The question everyone asks
How many can you miss and still pass?
There is no national answer, because every state sets its own test length and its own bar. Pick your state and the number appears.
- Question count and pass mark per state
- Every figure sourced and dated
- Free, no account
Pick your state and read your margin
The arithmetic is simple, but getting it wrong by one is how people walk in expecting slack they do not have.
Alabama asks 30 questions and you need 24 right, which is 80%. Get 7 wrong and you fail.
The ALEA driver manual sets no waiting period before a retest, but the $5 exam fee applies again to every attempt.
ALEA Alabama Driver Manual (December 2024 edition), Knowledge Test section does not publish the format where we could confirm it, so treat these numbers as our best information and check with the agency.
A passing total can still be a failing test
In a few states the one number the calculator gives is not the whole rule, because the exam is scored in parts and the parts do not share their slack.
Two halves, each with its own bar
Georgia splits its exam into road signs and road rules and wants 15 of 20 correct in each half. Indiana runs two components and asks for 80 percent or better on each of them. Michigan publishes no percentage at all, only that both sections have to be passed, and it adds something worth knowing: pass one section, fail the other, and you can go to a Secretary of State office and sit the whole test again at no charge.
A separate score just for the signs
North Carolina keeps a single paper but scores the road sign questions on their own, where an applicant for a regular Class C license has to identify 9 of the 12 correctly. New York sets a smaller version of the same bar, 2 of its 4 sign questions.
Georgia is the clearest warning. Its overall allowance is ten wrong answers out of 40, but those ten are not one pool. They are two pools of five, and a calculator that only knows the totals cannot see the difference.
Your age and your history change the paper
The number on this page assumes the standard permit path, and a few states hand some applicants a different exam entirely, with the allowance moving with it.
California tightens the paper for adults
California is the clearest case. The teen permit test runs 46 questions and needs 38 correct, an allowance of eight. An applicant who is 18 or older sits a shorter 36 question paper needing 30, which is six. Fewer questions and less room, which is why the calculator carries a box to tick rather than one answer for the whole state. The California application fee also covers only three attempts. Use all three and you reapply and pay again, so a thin margin costs more there than the raw number suggests.
Utah tightens it for transfers
Utah moves the other way. Someone previously licensed elsewhere takes a 25 question open book test needing 20 correct, rather than the 50 question exam a first time applicant faces. The open book paper allows five wrong where the standard one allows ten, so the easier sounding route is the tighter one.
The state is the same either way. The paper is not, and neither is the allowance, so confirm which one you are booked for before you plan around a number.
What a wrong answer costs after you leave
The size of the allowance and the price of using it are two separate facts, and only one of them is on the calculator.
Same test, opposite retake
Kansas and Connecticut both run a 25 question test and both let you get five wrong. On the day you fail they are nothing alike. Kansas takes you back the next working day for a $1.50 fee and gives you four attempts before a minimum six month wait. Connecticut makes you wait seven days and pay the $40 fee again.
Waits set by the calendar
That spread runs the whole way. Pennsylvania lets you retake the knowledge test the next business day, and Kentucky says you may return the next available day. Virginia makes applicants under 18 wait 15 days between attempts, lets applicants 18 and over test once a day, and after three failures requires a Virginia approved driver training program before you may try again. New Hampshire holds operator applicants to a 10 calendar day wait. Rhode Island wants at least 8 days.
Caps set by the count
Other states cap the attempts rather than the calendar. West Virginia allows applicants 18 and older no more than two attempts inside a 90 day period. The District of Columbia stacks both: three full calendar days before a retest, and six failures inside 12 months blocks a seventh attempt for a year from the date of the first.
Testing at home does not mean unlimited tries
Online testing reshapes the allowance rather than removing it, and the convenient route is usually the one with the fewest retries.
Where you can sit it at home
Arizona lets an applicant under 18 sit the permit test at home with a parent or legal guardian proctoring. Minnesota runs it through approved third party proctors, including deputy registrars, libraries and driver education programs. Colorado runs an at home test you can sit twice in the same day.
The online route caps the tries
The catch is that the online route carries its own attempt limit where the in person route often does not. Tennessee and Wisconsin both allow two online attempts, with the third happening at a service center. Ohio caps online testing at two attempts in a six month period while leaving in person attempts uncapped. Oregon allows two in 24 hours and four in total. Oklahoma sends you in person after two online failures, and if the nearest option is a Career Tech testing center rather than a Service Oklahoma location, that route costs $25 more. Alaska and North Dakota both shut the online option for a full year after a fifth failure.
So the convenient route is the one with the fewest retries, which is the reverse of what convenience normally buys you.
Percentages, counts and the answer that is off by one
Agencies do not publish this the same way, and the gaps between the formats are where the arithmetic goes wrong.
Four ways to publish one rule
Maryland states a count outright: 22 of 25. Colorado publishes 80 percent as its official pass mark and no question count at all. North Dakota is the mirror image, with a question count and no published pass mark, which is why the figure on its page is marked as our best information rather than an agency number. Montana skips both and publishes the allowance itself, saying you may get 7 or fewer wrong on its combined signs and rules test. Delaware states 26 of 32, which works out at about 81 percent, a figure nobody would have reached by assuming a round number.
Delaware is the whole problem in one line. Take a published percentage, apply it to a question count you assumed rather than read, round it the friendly way, and you walk in believing you have one more wrong answer in hand than you do.
That is why the two figures are held here as separate facts. Each state page names the agency page a number came from and the date it was checked, and where an agency publishes a mark but no count, or a count but no mark, the page says so instead of presenting arithmetic the state never published.
Practice against your real margin, not a generic 80 percent
A ten question quiz that hands back a percentage tells you very little about whether you would clear your own state's bar.
The bar is a count, not a percentage
The bar is not a percentage. It is a count of correct answers inside a paper of a particular length, and sometimes a second count inside one part of that paper. A generic 80 percent would pass you in Maryland on 20 of 25. Maryland wants 22.
The simulator enforces the local rules
The exam simulator on each state page runs your state's real question count against its real pass mark and holds every result back until the end. Where a state sets a rule inside the sign questions, the simulator enforces it rather than mentioning it. Virginia asks its 10 sign questions first and a single miss ends the attempt there, exactly as the real test does, because letting a failed run continue to a flattering total would teach the wrong lesson. The full marathon never gates that way, because it is study rather than exam.
Where an agency does not publish how much of the paper is road signs, the simulator falls back to a 30 percent share that is ours rather than the agency's, and the test page says as much on the run.
A short test is not a soft test
The figure that matters is how many mistakes you are allowed, and a short test at a high percentage leaves very little room.
People assume fewer questions means an easier ride, and it is usually the opposite.
A second bar hidden inside the test
One more wrinkle worth knowing: a handful of states apply a second bar inside the test. New York requires 2 of 4 road sign questions correct whatever your overall score is, so a technically passing total can still fail. Virginia goes further and asks its 10 road sign questions first: every one has to be right before you may attempt the general questions at all. Our practice tests enforce those rules rather than mentioning them as trivia.
What to do with the number
Treat your allowance as a buffer for nerves, not a target. Aim to sit the exam simulator and finish comfortably clear of the line three times running. If you are scraping past with one to spare, you are one bad morning away from a retake.
See the full table of question counts by state or pick your state and start practicing.