The BCBA® Exam

The exam is the last step toward the credential, not the first. The BACB approves you to sit it only after three things are in place: a master's degree or higher; behavior-analytic content, through an APBA- or ABAI-accredited or recognized program, qualifying coursework, or the faculty or postdoctoral pathways; and supervised fieldwork in applied behavior analysis, either 2,000 hours of supervised fieldwork or 1,500 hours of concentrated supervised fieldwork.

Approval starts a clock. From the day your application is approved you have two years to pass, and every attempt has to fit inside that period.

185 multiple-choice questions, each with four options, in 4 hours, as one sitting. 175 of them are scored. The other 10 are unscored and are not marked, so there is nothing to gain from trying to guess which they are.

That is about 78 seconds a question, a pace that has to be held for the whole 4 hours.

The BCBA Handbook lists personal calculators among the items that may not be taken into the testing room. It does not say whether the exam software provides one, so this page does not either.

In person, on a computer, at an authorized Pearson VUE testing site. There are no fixed exam windows: appointments are available continuously, and you are given your result at the site.

Sites are available in the United States, in Canada except Quebec and, since July 1, 2026, Ontario, and in Australia until January 1, 2027.

There are three fees and they go to two organizations. The certification application costs $245 and is paid to the BACB. The exam appointment costs $125 and is paid to Pearson VUE, for every attempt. A retake also needs a retake application, which costs $140 and is paid to the BACB.

So a first attempt comes to $370 in fees, and each further attempt to $265. Coursework and supervised fieldwork are separate costs and are not part of any of these.

Fees change. The BACB's handbook is the authority for the current amounts.

Pass or fail. The passing standard is criterion-referenced, meaning you are measured against a fixed standard and not against the other candidates, and it is set with the modified Angoff method by a panel of BACB-certified subject matter experts.

The BACB does not publish the cut score. A 'passing percentage' quoted for this exam anywhere else is an estimate, and a percentage on practice material cannot be converted into a pass or a fail.

You can take the exam up to 8 times within the two-year authorization period, with a 30-day wait after each attempt. Each retake needs the $140 retake application to the BACB and another $125 to Pearson VUE.

After 8 unsuccessful attempts you must wait until the two-year period ends and then apply again.

The weights are flat. The two largest domains, Concepts and Principles and Behavior-Change Procedures, are 14% each. Ethical and Professional Issues and Behavior Assessment are 13% each, Measurement, Data Display, and Interpretation is 12%, and Selecting and Implementing Interventions and Personnel Supervision and Management are 11% each. Even the two smallest, Experimental Design (7%) and Behaviorism and Philosophical Foundations (5%), add up to 12%. No single domain carries the exam and none is safe to skip.

The number of tasks in a domain is not a guide to its weight. Concepts and Principles spreads its 14% over 24 tasks, while Behavior Assessment carries 13% on 8 tasks and Personnel Supervision and Management carries 11% on 7. The BACB does not publish a weight for each task, so this is not a question count, but it does mean the domains with few tasks deserve more time than their length suggests.

The kind of task changes too. Most of Concepts and Principles asks you to tell two neighboring concepts apart: positive from negative reinforcement, a motivating operation from stimulus control, stimulus generalization from response generalization. Behavior Assessment and Behavior-Change Procedures mostly ask you to design a procedure or judge one. Knowing a definition is enough for neither.