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Bar exam passing score by state, verified July 27, 2026: on the legacy UBE the whole country sits between 260 and 270, a ten-point band. Ten jurisdictions are at the floor and eighteen at the ceiling. NextGen runs a separate 500 to 750 scale that is not interchangeable with it.
On the legacy UBE the whole country sits between 260 and 270, a ten-point band that is 2.5 percent of the 400-point scale (https://reports.ncbex.org/charts/chart-5/).
Ten jurisdictions sit at the 260 floor and eighteen at the 270 ceiling. Twelve sit at 266. Only Indiana at 264 and Michigan at 268 are off the common values.
Two states moved recently and older tables have them wrong. Washington cut from 266 to 260 effective February 2026, and Iowa cut from 266 to 260 for July 2026 onward.
JurisdictionLegacy UBE passing scoreAlabama260Alaska270Arizona270Arkansas270Colorado270Connecticut266District of Columbia266Idaho266Illinois266Indiana264Iowa260Kansas266Kentucky266Maine270Maryland266Massachusetts270Michigan268Minnesota260Missouri260Montana266Nebraska270New Hampshire270New Jersey266New Mexico260New York266North Carolina270North Dakota260Ohio270Oklahoma260Oregon270Pennsylvania270Rhode Island270South Carolina266Tennessee270Texas270Utah260Vermont270Virgin Islands266Washington260West Virginia270Wisconsin260Wyoming270
Legacy UBE cut scores from NCBE Chart 5 (https://reports.ncbex.org/charts/chart-5/), verified July 27, 2026. A currency note: NCBE's own UBE minimum scores page (https://www.ncbex.org/exams/ube/ube-minimum-scores) was stale at verification, omitting Wisconsin entirely and still showing Washington at 266. We publish Chart 5, updated July 10, 2026, as the operational source and record the conflict rather than resolving it silently.
Yes, and the two numbers are not interchangeable. Legacy runs 0 to 400 and NextGen runs 500 to 750, so a 266 and a 616 are the same standard expressed on different scales (https://www.ncbex.org/exams/nextgen/nextgen-ube-scores-score-portability).
NCBE recommends 610 to 620 and published a mapping at a flat plus 350 offset: 260 to 610, 266 to 616, 270 to 620 (https://www.ncbex.org/sites/default/files/2025-11/FOR%20RELEASE%20NCBE%20NextGen%20Guidance%20Brief-Recommended%20Passing%20Score%20Range-2.pdf).
Twenty-five jurisdictions had set a NextGen score at verification.
JurisdictionNextGen passing scoreConnecticut616District of Columbia616Guam612Idaho616Illinois620Indiana614Iowa610Kentucky616Maine620Maryland616Massachusetts620Missouri610Nebraska620New Hampshire620New Mexico610North Carolina620North Dakota610Northern Mariana Islands615Ohio620Oregon (July 2026 only)615Palau612Pennsylvania620Vermont620Virgin Islands616Washington610
NextGen scores from NCBE's minimum passing scores page (https://www.ncbex.org/exams/nextgen/minimum-passing-scores), verified July 27, 2026. NCBE states on that page that more announcements are coming.
On the legacy UBE, ten jurisdictions tie at 260: Alabama, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin.
On NextGen, five sit at 610: Iowa, Missouri, New Mexico, North Dakota, Washington, which is the mapped equivalent of 260.
Read that band honestly, though. A ten-point spread across the whole country means cut score is a weak reason to choose a jurisdiction, and a far weaker one than where you actually want to practise.
Delaware, Virginia, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Hawaii and Puerto Rico use scales that are not commensurable with the UBE's, so putting them in the same column would be a category error.
NCBE publishes a rough 200-point approximation and calls it a rough approximation in its own words (https://reports.ncbex.org/charts/chart-12/). On it, the lowest are Hawaii and Mississippi at 132 and the highest is Delaware at about 143, with Virginia at 140 and California at 139.
All three of those sit above every UBE jurisdiction, since 270 UBE is roughly 135 on that scale. That is a real difference in stringency and it is invisible if you only read UBE numbers.
Many jurisdictions layer a state-specific component on top, with its own pass mark, and failing it blocks admission just as surely as failing the exam.
The Maryland Law Component is 50 questions, open book, 90 minutes, 40 of 50 to pass (https://mdcourts.gov/ble/mdlawcomponent). The Massachusetts Law Component is 50 questions open book, 40 of 50 (https://www.mass.gov/info-details/the-massachusetts-law-component-mlc).
Ohio's is 25 questions open book and untimed at 80 percent. Washington's is 60 questions in four hours, open book, at 80 percent.
New York runs a course plus an exam: the NYLC followed by the NYLE, 50 questions open book in two hours with 30 to pass. Budget for it as a separate obstacle rather than a formality.
Twenty-seven jurisdictions had set no NextGen passing score at verification, including California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin. For each of those the answer is not yet published by the board.
Six jurisdictions have published only a transferred-score minimum and no score for their own administration: Arizona 620, Minnesota 620, South Dakota 620, Utah 610, West Virginia 620 and Wyoming 620 (https://www.ncbex.org/exams/nextgen/nextgen-ube-scores-score-portability/nextgen-ube-decisions-jurisdiction).
This page is one spoke of a cluster. The hub is our NextGen bar exam pillar, which carries the whole transition in one place and links every spoke including this one.
The two most closely related pages here are nextgen bar exam passing score and ube score transfer.
Everything across the cluster is drawn from the same verified fact set and carries the same verified-as-of date, so the numbers agree with each other by construction rather than by coincidence.
Every fact here was read on NCBE's own pages or the jurisdiction's own board or supreme court pages on July 27, 2026. No prep company, no aggregator, no forum and no news summary was used as a source for anything.
Where a jurisdiction's own site was unreachable, robots-blocked or JavaScript-gated, we say the fact rests on NCBE alone rather than presenting it as confirmed. That happened more often than you would expect and it is named on the page each time.
Where two official sources disagree, we publish the conflict and name which one we treat as operational. We do not pick quietly and we do not average them.
Where nothing is published, the page says not yet published by the board. It never says a number we worked out ourselves, because an estimate that looks like a disclosure is worse than a gap.
It cannot tell you what your own board will do. Jurisdictions set their own dates, fees, cut scores, deadlines and admission rules, and NCBE compiles those decisions rather than making them.
It cannot substitute for reading your jurisdiction's rule text. Compilation charts are an index into the rules, not the rules, and every material decision should be checked against the authority itself.
The first is adoption. Supreme courts issue orders on their own schedule and NCBE's compilation pages lag them, which is exactly what happened with California in July 2026.
The second is the calendar. Most jurisdictions had not posted 2027 dates or 2027 fees at verification, and several were serving prior-cycle pages without saying so.
The third is cut scores. NCBE states on its own page that jurisdictions are currently evaluating its recommended NextGen range (https://www.ncbex.org/exams/nextgen/minimum-passing-scores), so that list grows month by month.
None of those three settles before autumn. Treat September as the re-check point for anything on this page that carries a date or a number.
Start at NCBE's jurisdiction index (https://www.ncbex.org/jurisdictions) to find the name of your admitting authority, which is often not the state bar association and is sometimes a board sitting under the supreme court.
Then go to that authority's own site and look for a dated page. A page with no cycle label is the warning sign, not the exception; several boards serve prior-cycle information with no year on it anywhere.
Cross-check the deadlines page against the program page, because they disagree more often than they should. We found boards contradicting themselves on dates in the same week.
If the two disagree and you cannot tell which is current, email the board and keep the reply. A dated email from the board is better evidence than any table, including this one.
One framing point that governs this whole page. The first NextGen administration was July 28 and 29, 2026 (https://www.ncbex.org/exams/nextgen), so at the time of writing no NextGen exam had been sat anywhere in the world and no results existed. There is no NextGen pass rate, no score distribution, no repeater data and no retrospective on how it went, and anyone offering you one is inventing it.
That matters on this page specifically, because the transition is the reason any of it is moving. Structure, dates and published policy are reportable now; outcomes are not.
NCBE has not published a NextGen mean or standard deviation either. The figures are absent from the Guidance Brief, the Examinees' Guide, the Blueprint and every scoring page (https://www.ncbex.org/sites/default/files/2025-11/FOR%20RELEASE%20NCBE%20NextGen%20Guidance%20Brief-Recommended%20Passing%20Score%20Range-2.pdf), which is worth knowing before you read anyone's confident claim about difficulty.
Open your own jurisdiction's board page and confirm every date and number on this page against it.
Where this page says not yet published, check again in September, which is when most boards refresh.
If your plan turns on a figure here, get it from the board in writing rather than from any table.
Everything on this page about bar exam passing scores was read on the source pages listed inline on July 27, 2026, and the date is on the page rather than buried in a footer because this material moves faster than anything else we publish.
Three separate clocks are running against it. Supreme courts issue adoption orders and NCBE's own pages lag them.
Most jurisdictions had not posted 2027 dates or fees. NextGen passing scores are being set jurisdiction by jurisdiction right now, and NCBE says so on its own page (https://www.ncbex.org/exams/nextgen/minimum-passing-scores).
Re-check your own jurisdiction's board before you rely on any date or number here, including ours. A figure quoted anywhere without a cycle label and a date attached is unverified by definition.
On the legacy UBE, between 260 and 270. Ten jurisdictions are at 260, twelve at 266, eighteen at 270, with Indiana at 264 and Michigan at 268 the only outliers.
Ten tie at 260 on the legacy UBE: Alabama, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin. On NextGen, 610 is the equivalent floor.
They are on a different scale entirely, 500 to 750 rather than 0 to 400. NCBE recommends 610 to 620 and maps 260 to 610, 266 to 616 and 270 to 620.
Twenty-seven, including California, Florida, New York and Texas. Six others have published only a minimum for accepting transferred scores.
Written by Ali, Georgetown Law, founder of Lovare Institut.
July 30, 2026
July 30, 2026