CO-ME Pass Rate 2026: What the Data Shows

Why There's No Official Published CO-ME Pass Rate

Anyone searching for a hard percentage number attached to the Colorado Master Electrician License Exam is going to come up empty. The Colorado State Electrical Board, operating under the Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA), does not release aggregate pass/fail statistics for the exam it administers through PSI Services LLC. That's a meaningful difference from some other trades and professional exams that publish year-over-year scoring data.

Instead of guessing at a number that doesn't exist in any official source, it's more useful - and more accurate - to look at the structural facts that actually determine whether a candidate passes: the scoring formula, the question distribution across the 13 content domains, and the format constraints candidates operate under. Those facts are published in the PSI candidate bulletin and Colorado's administrative rules, and they tell you far more about your odds than a single percentage would.

What the Passing Standard Actually Requires

The scored portion of the CO-ME exam consists of 90 multiple-choice questions administered in 240 minutes. PSI also embeds up to 10 unscored pretest questions with an additional 30 minutes on the clock, so the total testing experience can run to 100 questions and 270 minutes - but only the 90-question, 240-minute block counts toward your result.

Passing requires answering 63 of those 90 scored questions correctly, which works out to 70%. Critically, this is calculated across the entire examination rather than as separate minimum scores per domain. That means a candidate who is unusually strong in Motors or Transformers can offset a weaker showing in a smaller domain like Special Conditions, as long as the overall total clears 63 correct answers.

For a full breakdown of exactly how this scoring model works and why "70% overall" is different from a domain-locked passing rule, see CO-ME Passing Score 2026: Exactly What You Need to Pass.

Reading Domain Weighting as a Pass-Rate Signal

The official scored-item allocation across the 13 domains is public and fixed. It's the closest thing to a difficulty map that exists for this exam:

Grounding and Bonding is the largest single domain at 14 of the 90 scored questions - more than 15% of the entire scored exam by itself. Services, Feeders, and Branch Circuits is second at 11 questions. Together, those two domains alone account for 25 questions, well over a quarter of the total needed to reach the 63-question passing threshold.

At the opposite end, Special Conditions contributes just 2 scored questions, and several domains - Conductors and Cables, Raceways and Boxes, Electrical Devices, and Transformers - sit at 4 or 5 questions each. A full walk-through of what's tested inside each of the 13 domains is available in CO-ME Exam Domains 2026: Complete Guide to All 13 Content Areas.

Exam Format Factors That Shape Outcomes

Beyond raw domain weighting, several format details from the PSI bulletin directly influence how candidates perform:

• Reference materials are test-center supplied only. Personal code books, tabs, or notes are prohibited. The supplied NEC and formula page cannot be written in, highlighted, underlined, or indexed - which means candidates must already know the layout of the code book, not rely on their own annotation system.
• Code edition changes matter. The PSI bulletin updated June 18, 2026 specifies that NEC 2026 references take effect August 1, 2026. Candidates testing near that transition date need to confirm which edition applies to their scheduled exam.
• An onscreen calculator is provided. This matters most for the Electrical Calculations domain and the sizing math embedded in Services, Feeders, and Branch Circuits and Grounding and Bonding questions.
• Time is generous but not unlimited. 240 minutes for 90 scored questions averages under three minutes per question, which is comfortable for most candidates but tight if you're flipping through an unfamiliar code book layout question by question.

For a broader look at how these format constraints compare to the actual content difficulty, see How Hard Is the CO-ME Exam? Complete Difficulty Guide 2026.

Who Sits for the CO-ME Exam

Pass likelihood is also shaped by who is actually eligible to sit for the exam in the first place. Colorado's rules define two main pathways into the CO-ME:

• Experience-based route: 10,000 hours of qualifying electrical work completed over at least five years, including planning, layout, and supervision experience that goes beyond standard journeyman-level duties.
• Education-based route: Qualifying electrical-engineering graduates and approved trade-school or community-college graduates can apply through an education pathway, supported by transcripts.

Both routes require submitting employer or master-level experience verification, and applicable transcripts for the education path, before the exam is scheduled. Passing the exam does not waive these experience or education requirements - DORA's licensing application still requires them separately. Full eligibility mechanics, including documentation specifics, are covered in CO-ME Requirements 2026: Eligibility, Prerequisites & How to Qualify.

This matters for a "pass rate" discussion because the candidate pool sitting for the CO-ME is already pre-filtered: everyone taking it has already logged years of hands-on planning, layout, and supervision work, or completed a recognized engineering or trade-school program. That's a different starting point than an open-enrollment certification exam, and it's one reason raw pass/fail percentages from unrelated credentials are meaningless here.

Retesting: Fees and What Happens If You Fail

If a candidate doesn't reach 63 correct scored answers, PSI's retest fee is $73, compared with the $78 initial examination fee. There's no waiting period specified beyond standard scheduling availability through PSI, and the same 90-scored-question, 240-minute format applies on a retest.

It's worth noting that electrical contractor registration is a separate credential from the individual master license - passing the CO-ME and holding a master license does not automatically register a business as an electrical contractor. Candidates planning a full career path, including contractor registration, should map out both processes rather than assuming one covers the other.

A complete cost comparison across initial fees, retests, and renewal cycles is broken down in CO-ME Certification Cost 2026: Complete Pricing Breakdown.

Building a Prep Plan Around the Weighting

Given that the exam has no per-domain passing minimum, the highest-leverage study strategy is to weight your review time roughly in proportion to each domain's scored-question count, front-loading the heaviest domains first while there's still time to revisit weak spots.

This isn't a generic study calendar - it's sequenced specifically around the official scored-item allocation, so the weeks with the most content also get the most exposure before test day. For a more detailed walkthrough of first-attempt strategy, see CO-ME Study Guide 2026: How to Pass on Your First Attempt, and for a compact final review, the CO-ME Cheat Sheet 2026: One-Page Review of Must-Know Facts is built around the same domain weighting.

Running timed practice sets on our practice test platform is one of the few ways to replicate the unmarked-NEC, onscreen-calculator conditions of the real exam before you sit for it at a PSI test center.

Frequently Asked Questions