CFA Minimum Passing Score (MPS): How It Is Set and Estimated

The CFA Minimum Passing Score (MPS) is simultaneously one of the most discussed and least understood aspects of the CFA exam. Candidates obsess over it, make assumptions about it, and sometimes build entire study strategies around misconceptions of how it works. This guide explains what the MPS actually is — including the scale score change that most articles still have not covered — how CFA Institute sets it, what the evidence says about the historical range at each level, and what it means for how you should prepare.

What Is the CFA MPS?

The Minimum Passing Score is the score a candidate must reach or exceed to pass the CFA exam at a given level. It is set independently for each exam window and each level — it is not a fixed percentage that applies universally or permanently.

CFA Institute has never published the MPS as a raw percentage, and has confirmed it will not do so. What it has done since February 2025 is publish a scale score that tells you exactly where the passing bar sits on its reported scoring scale. This is the most significant change to how the MPS is communicated in the exam's history, and most candidates are still preparing under outdated assumptions.

The Scale Score Change: What Candidates Need to Know

From the February 2025 administration, CFA Institute began reporting a scale score at all three levels alongside the pass/fail result. The scale score is your raw score — the number of items answered correctly — mathematically transformed onto a fixed scale so that results are comparable across different forms of the same exam (since each window has a slightly different question set, equating ensures no candidate is penalised for sitting a harder form).

The passing scale scores are officially published:

A critical point: a scale score is not a percentage, and cannot be converted into one with any precision. The leading digit only identifies the level (1xxx = Level 1). Strip it, and every level runs from 0 to 900 with 600 as the bar. But that “600 out of 900” does not translate to 66.7% of questions correct — the equating process means the same scale score corresponds to a different number of correct answers depending on how hard that window's questions were. Any website claiming to offer an exact percentage-to-scale-score conversion table is guessing.

The practical consequence: the 70% study heuristic remains valid as a preparation target, but understand it as a target, not a definition of the passing bar. See the CFA score report guide for how to read your own scale score in context.

MPS Estimates by Level at a Glance

The percentage range is consistent across levels because the Angoff method is applied the same way. What differs is how the MPS interacts with the exam format, topic weighting, and the scoring dynamics at each level — covered below in the level-by-level sections.

How the MPS Is Set: The Modified Angoff Method

The Modified Angoff Method is a standard psychometric approach to setting pass/fail thresholds for high-stakes examinations. CFA Institute uses it after every exam window, at every level. Here is how it works in practice:

A panel of experienced CFA charterholders — drawn from diverse professional and educational backgrounds — reviews each question individually after the exam is administered. For every question, each panellist independently estimates what proportion of minimally qualified candidates would answer it correctly. A minimally qualified candidate is defined as someone who just barely meets the standard required to be called a CFA charterholder: technically competent, but not exceptional.

Those estimates are averaged across the panel and then summed across all questions. That sum becomes the raw passing threshold for that specific exam window. CFA Institute then applies a statistical equating process to map the raw threshold onto the fixed scale score (1600, 2600, or 3600) so that results are comparable across windows with different question difficulty.

This is why the MPS moves between windows: a harder question set produces a lower raw threshold (the panel judges that even minimally competent candidates would struggle), and a more straightforward set produces a higher one. The equating ensures candidates are not penalised or rewarded for sitting a harder or easier form — but it means the same scale score corresponds to a different number of correct answers each time.

The practical implication: you cannot reverse-engineer the MPS from pass rates or score band distributions. The exam is harder than it looks precisely because the bar itself adjusts to the content.

CFA Level 1 Minimum Passing Score

At Level 1, the exam format is the simplest of the three: 180 multiple-choice questions across two sessions, each question scored as right or wrong with no partial credit. The MPS at Level 1 is therefore a straightforward threshold on the proportion of questions answered correctly, translated through the equating process to a scale score of 1600.

What is a passing score on CFA Level 1? The officially published passing threshold is a scale score of 1600 (on a range of 1000–1900). In community estimates based on candidate-disclosed results, this corresponds to approximately 60–70% of questions correct, varying by window difficulty. The “70% rule” that circulates in forums is a reasonable study target, but it is not a published figure.

Based on the topic weighting for Level 1, the MPS at this level is particularly sensitive to performance in Ethics (15–20%), Financial Statement Analysis (11–14%), and Equity Investments (11–14%). These three topics together account for roughly 40–48% of the exam. A candidate who falls significantly below the passing threshold in any of these high-weight topics will find it very difficult to compensate with strong performance elsewhere.

Recent Level 1 pass rates have ranged from 37–46% across 2022–2026 exam windows, stabilising near the long-run lifetime average of approximately 41%. This pass rate is the outcome of where the MPS lands relative to the candidate pool — it is not a fixed quota. For the full pass rate analysis, see our CFA Level 1 pass rate breakdown.

CFA Level 2 MPS

At Level 2, the format shifts to 44 vignette-based item sets, each consisting of a case scenario followed by multiple questions. The MPS is still expressed as a scale score of 2600 (range 2000–2900), but the vignette format introduces a different dynamic: a candidate who misreads a key data point in a vignette can get several related questions wrong from a single error. This increases variance in individual scores and arguably makes the MPS harder to pinpoint from community data.

What is the CFA Level 2 MPS? The published scale score threshold is 2600. In percentage terms, the community estimate is the same 60–70% range as Level 1, but experienced advisors generally recommend targeting 70–75% on full-length mocks at Level 2 specifically — the item set format means your real-exam score is more sensitive to misreads than your mock performance suggests.

At Level 2, Financial Reporting and Analysis and Equity Investments carry the heaviest combined weight. The depth of testing increases substantially: rather than testing whether you know the Gordon Growth Model formula, a Level 2 question will give you a vignette describing a company and ask you to identify the appropriate model, justify the inputs, perform the valuation, and then evaluate whether the analyst's conclusion is valid. Each item set is testing multiple sub-skills simultaneously, and the MPS reflects that the standard of “minimum competence” is correspondingly higher.

CFA Level 3 Minimum Passing Score

Level 3 is the most complex MPS situation because the exam has two distinct components: a morning constructed-response (essay) session and an afternoon item set session. The MPS applies to combined performance across both, with roughly equal weighting.

What is the CFA Level 3 passing score? The published scale score is 3600 (range 3000–3900). As with Levels 1 and 2, this corresponds to approximately 60–70% correct in percentage terms, but the essay section introduces a significant complication: answers are graded by human scorers using a rubric, and partial credit is awarded. The MPS at Level 3 therefore reflects both the item set performance and the essay performance, and a candidate cannot rely on a strong afternoon session to fully compensate for a weak morning.

The critical Level 3 dynamic: candidates who pass Levels 1 and 2 with strong scores sometimes fail Level 3 not because of knowledge gaps, but because they have never developed the specific skill of translating knowledge into a rubric-markable written answer. The Angoff panel at Level 3 is judging minimum competence at this written communication skill as much as at the underlying finance knowledge. This is why practising past morning session questions under timed conditions and comparing answers to the published guideline is non-negotiable preparation for Level 3.

Recent Level 3 pass rates have been approximately 50–55%, reflecting that candidates who reach Level 3 are a more prepared, self-selected group. The higher pass rate does not mean the exam is easier — it means fewer under-prepared candidates attempt it.

The Score-Band System, Explained

In addition to the scale score, CFA Institute reports your performance in each topic area as one of three bands. Understanding what each band signals is the single most useful thing you can do with a failing result:

The bands confirm that the MPS is in the vicinity of 50–70% depending on the topic area, but they do not reveal the precise figure. For a candidate with a failing result, the most useful diagnostic action is to count how many topic areas landed in each band, and weight that count by the topic's exam weight. A single “50% and below” in a 17% topic is a bigger problem than two “51–70%” bands in 6% topics.

What the MPS Means for Your Study Strategy

Understanding the MPS correctly changes how you should approach preparation in several specific ways:

Target 70% as your floor, not your ceiling

The 70% heuristic is useful as a study target because it builds in a buffer. If you are consistently scoring around 70% in your mock exams, you are in competitive territory — but the variance in mock exam difficulty and the stress of the real exam mean you should aim higher in practice. Think of 70% as the floor. Aim for 75%+ in your mocks, across every topic area. If you are hitting 75%+ consistently, you have a meaningful margin of safety against exam-day variance and the equating process.

Avoid topic-area catastrophes

The math is straightforward: if you score below 50% in a high-weight topic like FRA at Level 1 (worth roughly 13% of the exam), you are handing back approximately 6.5 percentage points of your total score in that topic alone. Recovering those points requires scoring above the passing threshold in every other topic. The candidates who narrowly fail are rarely those who did badly across the board — they are usually those who had one or two significant topic-level weaknesses that pulled their aggregate score below the MPS.

Use diagnostic data to track your distance from the MPS

A consistent mock exam score of 70–75% on full-length timed practice exams is a reasonable target for all three levels. Candidates scoring below 65% consistently on mocks should treat this as a signal to continue targeted preparation before sitting. The sub-topic granularity matters: knowing you are below 50% in Financial Reporting and Analysis overall is less useful than knowing you are specifically losing marks in pension accounting and intercorporate investments. Targeted drilling on those sub-topics in the final weeks is how well-prepared candidates push into the safe zone.

Weight Ethics strategically

For borderline candidates, Ethics can influence the final result. CFA Institute has confirmed that a candidate whose overall performance is close to the MPS, and whose Ethics performance is above the MPS, may have a passing result. A candidate in the same position with weak Ethics may not. For candidates sitting near the margin, Ethics at Level 1 (15–20% weight) and Level 3 is not optional investment — it is risk management.

Frequently Asked Questions About the CFA MPS

Putting It All Together

The MPS — now published as a fixed scale score rather than left to inference — confirms what experienced advisors have said for years: the bar is around 60–70%, it moves with exam difficulty, and there is no single precise percentage answer. The candidates who pass are not the ones who found the exact threshold — they are the ones who built consistent competence above it across all topic areas.

1. Set 70–75% as your floor target for every topic area, not just your overall average. If any topic falls below 70% consistently in your mocks, it becomes a priority.
2. Weight Ethics heavily — aim for 75%+ specifically to build the maximum buffer in borderline scenarios.
3. Track sub-topic scores across multiple mocks. A single mock is noisy; the trend across four or five mocks gives you a reliable signal about where you actually stand.
4. For Level 3, practise both sessions equally. Item set strength cannot fully compensate for essay weakness. The MPS applies to combined performance.
5. Use diagnostic data to drive revision. Your mock results should tell you your score by sub-topic, not just your aggregate. That granularity is what allows you to close gaps efficiently in the time you have left.