RE5 Exam Pass Mark: Duration, Format & What Actually Gets Tested

If you're about to write RE5, the first thing worth knowing is the number that decides everything: you need 66% to pass. That's 33 correct answers out of 50 questions, and you'll have 2 hours to get there. No negative marking, no trick — just straightforward accuracy against the clock.

That single number, though, doesn't tell you much about what you're actually walking into. Here's the fuller picture.

RE5 Exam Format at a Glance

Two hours for 50 questions works out to a little under two and a half minutes per question — comfortable if you know the material, tight if you're still working things out as you go. That's the real argument for practising under timed conditions before exam day, not just reading through notes.

What RE5 Actually Tests

RE5 exists to confirm that financial services representatives understand the regulatory framework they operate under — not product knowledge, not sales technique, but the rules of the industry itself. The exam is built around the FAIS Act and its supporting Codes of Conduct, and every question maps back to a specific, officially weighted task in the exam blueprint.

Broadly, you'll be tested across areas like:

• The FAIS Act as a regulatory framework — what it covers, who it applies to, and why it exists
• The General Code of Conduct — how representatives are expected to treat clients, disclose information, and handle advice
• Fit and proper requirements — the ongoing competency, honesty, and financial soundness standards representatives must meet
• FICA and anti-money laundering obligations
• Record-keeping requirements
• Supervision and debarment — what happens when things go wrong
• The FAIS Ombud — how client complaints actually get resolved

Here's the part that trips a lot of candidates up: these topics are not weighted equally. Some tasks make up nearly a quarter of the entire exam; others are worth a single question. Studying everything with the same intensity is a real strategy — but not always the most efficient one when your time before exam day is limited.

Why the Pass Mark Feels Higher Than It Looks

66% sounds achievable — and it is — but the exam isn't designed to reward memorisation alone. A good number of questions describe a realistic scenario and ask you to apply the relevant rule correctly, not just recall it. That's a different skill from reading a summary and nodding along, and it's exactly the gap that catches people who've "read everything" but never actually tested themselves under pressure.

The candidates who pass comfortably tend to have done two things consistently: worked through genuine practice questions (not just notes), and specifically drilled the topics they kept getting wrong, rather than restudying everything from the start each time.

A Realistic Way to Prepare

If you're weighing up how to structure your study time, the pattern that tends to work is straightforward:

1. Learn the framework first — understand the structure of the FAIS Act and the Code of Conduct before trying to memorise details.
2. Practise with real questions, not just re-reading notes. Recognition and recall are different skills, and the exam tests recall under time pressure.
3. Track what you keep getting wrong, specifically. A topic you've missed three separate times is a genuinely different problem from one you got wrong once by accident.
4. Simulate the real thing before exam day — 50 questions, 2 hours, no pausing to check notes halfway through.