Series 65 vs Series 66: Advisory-Only or Dual-Hat?
The Series 65 and Series 66 aren’t a harder-vs-easier choice: they’re two different answers to “how many hats do you want to wear?” The Series 65 is a standalone exam: pass it, register with your state, and you’re an investment adviser representative, nothing else required. The Series 66 only means something alongside two other exams, the SIE and the Series 7, because it’s built to register you as both a broker-dealer agent and an adviser representative at once. If your career is advisory-only, the 65 gets there in one exam. If it’s both, the 66 is one piece of a three-exam stack. Comparison verified July 2026.
| Series 65 | Series 66 | |
|---|---|---|
| Full name | Uniform Investment Adviser Law Exam | Uniform Combined State Law Exam |
| Owner | NASAA (FINRA administers) | NASAA (FINRA administers) |
| Fee | $187 (unchanged in 2026) | $177 (unchanged in 2026) |
| Scored questions | 130 (+10 unscored; 140 on screen) | 100 (+10 unscored; 110 on screen) |
| Time | 180 minutes (3 hours) | 150 minutes (2 hours 30 minutes) |
| Passing score | 92 of 130 (about 70.8%) | 73 of 100 |
| Sponsorship to sit | Not required: self-enroll via Form U10 | Not required: self-enroll via Form U10 |
| Co-requisites to register | None: stands alone | SIE and Series 7, both |
| What passing gets you | A complete qualification once your state registers you as an IAR | Nothing by itself, one leg of a three-exam registration |
| Validity of a pass | 2 years before registration (extendable to 5 via NASAA’s EVEP) | While registered, plus 2 years after leaving (extendable to 5 via EVEP) |
| Retake waits | 30/30/180 days now; 30/30/60 for enrollment windows opened on or after January 4, 2027 | 30/30/180 days now; 30/30/60 for enrollment windows opened on or after January 4, 2027 |
| Pass rate | Not published; prep-industry estimates run roughly 65–70% (estimates only) | Not published; prep-industry estimates run roughly 65–70% (estimates only) |
One exam vs. one piece of three
The Series 65 is the rare securities exam built to work alone: no sponsoring firm, no SIE, no top-off. Pass it and register with your state’s securities regulator, and you’re a fully qualified investment adviser representative (IAR), a professional permitted to give investment advice for a fee. Nothing else is required, ever.
The Series 66 can’t make that claim. It’s a combined exam: one sitting that covers the state-law ground of both the Series 63 (broker-dealer agents) and the Series 65 (adviser representatives). But the “combined” registration it leads to only exists alongside the SIE and the Series 7. Pass the 66 on its own and you’re holding a state-law credential with no federal registration underneath it. The 66 makes sense specifically for people already on the Series 7 track who also want the advisory half.
What it costs to get each credential
The Series 65’s $187 fee is the whole bill for advisory-only registration: no other required exam sits behind it. The Series 66’s $177 fee looks cheaper on the table, but it’s not the whole story: to actually register through it, you also need a passed SIE ($100) and a passed Series 7 ($395), which puts the real cost of the dual-hat path at $672 across three exams, not $177. That’s not a reason to avoid the 66 if you genuinely want both hats (it’s money a Series 7 rep would likely spend on the Series 63 anyway) but it’s the wrong page to land on if all you want is the advisory registration by itself.
What each exam actually tests
Both exams score across the same four NASAA content buckets (economic factors, investment vehicles, recommendations, and law/ethics) but weight them differently. The Series 65 spreads its questions closer to evenly, with its two largest sections (recommendations and law, 30% each) carrying 78 of its 130 questions. The Series 66 leans harder into one section: laws, regulations, and ethics is 45% of it, 45 of 100 questions, because that section does double duty, folding in the broker-dealer-agent law the Series 63 tests on its own.
| Content area | Series 65 weight | Series 66 weight |
|---|---|---|
| Economic factors and business information | 15% (20 Q) | 8% (8 Q) |
| Investment vehicle characteristics | 25% (32 Q) | 17% (17 Q) |
| Client/customer recommendations and strategies | 30% (39 Q) | 30% (30 Q) |
| Laws, regulations, and ethics | 30% (39 Q) | 45% (45 Q) |
Both exams follow NASAA’s content outline effective June 12, 2023. Older sources still circulate the pre-2023 weights for both exams.
Which to take, if you’re choosing
- Advisory only, no brokerage ambitions: the Series 65 is the direct, cheaper route, one exam, no sponsor, no SIE. See what the Series 65 is and how it compares to the SIE.
- Both a broker-dealer agent and an adviser representative at the same firm: the Series 66 replaces the Series 63-and-65 combination with one exam, but only alongside the SIE and Series 7. See SIE vs Series 66 for how those three fit together.
- Already committed to the Series 7 and brokerage path, with no near-term advisory role: you likely want the narrower Series 63 instead, no reason to test on advisory material you won’t use yet.
Neither exam publishes a pass rate, so treat any specific figure you see for either one as a prep-industry estimate, not official NASAA data.
Current-Fact Watch (verified July 2026; retake waits rechecked October 2026): Both fees are NASAA-set and untouched by FINRA’s January 2026 increases (SIE $80 → $100, Series 7 $300 → $395): the Series 65 stays at $187, the Series 66 at $177. The Series 65’s passing score is 92 of 130; sources still citing 94 haven’t updated since NASAA lowered that threshold in October 2018. And retake waits are NASAA’s call for both exams: 30/30/180 days today, with the wait after a third or later failure dropping to 60 days for enrollment windows opened on or after January 4, 2027 (NASAA, announced August 10, 2026). FINRA’s separate cut to 15/15/60 (SR-FINRA-2026-014, effective January 19, 2027 under Regulatory Notice 26-18) applies to FINRA exams only, so neither the 65 nor the 66 gets a 15-day wait.
Preparing for each
Our approach is the same across every exam on this site: original practice questions verified against current rules and cited to their source, free, no card or signup. The Series 65 practice exam has the full 130-question bank and the study guide sequences it; the Series 66 practice exam has its 100-question bank, with its own study guide doing the same. If brokerage registration is also part of your plan, start with a free SIE practice exam, the exam almost everyone on this path takes first.