FE Exam Pass Rates by Discipline: NCEES Data [2026]

Engineering students trade FE pass-rate rumors the way sailors trade weather lore: someone heard it is 70%, someone else swears their discipline fails half the room, and somebody's roommate passed without studying (the roommate always passes without studying). The actual numbers exist, NCEES publishes them, and they tell a more useful story than any of the rumors. This guide lays out the official FE exam pass rates for every discipline, the first-time versus repeat gap nobody talks about, why timing your attempt matters more than almost anything else, and what the data says about how to end up on the right side of it.

What is the FE exam pass rate?

There is no single FE exam pass rate: per NCEES Squared 2025, first-time takers pass at 61% to 69% depending on discipline, and repeat takers at only 25% to 37%. The often-quoted "about 70%" is roughly right for first-time Mechanical candidates and wrong for almost everyone else.

The numbers come from NCEES's own annual statistics publication, NCEES Squared, covering the fiscal year from October 2024 through September 2025. That year set a record: 57,902 candidates sat for the FE exam, the highest volume NCEES has reported, continuing a decade-long climb from around 38,000 in 2014-15. So the pass rates below are not small-sample estimates; they describe tens of thousands of real exam outcomes.

One framing note before the tables. A pass rate describes a population, not you. The same publication shows that preparation timing, degree background, and first-attempt status each move the odds substantially, which means the useful question is not "what is the pass rate?" but "which of these numbers will describe me?" (our guide to how hard the FE exam really is works through exactly that). It is also the question the rest of this guide answers.

FE exam pass rates by discipline

Mechanical leads the seven FE disciplines at 69% first-time, Chemical and Environmental sit in the high 60s, and Civil, Industrial and Systems, and Other Disciplines run at the low end, 61% to 62%. Repeat rates collapse across the board.

Here is the complete table, per NCEES Squared 2025 (all takers, FY 2024-25):

Two patterns deserve attention. First, the spread across disciplines is real but modest, about eight points, so choosing a discipline by pass rate is a mistake; you take the exam that matches your degree and career, and our FE Civil, FE Mechanical, and FE Environmental guides break down what each specification covers. Second, NCEES also breaks these numbers out for candidates holding EAC/ABET-accredited bachelor's degrees, and every discipline's rate rises a few points in that cut (Mechanical reaches 72%, Civil 64%). An accredited degree aligns your coursework with what the exam tests, and the data shows it.

FE Civil exam pass rate

The FE Civil pass rate is 61% for first-time takers and 32% for repeat takers, per NCEES Squared 2025, making it the lowest first-time rate among the named disciplines. It is also, by far, the most-taken FE exam: 16,639 first-time candidates in FY 2024-25, plus 9,863 repeaters.

The size of that population explains much of the rate. FE Civil draws the widest range of candidates: construction management graduates, engineering technology graduates (whose programs are more applied and less theory-focused than engineering degrees), career changers, and international applicants sit alongside freshly graduated civil engineers, and a broader population means more candidates whose coursework diverged from the exam's specification. Supporting that reading, civil candidates with EAC/ABET bachelor's degrees pass at 64%, three points above the all-takers figure.

If you are on the civil track, the practical conclusions are simple: the exam is very passable but genuinely unforgiving of loose preparation, the 14-topic civil specification rewards structured coverage, and the repeat statistics a few sections down argue strongly for treating the first attempt as the real one.

FE Mechanical and FE Environmental pass rates

FE Mechanical posts the strongest first-time pass rate at 69% (11,552 first-time candidates), and FE Environmental follows closely at 67%. With EAC/ABET degrees, those rates rise to 72% and 70% respectively, the two highest numbers in the dataset.

Why do these two run high? The candidate pools are more homogeneous than Civil's: most FE Mechanical takers hold mechanical engineering degrees whose core courses (thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, dynamics, machine design) map almost one-to-one onto the exam's heaviest knowledge areas, and FE Environmental's pool is similarly aligned. The lesson transfers even if your discipline is different: pass rates track how closely preparation matches the specification, and a candidate who studies to their exam's actual topic list manufactures the same alignment the mechanical population enjoys by default.

First-time vs. repeat takers: the gap that should change your plan

In every FE discipline, repeat takers pass at roughly half the first-time rate: 25% to 37%, against 61% to 69% for first-timers. This is the most consequential pattern in the entire dataset, and the least discussed.

Why would a second attempt, with the first exam's experience banked, go worse on average? Two forces stack. The first is selection: candidates who fail once are, on average, the ones whose preparation or background left the largest gaps, and a retake does not close those gaps by itself. The second is drift: the retake typically happens months later, further from coursework, with fundamentals fading and the same study materials producing the same result. NCEES allows one attempt per testing window and three per 12-month period, so a failed attempt also costs a quarter of a year.

The strategic conclusion is blunt: prepare once, properly, and pass the first time. The repeat table is what "I'll just see how it goes" costs. Diagnose your weak areas against the exam specification before test day rather than after, practice under realistic conditions with the FE Reference Handbook onscreen, and treat the first attempt with the seriousness the retake statistics demand.

When you take the FE exam changes your odds

NCEES's decade of data shows first-time candidates from accredited programs pass at 71.3% when they test before graduation, 70.6% within twelve months of graduating, and only 63.4% beyond twelve months. Eight points of pass rate, controlled by nothing but the calendar.

The mechanism is the same drift that punishes repeat takers. The FE tests fundamentals (mathematics, statics, thermodynamics, statistics) and those are precisely the subjects a working engineer stops exercising daily the moment they specialize. A structural designer two years into practice is a better engineer than they were at graduation and a worse FE candidate. The fundamentals fade quietly, and the exam notices.

If you are still in school or newly graduated, this is the single most actionable number in this guide: schedule the exam now, while the material is warm. If you are already years out, the number is a planning input, not a verdict; it simply means your preparation must deliberately rebuild what the recent graduate still carries, with more time budgeted for the early fundamentals sections. Our guide to EIT certification walks through where the FE fits in the licensure timeline, whichever position you are starting from.

What score do you need to pass the FE exam?

There is no published passing score and no fixed percentage: NCEES converts your raw score (total correct answers, no penalty for wrong ones) to a scaled score and compares it to a competency standard set by subject-matter experts. The often-repeated "you need 70%" is a myth.

This design is also why the pass rates above can differ by discipline and year without the exam being "easier" or "harder" in any given window: the standard is fixed to a minimum ability level, not to a target failure quota. NCEES states plainly that exams are scored with no predetermined percentage of examinees that should pass or fail. For you, the takeaways are practical: answer everything (wrong answers cost nothing), do not chase a mythical 70%, and measure practice-exam readiness by consistent performance across the specification's topic areas rather than any single percentage; our FE exam passing score guide explains the scaled-scoring machinery in full.

Realistic practice under exam conditions is exactly what our upcoming FE practice exams are built for, and the waitlist below will let you know the moment they arrive.

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