yours when you schedule.

Before the list

Five Things Are True of Almost Every One of These

Two of them are the reason people fail on logistics rather than on knowledge.

Most of them need a firm behind you

A member firm files the paperwork that opens a top-off exam window for you. That is an employment relationship, not a purchase — we prepare you for the exam and we do not sponsor anyone. The SIE is the exception, and it is the reason the next card exists.

The SIE needs nobody’s permission

No sponsor, no firm, no job. Anyone 18 or over can register and sit it, which is exactly what FINRA changed it for in 2018 — students now pass it before they interview, and walk in already half-qualified. A pass stays good for four years.

The pass mark is per exam, and it is not always 70

The SIE and Series 6 want 70. The Series 7 wants 72. The Series 79 and Series 66 want 73. The Series 65 wants 72, which is 94 of 130 questions. Knowing your number changes how you pace a practice exam.

A failed attempt costs you 30 days

The standard waiting period after a failed attempt is 30 days for the first two failures, and longer after that. Which is why a readiness estimate that tells you honestly is worth more than a practice score that flatters you.

Every one is built to a published outline

FINRA and NASAA publish the content outline and the section weights for each exam. Our practice forms are built to those weights, so a full-length simulation asks about each area in the proportion the real one does — not in the proportion a bank happened to accumulate.

The fee is not part of this

You pay the testing organization for the appointment. As of 2026 the SIE is $100, the Series 7 $395, the Series 63 $147, the Series 65 $187, the Series 66 $177, the Series 3 $140. Those went up on January 1, 2026; confirm the current figure when you schedule.

Securities Industry Essentials

The SIE — the One You Can Take Today

The entry exam, decoupled from employment since 2018.
It is the single best thing a finance student can have on a résumé before the first interview.

Four areas: knowledge of capital markets, understanding products and their risks, trading and customer accounts and prohibited activities, and an overview of the regulatory framework. The middle two carry three-quarters of the exam between them, and the products area alone is 44% — which is why the free course below spends its time exactly there.

Length
75 scored + 10 pretest
Time
1 hour 45 minutes
Pass
70
Sponsor
Not required

The published weights we build to

Knowledge of capital markets 16% · understanding products and their risks 44% · trading, customer accounts and prohibited activities 31% · overview of the regulatory framework 9%. You cannot pass this exam without the products area, and you cannot cram the products area — there are too many of them and the exam asks what each one does.

Representative and principal registrations

The Top-Off Exams

Every one of these sits on top of the SIE, and every one of them needs a member firm to open the window.
All of them are in the same subscription.

SERIES 7

General Securities Representative

The one most people mean

Ninety-one of the 125 scored questions sit in one function — providing information and making recommendations. That is where the exam lives: products, suitability, and the judgment about which client should be in which of them. The other three functions (seeking business, opening accounts, and processing transactions) split the remaining 34 between them.

Length
125 scored + 10 pretest
Time
3 hours 45 minutes
Pass
72
Sponsor
Required
SERIES 6

Investment Company and Variable Contracts

The bank and insurance route

Fifty questions on packaged products — mutual funds, variable annuities, variable life, UITs — and the rules around selling them. It is the common pairing with an insurance license, and if you are going to sell annuities you will end up holding both.

Length
50 questions
Time
1 hour 30 minutes
Pass
70
Sponsor
Required
SERIES 79

Investment Banking Representative

Seventy-five questions across three functions: collection and analysis of information, underwriting and new financing, and mergers, acquisitions and restructuring. A different exam from the Series 7 in temperament as well as content — valuation and process rather than products and suitability.

Length
75 questions
Time
2 hours 30 minutes
Pass
73
Sponsor
Required

The rest of the matrix

And the Principal, Operations and Specialist Registrations

Smaller populations, thinner material on the market, and no extra cost here — they are views of the same knowledge.

150 · 3 h 45

Series 24

General securities principal — supervision of registration, sales, trading, investment banking and financial responsibility.

55 · 1 h 30 · 145 · 4 h

Series 9 / 10

General sales supervisor, taken as two parts: options supervision, then everything else.

125 · 3 h 15

Series 4

Registered options principal.

110 · 2 h 45

Series 26

Investment company and variable contracts principal — the Series 6 world, supervised.

145 · 3 h 45 · 95 · 2 h

Series 27 / 28

Financial and operations principal, and its introducing-broker-dealer sibling.

50 · 1 h 30

Series 99

Operations professional — the back office, and its own registration since 2011.

50 · 1 h 45

Series 57

Securities trader.

85 · 4 h 30 · 50 · 1 h 45

Series 86 / 87

Research analyst: the analysis half, then the regulatory half.

50 · 1 h 30

Series 82

Private securities offerings representative.

50 · 1 h 30

Series 22

Direct participation programs representative.

60 to 100 · per outline

Series 50 – 54

The municipal registrations — advisor representative and principal, securities representative and principal, and the municipal fund securities limited principal.

per outline

Series 14, 16, 23, 39

Compliance officer, supervisory analyst, the general securities principal sales-supervisor module, and the DPP principal.

NASAA and the NFA

The State and Futures Exams

Administered through the same system, written by different bodies, and asking about a different subject: the law rather than the products.

60 questions · 1 h 15 · pass 43 of 60

Series 63 — Uniform Securities Agent

The short one, and the one people underestimate. It is almost entirely the Uniform Securities Act and ethical practices — registration and exemptions, fraud, the administrator’s powers, prohibited conduct. Nothing about products, which is why Series 7 knowledge does not carry you through it.

130 questions · 3 h · pass 94 of 130

Series 65 — Investment Adviser Representative

The adviser route, and it needs no sponsor either — which is why career changers take it. Economic factors 15%, investment-vehicle characteristics 25%, client recommendations and strategies 30%, and laws and regulations including unethical practices 30%.

100 questions · 2 h 30 · pass 73

Series 66 — Combined State Law

The 63 and the 65 in one exam, for people who already hold the Series 7. Economic factors 5%, investment vehicles 20%, client recommendations 30%, and laws and regulations 45% — the law weighting is the tell. Take it with the 7 and it is the cheaper path; take it without and you cannot.

120 questions · 2 h 30 · pass 70

Series 3 — National Commodity Futures

Futures and options on futures, in two parts: market knowledge and then the regulations. The Series 30, 31, 32 and 34 sit alongside it for branch management, managed funds, foreign futures and forex. A genuinely different body of math from the securities exams, and covered here.

A word about who administers what: the Series 63, 65 and 66 are written for the North American Securities Administrators Association and the Series 3 for the National Futures Association, even though you schedule all of them through the same testing system. Different bodies, different outlines, and no affiliation with us.

FreeNo subscription, no credit card

Financial Markets Fundamentals

The capital-markets and product basics every entrant needs before the SIE — what the markets are, who participates in them, what each product actually does, and how a trade travels from an order to a settled position. Free, permanently, on the same adaptive engine as every paid course.

  • Aimed at the 44% — products and their risks is the largest area of the SIE by a wide margin, and it is where a beginner has nothing to build on
  • For students before the interview — the SIE needs no sponsor, so this is a real head start rather than a brochure
  • For career changers weighing whether this industry is worth three weeks of evenings
  • Everything you prove here carries into the paid courses if you subscribe — it is the same engine and the same knowledge state

What it is not: an approved pre-licensing course. AccelaStudy AI is not an approved education provider, this does not satisfy any education-hour requirement, and it is not continuing-education credit. It is study material, free, with nothing attached to it.

Every Securities Exam. One Subscription.

$79/mo month to month, or $63/mo on annual billing. Launching Monday, March 29, 2027.

Join the Waitlist

Trademark Notice

FINRA® and SIE® are registered trademarks of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc. The Series 63, 65, and 66 examinations are administered for the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA), and the Series 3 for the National Futures Association (NFA). AccelaStudy AI is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or approved by FINRA, NASAA, or the NFA; the marks and exam names are used here for nominative identification of the examinations only.

AccelaStudy® and Renkara® are registered trademarks of Renkara Media Group, Inc. All third-party marks are the property of their respective owners and are used for nominative identification only.