FINRA Series 7 General Securities Representative Exam

The Series 7, the General Securities Representative Qualification Examination, is the FINRA exam for entry-level registered representatives who sell corporate and municipal securities, investment company products, variable contracts, direct participation programs, options and government securities. To take it, a candidate must be associated with and sponsored by a FINRA member firm or another applicable self-regulatory organization member firm, and to obtain the General Securities Representative registration the candidate must pass both the Series 7 and the Securities Industry Essentials (SIE) exam, its corequisite, in either order. FINRA states the exam has 125 multiple-choice items, each with four answer choices, in 3 hours and 45 minutes, with a passing score of 72. The items are spread over four major job functions in FINRA's Series 7 Content Outline: seeks business for the broker-dealer (9 items), opens accounts after evaluating the customer's financial profile and objectives (11), provides information about investments, makes recommendations, transfers assets and maintains records (91), and obtains, verifies, processes and confirms transactions (14). Under the October 2025 outline each candidate also receives 5 unidentified pretest items that do not count, 130 in all; there is no penalty for guessing, scores are equated to a common scale, and no reference materials are allowed. FINRA's Series 7 page and content outline are the authority.