ARE 5.0 Exam Guide (2026): Divisions, Costs, Pass Rates & Rules

The six divisions

ARE 5.0 has six divisions you can take in any order. Every division mixes standalone questions with case studies. Here is how long each one is, according to the June 2026 ARE 5.0 Guidelines:

Total appointment time for all six is 24 hr 20 min, including breaks and 10 minutes of intro and exit screens per division.

What it costs

NCARB charges $263 per division, whether it is your first attempt or a retake. Passing everything on the first try costs $1,578. On top of that you need an active NCARB Record: $105 to apply (which covers the first year) and $105 a year after that.

Retakes are where budgets break. The average candidate who finished in 2025 needed 9 attempts to pass six divisions — about three failures — which is $2,367 in exam fees alone. Only about 30% passed every division on the first try.

Use the ARE cost calculator to add retakes, Record years and prep materials to your own estimate.

How people do on each division

NCARB publishes pass rates for every division, counting first attempts and retakes together. In 2025:

First attempts do better: across divisions, 60% of first attempts passed in 2025, versus 51% of second attempts and 32% for people on their fifth try or later. See the full 2020–2025 table.

What score you need

There is no single passing percentage. Each form of each division has its own cut score. NCARB's published ranges are 58–66% of scored items for Project Development & Documentation and Construction & Evaluation, 59–71% for Practice Management and Project Management, and 65–71% for Programming & Analysis and Project Planning & Design. How ARE scoring works.

Which order to take them in

You can take the divisions in any order. The most common approach pairs divisions that share content — Practice Management with Project Management, Programming & Analysis with Project Planning & Design, and Project Development & Documentation with Construction & Evaluation. NCARB's data also shows candidates do better when they test within three months of finishing the matching AXP experience area. Compare exam-order strategies.

Rules that changed recently

The rolling clock is gone

The old rule that passed divisions expired after five years was retired in 2023. Under NCARB's score validity policy, a passed ARE 5.0 division stays valid while ARE 5.0 is delivered and then counts toward credit under the next version of the exam. All 55 U.S. licensing jurisdictions follow it.

April 27, 2026 exam update

NCARB made minor adjustments to 12 of the 91 exam objectives and reformatted case studies to have fewer resources and fewer items per case study. The divisions, total items and testing times did not change, and divisions you have already passed were not affected.

Retakes

You can retake a failed division 60 days after the previous attempt, and take the same division at most 3 times in any 12 months.

Experience (AXP)

Most candidates also complete the Architectural Experience Program: 3,740 hours across six experience areas that mirror the exam divisions, with up to 1,860 of those hours allowed outside an architecture firm (Setting O). You do not have to finish the AXP before testing — 59% of candidates in 2025 took at least one division while still logging hours. Your own jurisdiction sets exactly when you become eligible.

Preparing

NCARB offers free practice exams for every division, and its data shows they matter: in 2025, candidates who took the practice exam before a division were 15 percentage points more likely to pass it.