ServSafe Food Protection Manager Certification Examination — exam facts
United States (national certification; accepted under state and local food codes)
Every source below was read on 2026-09-03
| Administering body | National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation (NRAEF) — exam delivered by a registered ServSafe Instructor/Proctor, or ProctorU for online-proctored delivery The programme is operated under license by National Restaurant Association Solutions, LLC. ServSafe states that online proctors are supplied by ProctorU and not by ServSafe. Source: ServSafe — Food Protection Manager Certification Examinee Handbook (PDF, © 2020 NRAEF) (2026-09-03) |
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| Questions | 90 questions (80 scored, 10 unscored pretest) ServSafe calls the unscored items “pilot questions … for research purposes only”. They are indistinguishable from scored items during the exam. Source: ServSafe Manager — Online Proctoring FAQs (2026-09-03) |
| Time limit | 120 minutes The Examinee Handbook states the same limit from the proctor's side: all examination materials must be returned to the proctor two hours after the start. Source: ServSafe — Manager Exam (Access Code), catalog product SSONLINEX (2026-09-03) |
| Passing score | 70% (at least 56 of the 80 scored questions) Two official ServSafe sources disagree and the older one is wrong: the © 2020 Examinee Handbook PDF still prints “A passing score is 75 percent or better”, while the current live FAQ and the Online Proctoring FAQ both say 70%. The percentage is of the scored questions only. Source: ServSafe — FAQ: “What is the passing score for the ServSafe Food Protection Manager Examination?” (2026-09-03) |
| Fees |
ServSafe declines to publish one exam fee: the Examinee Handbook tells candidates to check with their instructor, proctor or organization about fees. The prices above are ServSafe's own catalog prices for the exam product; what an examinee actually pays depends on who administers it, and the access-code product notes that additional proctor fees apply. Source: ServSafe — Manager Exam (Access Code), catalog product SSONLINEX (2026-09-03) |
| Languages offered | English · Spanish · Chinese · Korean · French · Japanese Not all forms are available every way. Online-proctored delivery is English, Spanish and Chinese only; Korean, French Canadian and Japanese exist as bilingual printed forms paired with English. Three official ServSafe pages disagree about the online list, so only the FAQ's list is treated as the online set here. Source: ServSafe — FAQ: “What languages is the ServSafe exam available in?” (2026-09-03) |
Change log
- 2026-09-03Fact sheet created, and the passing score corrected from 75% to 70% (at least 56 of the 80 scored questions). ServSafe's own © 2020 handbook still prints 75%; its current FAQ and Online Proctoring FAQ both say 70%.