How Many Times Can You Take the NCLEX?

Short answer: under NCSBN policy you can take the NCLEX up to 8 times a year, with at least 45 test-free days between attempts, and there is no national lifetime cap. The longer answer is that your state board can be stricter, that the odds change with each attempt in a way worth understanding, and that the thing that actually decides whether the next attempt is your last is what you do in the 45 days, not how many you have left.

The NCSBN rules

• 45 days between attempts. The count starts the day you tested, not the day you got the result. If you tested on the first of the month, you are eligible in the middle of the month after next.
• Up to 8 attempts in a year. That is the arithmetic of 45-day gaps, not a target.
• No national lifetime limit. NCSBN does not cap how many times you can sit the exam over your life.
• Every attempt is a new registration. A new application to your board (sometimes with a fee), a new Pearson VUE registration at $200, and a new Authorization to Test.

Where your state board can override that

Nursing regulatory bodies set their own conditions on top of the NCSBN floor, and they vary. Some require a longer wait than 45 days. Some limit the number of attempts in a year or in total. Several require a board-approved remediation or refresher course after a set number of failures before they will issue another Authorization to Test, and a few set a deadline measured in years from graduation after which you must retrain. The reliable answer is your own board’s website or a phone call; a blog table of fifty states goes stale the month it is published. Ask before you plan, so a remediation requirement is not a surprise the week you meant to test.

Your earliest date

The honest odds, attempt by attempt

In 2025, first-time U.S.-educated candidates passed the NCLEX-RN at 86.7%. Repeat candidates passed at 52.7%. Across 2018 to 2025 the repeat rate averaged about 46.8%, so this is not a one-year anomaly. The PN exam is the same shape: 86.6% first time, 41.7% on a repeat.

Two things about those numbers. First, a coin flip is still a lot of licensed nurses; tens of thousands of people pass on a repeat every year. Second, the number is an average across two very different groups: candidates who diagnosed what went wrong and changed their preparation, and candidates who bought another month of the same question bank and did more of it. Nobody publishes the split, but every educator who has coached repeat takers will tell you which group the passes come from. The population rate is not your rate. Your rate is decided by whether the next 45 days look different from the last ones.

What one attempt costs

The visible cost is the $200 Pearson VUE fee plus whatever your board charges to re-apply. The real cost is the 45 days of delayed RN income and, if you have an offer, a start date that moves. That is the argument for treating the next attempt as the one you prepare for properly rather than the one you rush to at day 46 because the rules allow it. The rules also allow you to wait ten weeks. Use the time.

What changes the odds

The candidates who pass on a repeat attempt do two things the ones who do not tend to skip. They read the Candidate Performance Report properly and find the specific topics inside the weak areas, instead of re-reviewing everything. And they relearn those topics with questions inside the study session, so every miss is explained and re-asked, instead of reading the content again and feeling ready. The full plan for the weeks between attempts is here, and if you have already failed more than once, this post is about what to change.

The diagnosis half is free on NurseSavvy: a full-length CAT readiness exam you can take as many times as you like with no card, scored by the same eight content areas as your report, and followed by a ranked list of the topics you missed with a Learn and a Practice button on each. That list is what makes the 45 days count.