Project Management Professional

Pass rate

Project Management Institute logo

Project Management Professional Pass Rate

PMP

The score you need to pass the Project Management Professional certification exam, what the cut score actually means, and how to read your mock results against it.

180 questions
2.3/10 difficulty

The number you need to hit

Published cut score for this certification.

Passing score
Not published
No numeric cut score published; results are reported per domain as Above Target, Target or Below Target
How you are scored
Performance bands
No numeric cut score published; results are reported per domain as Above Target, Target or Below Target
What to aim for
Above Target
With a band-based result, the goal is not to clear a line but to land in the top band on every domain.

Pass score vs pass rate

Two different numbers that get mixed up constantly.

Pass score (cut score)

The scaled score the vendor publishes. For the Project Management Professional it is not published. Without a cut score there is no target percentage to compute, so prepare against the domain weights instead: 33% of the exam is decided by the first block you study.

Pass rate (percentage of candidates)

The share of candidates who pass. Project Management Institute generally does not publish this for individual exams, and the numbers you find online usually come from candidate self-reported surveys. We would rather tell you nothing than tell you a figure we cannot source.

Where you lose points

The exam is not scored flat. Each domain carries its own weight, so a domain where you lose everything can sink a score that looks fine on paper.

People33%

Losing this domain entirely costs you 33% of the exam, and it has 60 practice questions here.

Process41%

Losing this domain entirely costs you 41% of the exam, and it has 74 practice questions here.

Business Environment26%

Losing this domain entirely costs you 26% of the exam, and it has 46 practice questions here.

The practical version: the Project Management Professional is not passed by knowing most of the content. It is passed by being strong in the domains that carry weight, and by not leaving one of them empty.

More about the Project Management Professional exam

Explore the rest of this page series: format, cost, difficulty, requirements and how to prepare.

Related certifications

Explore other certifications in the same category and see how they stack up.

Guides and articles

More context about this certification, straight from our blog.

Frequently asked questions

Everything you need to know about the Project Management Professional exam.