CHRC Passing Score 2026: Exactly What You Need to Pass

The Short Answer: No Published Number

Candidates searching for the CHRC passing score usually want one figure: how many questions do I need to get right? For the Certified in Healthcare Research Compliance (CHRC) credential, the honest answer is that a fixed numerical cut score has not been publicly verified in the official materials. The credential is issued by the independent Compliance Certification Board (CCB), with the Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA) as the governing body, and the published passing criterion is a standard established through the Angoff method, applied to the scored questions.

That distinction matters. A published number would let you reverse-engineer a target. A standard-setting method means the line is defined by expert judgment about what a minimally competent research compliance professional should know, not by a round number such as 70% or 75%. If you see a round percentage attached to this exam elsewhere, treat it with caution, a point we return to below.

How the Passing Standard Is Set

The Angoff method is a widely used approach in professional certification. Subject-matter experts review each exam item and estimate the probability that a minimally qualified candidate would answer it correctly. Those estimates are aggregated into a passing standard for the exam form. The practical consequences for you:

• The standard is anchored to competence, not to a curve. Your result does not depend on how other candidates in your testing window performed.
• The standard applies to the scored questions. Your performance on the 100 scored items determines the outcome.
• Difficulty can vary by form. Because the standard reflects item difficulty, a form with harder items may carry a correspondingly adjusted threshold. This is one more reason a single memorized percentage is a poor study target.

The official materials located do not disclose a pass rate, so there is no verified statistic to benchmark against. Our CHRC pass rate explainer separates what the issuer has and has not disclosed from vendor success claims.

100 Scored Questions, 20 Unscored Pretest Items

The exam contains 120 multiple-choice questions to be completed in two hours. Of those, 100 are scored and 20 are unidentified pretest questions used to evaluate future items. You cannot tell which is which, so you must treat every question as if it counts.

Two pacing implications follow. First, two hours for 120 questions averages roughly one minute per item, so there is little room to agonize. Second, because pretest items may be unusually worded or cover edge topics, do not let one strange question rattle you. It may well be an unscored experimental item.

The number of answer choices per question has not been verified for the current handbook, so do not assume a particular format when reading practice-test material. Focus on the reasoning, not the option count.

Where the Scored Questions Come From

The percentages in the Detailed Content Outline correspond to item counts out of the 100 scored questions, so a domain listed at 20% contributes 20 scored items. Because there is no published cut score, the domain weights are the most reliable planning tool you have.

Notice the concentration: Monitoring, Auditing, and Internal Reporting Systems (20), Communication, Education, and Training (18), and Standards, Policies, and Procedures (17) together account for 55 of the 100 scored questions. Add Compliance Program Administration and you reach 70. The two 8% domains together equal just 16 items, which is smaller than any single one of the three largest domains. For the full outline and topic-level detail, read our complete guide to all 7 CHRC content areas.

What to Aim For Instead of a Cut Score

Since the threshold is not published, the sensible strategy is to build a margin of safety rather than aim at a guessed minimum. A practical readiness benchmark looks like this:

1. Be consistently strong in the heavy domains. A weak showing in Monitoring, Auditing, and Internal Reporting Systems or Communication, Education, and Training costs far more than a gap in a lighter domain.
2. Avoid any domain you cannot explain. Even the 8% domains contribute eight scored items each, and because pass/fail rests on the aggregate, every gap eats into your cushion.
3. Judge readiness by reasoning quality, not just scores. If you can explain why each wrong option is wrong, you are preparing at the right depth.
4. Track trends, not single results. Several consecutive practice sessions at a comfortable level mean more than one good day.

For timed, domain-tagged practice that lets you see exactly where your margin is thinnest, use the CHRC practice tests. Remember that HCCA states no official exam study guide is available, though it provides public sample questions and a candidate-only 50-question practice exam. Independent practice material fills the remaining gap.

Beware of Invented Cut Scores

Because candidates crave a number, third-party sites often supply one. When you encounter a claim like "you need 70% to pass," check three things before relying on it:

• Does it cite the issuer? A credible figure should trace to the Compliance Certification Board or HCCA documentation, not to another study site.
• Does it match the exam structure? A claim built on 100 questions ignores that 120 are delivered and only 100 scored.
• Does it blur practice scores with the real standard? A vendor's internal mastery threshold or scaled-score label is a feature of that vendor's product, not of the actual exam.

Some competitor pages describe scaled scoring. The issuer materials reviewed describe an Angoff-established standard based on the scored questions, so treat scaled-score language as unverified. The same caution applies to fee information: some third-party pages carry outdated initial-exam prices that conflict with the current official fee schedule below.

Exam-Day Format and Rules That Affect Your Score

Your score is only as good as your ability to perform under test conditions. The exam is delivered through PSI, with several delivery options:

• Test-center computer delivery at a PSI location
• Remote proctoring from your own location
• Paper-and-pencil administration at selected HCCA/SCCE events

The exam is closed book. Reference materials and personal electronic devices are restricted under the proctoring rules specific to each delivery method, and the current remote-testing FAQ expressly prohibits handheld calculators. Whether an on-screen calculator is available, or whether the test is adaptive, has not been verified, so do not plan around either. Confirm the rules for your chosen delivery on the issuer's exam information page before test day, and check scheduling windows in our CHRC exam dates guide.

Fees, Retakes, and the 2027 Fee Change

Understanding the cost of a failed attempt is part of understanding the stakes of the passing standard. The current published fees are:

The fee page also lists a $75 non-refundable application amount, but no additional $75 is added to the published initial totals above. The 2027 figures are future rates, not current prices. Older indexed handbook text shows lower renewal fees ($125 member, $245 non-member), but the current fee and FAQ pages take precedence. The modest $75 re-exam fee softens the financial cost of a retake, though it does not reduce the cost of the preparation time lost. A full breakdown, including membership considerations, is in our CHRC certification cost guide.

Eligibility is separate from the score. Candidates need one year in a full-time compliance position or 1,500 hours of direct compliance duties in the two years before applying, with duties related to the outline, plus 20 CCB-approved CEUs in the 12 months before the exam, at least 10 of them live. An accredited-university pathway can satisfy the work-experience requirement for 24 months and the CEU requirement for 12 months. Sources conflict on what happens to graduates beyond month 12, so confirm with CCB before assuming either reading. Details are in our CHRC requirements guide.

A Domain-Weighted Preparation Sequence

This is the one place where we offer a scheduling template, and it is tied to the weights above rather than to generic advice. Adapt the pacing to your own timeline.

For a fuller plan, see our CHRC study guide, and keep our one-page cheat sheet handy for last-day review.

Frequently Asked Questions

When you are ready to test your readiness against realistic, domain-tagged questions, start with the CHRC Exam Prep practice tests and use your results to decide where your next study hours should go.