How hard is the North Dakota Real Estate Broker exam?

You need to score 75 of 100 points (national); 30 of 40 points (state) on the North Dakota Real Estate Broker exam.

The North Dakota Real Estate Broker exam has 130 questions, with a 240-minute time limit.

The North Dakota Real Estate Commission (NDREC) licenses real estate salespersons and brokers. The Commission contracts with PSI to deliver both portions of the licensing examination. North Dakota does not issue licenses by specialty — there is no separate residential or commercial license.

Broker applicants must have been actively engaged full-time as a licensed real estate salesperson for at least two years (N.D.C.C. § 43-23-08(3), with "actively engaged" defined as full time by N.D. Admin. Code § 70-02-01-02(3)), or have experience the Commission determines to be substantially equal. On education, watch the word "additional" in § 43-23-08(4): a salesperson needs 90 approved hours and a broker applicant must complete "an additional sixty hours," so a broker's pre-license total is 150 approved hours, not 60. The Commission may waive the two-year experience requirement where local conditions made salesperson employment unobtainable (§ 43-23-08(5)), but it may not waive the education. North Dakota then distinguishes two broker roles: the designated broker who is responsible for a firm or sole proprietorship, and the broker associate who holds a broker license but is not the designated broker and may not act independently (N.D. Admin. Code § 70-02-01-09).

The combined broker examination is divided into a general portion and a state portion, which are scored and passed separately. The national broker portion has 90 questions worth 100 points — scenario-based items can be scored up to two points each — with 150 minutes allowed and 75 points required to pass. The state portion has 40 questions worth 40 points with 90 minutes allowed and 30 points required to pass.

PSI bulletin 4662 prints four state areas — Duties and Powers of the Real Estate Commission; Licensing Requirements; Statutory Requirements Governing the Activities of Licensees; and Additional Topics — with 25 lettered subtopics beneath them, and, unusually, no item count and no percentage for any of the four. That absence is real, not a bad scan: the Commission's own hosted copy of the same bulletin carries a line-for-line identical state outline. So treat any source that quotes a North Dakota per-area split as unsourced. What is published is the total: 40 items, 40 points, 90 minutes, 30 to pass. Four subtopics are marked broker-only and are the state content the salesperson paper does not reach — branch office and license display, trust accounts, record keeping, and closing statements. One printing quirk to know: area I shows "C. Sanctions; License Suspension and" and "D. Revocation, Misdemeanor" as separate letters, but that is a single subtopic broken by a line wrap in PSI's own document.

Focus your time on the heaviest content areas, then drill practice questions by topic until you consistently clear the standard you need. PrepPass has 456+ free North Dakota Real Estate Broker practice questions with full explanations and a timed mock exam.