Eighty-seven percent is the number every nursing program puts on a slide. It's correct, and it describes one group of people under one condition: first attempt, U.S.-educated. It's also four and a half points lower than the year before.
The 86.7% belongs to one cohort
Set the cohorts side by side and the headline stops being a pass rate and starts being a description of who you are on test day. In 2025, repeat test-takers passed at 52.7% and internationally educated first-timers at 47.3%. Same exam, a different question being asked.
If you're retesting, 86.7% isn't your number, and planning against it is how a second attempt becomes a third.
The quarter you test in shows up in the data
First-time U.S.-educated pass rates ran 88.4% in the first quarter of 2025, 89.1% in the second, 84.0% in the third, and 81.2% in the fourth. The last quarter landed eight points below the second. NCSBN doesn't explain the slide, and the statistics don't record how long after graduation anyone tested.
Take the pattern as a prompt. Schedule the exam when your preparation peaks, and treat "whenever the ATT arrives" as a decision you're making, because it is one.
First attempt is the variable. Degree path barely moves it.
A point and a half separates BSN from ADN. The gap that decides outcomes in this data is first attempt against repeat, on both exams, and it's enormous. Worth knowing before you spend a year of prep energy on the wrong variable.
Start with the licensure map for your state's steps after the exam.
Notes
- Pass rates by cohort, degree path, and quarter, for both NCLEX-RN and NCLEX-PN: NCSBN 2025 NCLEX Examination Statistics, Research Brief Volume 96, June 2026; checked 3 September 2026. First-time U.S.-educated NCLEX-RN candidates, n=192,916, of whom 167,272 passed. The year-earlier comparison (91.2%) is from the 2024 edition, Research Brief Volume 94.
