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MPRE passing score by state runs from 75 to 86. Twenty-one jurisdictions require 85 and twenty require 80, with California and Utah highest at 86 and the District of Columbia lowest at 75. Only Wisconsin and Puerto Rico do not require the MPRE at all.
Between 75 and 86, set by your jurisdiction rather than by NCBE (https://reports.ncbex.org/charts/chart-6/).
Twenty-one jurisdictions require 85 and twenty require 80, so those two values cover most of the country.
Eight require only 75: Alabama, District of Columbia, Georgia, Mississippi, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virgin Islands, Palau.
JurisdictionMPRE passing scoreAlabama75California86District of Columbia75Georgia75Mississippi75New Hampshire79New Jersey75Palau75Pennsylvania75Puerto RicoNot requiredSouth Carolina77Tennessee82Utah86Virgin Islands75WisconsinNot required
The values outside 80 and 85 are shown above; the remaining jurisdictions require 80 or 85. From NCBE Chart 6 for UBE jurisdictions (https://reports.ncbex.org/charts/chart-6/) and Chart 10 for non-UBE jurisdictions. Verified July 27, 2026.
California and Utah, both at 86, which is the highest in the country.
Twenty-one jurisdictions sit at 85, which is the most common high value and includes Texas, Ohio, New York, Massachusetts, Virginia, Maryland and Colorado.
The District of Columbia is lowest among jurisdictions that require it, at 75.
Two values fall outside the commonly cited set of 75, 77, 80, 85 and 86 and are missing from most tables: New Hampshire at 79 and Tennessee at 82.
Only two: Wisconsin and Puerto Rico (https://help.ncbex.org/hc/en-us/articles/22969275289627-Which-jurisdictions-require-the-MPRE).
Two more allow a law school professional responsibility course to substitute. Connecticut requires a grade of C or Pass completed within four years before or one year after filing, and New Jersey also permits a course (https://www.ncbex.org/exams/mpre/about-mpre).
A currency flag on Wisconsin worth catching. It now appears in NCBE's UBE jurisdiction chart because it adopted the UBE in July 2026, yet still shows MPRE not required. If you are entering Wisconsin via the new UBE route rather than diploma privilege, confirm with the Board of Bar Examiners directly.
The score itself does not expire nationally, but many jurisdictions attach their own window (https://reports.ncbex.org/charts/chart-6/).
Kentucky states no expiration date for a score of 80 or above. Oklahoma states valid for an unlimited period of time. Maine's fifteen-year lookback is the longest finite window found.
Colorado is the tightest example among motion applicants: for an already-licensed applicant the score must be from an exam taken not more than five years before the application, though fifteen or more years of practice with no public discipline may exempt.
Illinois attaches the requirement to career stage rather than to time, requiring the MPRE only of applicants licensed fewer than fifteen years.
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.
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.
It cannot tell you whether your jurisdiction requires the MPRE before you sit the bar exam, which several do. That is on our companion page and on your board's site.
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 what is the mpre and when to take the mpre.
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.
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.
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 MPRE 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.
Between 75 and 86 depending on jurisdiction. Twenty-one require 85 and twenty require 80. Eight require 75.
California and Utah at 86. Twenty-one jurisdictions require 85, including Texas, Ohio, New York, Massachusetts and Virginia.
Wisconsin and Puerto Rico. Connecticut and New Jersey allow a law school professional responsibility course to substitute.
Not nationally. Jurisdictions set their own windows, from about two years to unlimited. Kentucky and Oklahoma state no expiry; Maine allows fifteen years.
Written by Ali, Georgetown Law, founder of Lovare Institut.
July 30, 2026
July 30, 2026