Texas real estate exam: what's on it in 2026

The Texas real estate sales agent exam is given by Pearson VUE under contract with the Texas Real Estate Commission (TREC). It comes in two portions, a national portion and a Texas state portion, and each one is scored on its own. Here's what's on each, how scoring works, and which sections trip people up most, based on the Pearson VUE candidate handbook (#094400, September 2026 edition) and the content outlines (#094401).

The format, in numbers

Take both in one sitting and it's 125 questions in 240 minutes. The pretest questions are unmarked and don't count, so you won't know which ones they are. Treat every question as scored.

A few more details from the handbook and TREC's rules:

• The exam fee is $58 per sitting as of 2026, the same whether you take one portion or both. You pay it each time you test.
• You can't book the exam until TREC has your 180 hours of qualifying education: Principles of Real Estate I and II (60 hours), then 30 hours each of Law of Agency, Law of Contracts, Promulgated Contract Forms and Real Estate Finance.
• A hand-held, battery or solar financial calculator is allowed as long as it has no alpha (letter) keys, but the test center doesn't provide one.

You pass each portion separately

This is the rule that matters most for how you study. TREC requires 70% on each portion: 56 of the 80 scored national questions and 28 of the 40 scored state questions. A great national score can't carry a weak state score, or the other way around.

If you fail one portion, you retake only that one, and you have to wait 24 hours before scheduling it. A passed portion stays valid for one year from the date you passed it. After three failures in a row, you need more qualifying education before you can test again: 30 hours if you failed one portion, 60 if you failed both.

The national portion (80 scored questions)

The national salesperson outline has been in effect since March 1, 2025. Its eight sections, with the number of scored questions in each:

• Real property characteristics, legal descriptions and property use (11): real vs personal property, fixtures, legal descriptions and surveys, government powers, zoning and private restrictions.
• Forms of ownership, transfer and recording of title (9): estates and ownership types, leases, liens, deeds, and how recording and title insurance work.
• Property value and appraisal (11): principles of value, the appraisal process, and the sales comparison, cost and income approaches.
• Contracts and agency (16): the biggest section. Contract elements, performance and breach, offers and contingencies, agency relationships and the duties agents owe.
• Real estate practice (10): brokerage, listing and buyer agreements, property management, fair housing and risk management.
• Disclosures and environmental issues (9): material facts, latent defects, lead-based paint and other hazards, flood zones.
• Financing and settlement (7): loan types, federal lending laws, and closing.
• Real estate math (7): one question each on the outline's math topics.

The state portion (40 scored questions)

The Texas Sales Agent State Law outline took effect January 1, 2026. It has six sections:

• Commission duties and powers (3)
• Licensing (3)
• Standards of conduct (9)
• Agency and brokerage (11)
• Contracts (9)
• Special topics (5)

The sales agent state portion has no case studies. Those are on the broker exam only.

Two things make this portion harder than its size suggests. First, 28 of 40 is a small margin: miss 13 and you've failed. Second, a lot of Texas law changed recently. SB 1968 took effect January 1, 2026, adding a written buyer agreement requirement and a new item to the IABS notice (TREC's form is now IABS 1-2), and repealing subagency. The TREC resale contract changed to version 20-19, mandatory from July 1, 2026. Older study material won't have any of it. IABS and written buyer agreements in 2026 and what changed in the 20-19 resale contract cover both.

Where candidates score lowest

TREC posts quarterly reports from Pearson VUE on how first-time candidates score in each content area. The newest one posted as of September 2026 covers December 2025 through February 2026. For January and February 2026, the first period on the new state outline, first-time sales agent candidates averaged:

• Contracts: 62.0%
• Agency and brokerage: 62.3%
• Standards of conduct: 67.7%
• Commission duties and powers: 67.9%
• Special topics: 76.0%
• Licensing: 90.7%

So agency and brokerage (11 questions, the biggest state section) and contracts (9) are also the two weakest. Together they're half the state portion. In the same period, 49% of first-time candidates passed the state portion and 66% passed the national portion.

What to do with this

Weight your time by question count, and then some extra for the state portion's two weak spots. For agency and brokerage, that means the IABS, intermediary rules, a broker's minimum duties and the new buyer agreement rules. For contracts, it means knowing which TREC form fits which deal and what the key paragraphs of the resale contract say. Don't leave the math for last either: it's 7 national questions, and the handbook tells you to memorize 43,560 square feet per acre and 5,280 feet per mile. Texas real estate math formulas covers the question types with worked examples.

Since each portion has its own cutoff, the exam pass score calculator is worth running twice: once with 80 questions and once with 40, both at 70%.

Study it in the order it builds

Encodr's free Texas real estate sales agent course is built on both outlines, with card counts weighted to the scored questions in each section. The units run in teaching order rather than outline order: property and ownership first, then contracts and agency, appraisal, financing, disclosures and math, then the Texas law units, so each unit builds on the one before it.