ASWB Social Work Licensing Exam — Masters — exam facts
United States and Canada (used by state and provincial social work boards)
Every source below was read on 2026-09-25
| Administering body | Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) — exam delivered by Pearson ASWB contracts with Pearson to deliver the exam on computer at Pearson test centers; ASWB suspended its online-proctoring pilot as of July 31, 2026. The current exams, based on the 2026 blueprint, began on August 3, 2026. Masters content outline: Values and Ethics 35%, Assessment and Planning 33%, Intervention and Practice 32%. Questions have three or four answer options, and ASWB says the 2026 exams use a larger share of three-option questions. Source: ASWB — Examination Guidebook, Social Work Licensing Exams (08/2026 edition, PDF) (2026-09-25) |
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| Questions | 122 questions (110 scored, 12 unscored pretest) Two sections of 61 multiple-choice questions each. The 12 pretest questions are mixed in with the scored ones and do not affect the score. Source: ASWB — Examination Guidebook, Social Work Licensing Exams (08/2026 edition, PDF) (2026-09-25) |
| Time limit | 240 minutes Four hours in total: each 61-question section has a two-hour limit, and you cannot return to the first section once it is complete. An optional scheduled break of up to 10 minutes after the first section stops the clock. Source: ASWB — Examination Guidebook, Social Work Licensing Exams (08/2026 edition, PDF) (2026-09-25) |
| Passing score | Not published by ASWB Scores are reported as pass/fail, showing the number of questions needed to pass and the number answered correctly. ASWB adjusts the number of correct answers needed for each version of the exam by equating, so there is no single fixed cut score. ASWB's scoring page says: "The passing score generally ranges from 66 to 78 correct answers out of 110 scored questions." What we read and found nothing in: ASWB — Examination Guidebook, Social Work Licensing Exams (08/2026 edition, PDF) (2026-09-25) · ASWB — Exam scoring (2026-09-25) |
| Fees |
All ASWB fees are nonrefundable, and a retake requires registering with ASWB and paying the exam fee again. Source: ASWB — Examination Guidebook, Social Work Licensing Exams (08/2026 edition, PDF) (2026-09-25) |
| Languages offered | Not published by ASWB ASWB's guidebook names no language the exam is offered in. It says every state and province allows English-as-a-second-language testing arrangements for test-takers whose primary language is not English, once the board has approved them to test. What we read and found nothing in: ASWB — Examination Guidebook, Social Work Licensing Exams (08/2026 edition, PDF) (2026-09-25) · ASWB — The Social Work Licensing Exams (exam overview) (2026-09-25) |
Change log
- 2026-09-25Fact sheet created from ASWB's Examination Guidebook (08/2026 edition) for exams administered from August 3, 2026, ASWB's exam scoring page and ASWB's announcements of the new exams and of the suspended online-proctoring pilot.