CII R05 Exam 2026/27: Pass Rate, Pass Mark, Exam Guide, Study Text, Format

The CII R05 Financial protection exam is 50 multiple-choice questions in one hour, each with four options and one correct or best answer. In the CII’s words, R05 is “a core unit for the Diploma in Regulated Financial Planning which meets the FCA’s qualification requirements for retail investment advisers”, and it is “relevant for paraplanners, technical consultants and those in financial planning support roles.” The syllabus now in force is examined from 1 September 2026 to 31 August 2027, on English law and practice in the 2026/27 tax year. This page sets out the question format, how many questions the syllabus gives each of its ten learning outcomes as a guide, the pass mark and how the CII adjusts marks, what the 2025 pass rate does and does not tell you, the tax tables you are given, what the examination guide holds and how to use it, and which edition of the study text you need. ProSyllabus is an independent study site. It is not affiliated with the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII), and nothing here is official. Every format fact and figure below is quoted or summarised from the CII’s own pages and documents, read on 25 October 2026. The pass rates, the examination guide and the study text details were read again on 7 November 2026.

CII R05 unit page, syllabus and examination guide for exams from 1 September 2026 to 31 August 2027, read 25 October 2026.

The examination guide describes one format for R05: “A multiple choice question consists of a problem followed by four options, labelled A, B, C and D, from which the candidate is asked to choose the correct or best response. Each question will contain only one correct or best response to the problem posed.” One mark is awarded for each correct response; no mark is awarded for an incorrect response, more than one response or no response, and “No marks are deducted for candidates choosing an incorrect response.” The R05 syllabus and guide describe no other question format.

The guide also explains how questions are worded: candidates “should pay particular attention to any words in the question which are emphasised in bold type, for example, maximum, minimum, main, most, normally and usually”, and negative wording “is further emphasised by the use of capital letters, for example NOT, CANNOT.” Because questions in the examination “test generic product knowledge”, the guide advises candidates to know what typically constitutes each type of product in the syllabus and to check whether the products they meet at work differ from the norm.

The syllabus gives a number of questions for each learning outcome. It calls this a guide: the specification “has an in-built element of flexibility”, is “not a statement of actual number of questions that will appear in every exam”, and the number testing each outcome “will generally be within the range plus or minus 2 of the number indicated.” Learning outcome 4, on life assurance and pension-based policies, has the highest indicative number (8), and outcomes 5, 6, 7, 9 and 10 carry 6 each. Outcome 10, the evaluation of needs and the selection of solutions, includes quantifying “an individual’s or business’s future capital and income needs in real terms”.

Taken together, the product outcomes (4 to 9) carry 35 of the 50 questions in the syllabus guide (our sum: 8 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 3 + 6). The remaining 15 are on the market (outcome 1), needs and sources of protection (outcome 2), State benefits (outcome 3) and the evaluation of needs and solutions (outcome 10).

The CII’s R05 unit page states: “The standard pass mark is 70%”, and “The 2025 pass rate for this unit was 80.53%”. On 50 questions, 70% is 35 correct answers (our arithmetic). The standard is not a fixed raw mark on every paper. The CII’s guide “Understanding your exam result” explains that, “where necessary”, it will “automatically adjust the marks that every candidate receives on that exam version to compensate them for the degree of difficulty encountered”, and that it “will always report to you the moderated number of marks/adjusted marks relative to the standard pass mark”. The examination guide adds that “A pre-defined quota of passes to be awarded does not exist.”

The examination guide says your feedback shows the result and, for each syllabus learning outcome, the percentage of questions you answered correctly. Our suggestion: where an outcome has only 3 questions in your exam, treat its percentage as a limited pointer to your understanding, since one answer moves it by about 33 percentage points (our arithmetic).

The CII publishes one pass-rate figure on each unit page. For R05 it reads: “The 2025 pass rate for this unit was 80.53%”. That is roughly four passes in five (our arithmetic). It is the highest 2025 pass rate of the six R0 units (R01 to R06), even though R05’s unit page gives a standard pass mark of 70% while the R01 to R04 unit pages give 65% (our comparison of the unit pages, read 7 November 2026).

Three cautions before you read much into 80.53%. First, the R05 unit page gives the 2025 figure only, and in our search of cii.co.uk on 7 November 2026 we found no earlier R05 figures, so we have no trend to show. Second, the pages we read do not say who sits R05 or at what stage of their studies, so the figure cannot tell you how hard you will personally find the paper. Third, the pass mark is a standard, not a quota: the examination guide says “If all candidates achieve a score of at least the pass mark, then all candidates will be awarded a pass grade.”

Where do the candidates who fail lose their marks? We found no topic-by-topic breakdown of R05 results on the CII pages we read, and we have not guessed one. What the CII does give you is your own breakdown: the result feedback shows your percentage correct on each learning outcome, and the specimen answer key in the examination guide (below) names the outcome of every question, so you can find your own weak outcomes before the exam. Our suggestion: use the syllabus guide’s indicative question numbers to share out your revision time (outcome 4, life assurance and pension-based policies, has the most at 8), while covering every outcome. The examination guide’s own technique advice is to read the whole question and every option, and to watch words in bold such as main or most and negatives in capitals such as NOT. For worked examples of wording traps, each with its source, see the traps table on our R05 practice questions page. The CII’s Results information page says results for on-screen multiple-choice exams “will normally be available on MyCII within 2 UK business working days” of the exam.

The 2026/27 R05 syllabus says candidates “will be examined on the basis of English law and practice in the tax year 2026/2027 unless otherwise stated”, and that “It should be assumed that all individuals have long-term UK residence status unless otherwise stated.” The examination guide states the general rule: “the new tax year and changes arising from the Finance Act will be examined from 1 September each year. Other changes, not related to the Finance Act, will not be examined earlier than 3 months after they come into effect.”

So an exam sat between 1 September 2026 and 31 August 2027 is on the 2026/27 tax year. The “Tax year” line in the qualification update on the CII’s R05 unit page, read on 25 October and again on 7 November 2026, still named 2025/26 for exams from 1 September 2025 to 31 August 2026; the 2026/27 syllabus and examination guide name 2026/27. The CII also published a web update to the 2026–27 study text on 2 September 2026, removing Child Benefit from the study text’s table of benefits excluded from the benefit cap.

The examination guide says: “Extracts from tax tables will be provided at each examination”, and “Candidates may not take their own tax tables into the examination.” The CII’s supporting exam documents page lists the tax tables “provided for candidates taking examinations from 1 September 2026 to 31 August 2027” for R05 (shared with CF1, LP2, R01, R02, R03, R04, R07, J10 and J12). In our view the most useful part for R05 is the table of main social security benefits. Some of the figures they print for 2026/2027:

The tables do not print every figure an R05 candidate meets. Statutory Sick Pay, Employment and Support Allowance, Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment rates, for example, are not in them. Our suggestion: learn the GOV.UK rules for those benefits (who pays them, for how long, whether they are means-tested) rather than a remembered weekly amount.

You can sit R05 at an exam centre or by remote invigilation. The examination guide points candidates to the CII’s familiarisation test to learn the layout of the exam. For remote invigilation, once you have booked you can launch a tutorial from your MyCII/MyPFS dashboard, which “can only be accessed three times”, and which you cannot open in the 2 hours and 30 minutes before your scheduled exam. A calculator must be a silent battery or solar-powered non-programmable calculator; a financial or scientific calculator is allowed if it meets those rules. You may make rough notes.

For questions in the same format, our R05 practice questions page works through three questions from the ProSyllabus CII R05 practice test, an independent test of two full 50-question exams for the 2026/27 syllabus.

The CII’s examination guide contains an official specimen R05 examination and its answer key. The current one is “Based on the 2026/2027 syllabus examined from 1 September 2026 until 31 August 2027” and was published in June 2026. You download it from the R05 unit page (“Download the 2026/2027 exam guide (PDF)”), and the guide adds that if you have a current study text enrolment, it is also included in RevisionMate. Its contents page lists five parts:

The guide says how it is meant to be used: “Ideally, students should have completed the majority of their studies before attempting the specimen examination. Students should allow themselves one hour to complete the examination. They should then review their performance to identify areas of weakness on which to concentrate the remainder of their study time.” It also warns that the specimen “is typical of an R05 examination” but that “it is not possible to test every single aspect of the syllabus in any one particular examination.”

A way to follow that advice (our suggestion, built from what the guide contains):

1. Finish most of the study text first, then sit all 50 specimen questions in one timed hour, using only the specimen tax tables and a permitted calculator.
2. Mark it with the answer key and count your wrong answers by learning outcome; the key names the outcome of every question.
3. Re-read the study text for your two weakest outcomes, and check the wording of each question you got wrong (bold words such as main or most, capitalised NOT).
4. Then take a fresh timed paper you have not seen, so the score is not inflated by remembering the specimen.

The specimen is a guide, not a template. Its answer key tallies 7 questions on outcome 4 and 7 on outcome 10, against 8 and 6 in the syllabus guide (our count of the key), which is within the plus or minus 2 that the syllabus says is the general range. Do not expect your exam to match the specimen’s split exactly.

If the CII changes a specimen question after publication, the guide says the revised question is posted on the unit page under “Exam guide update”. On 7 November 2026 that panel still referred to the guide for exams from 1 September 2024 to 31 August 2025 (an amended question 39, dated 30 January 2025) and listed no amendment to the 2026/27 guide. An older guide is for an older tax year, so use the 2026/27 one for exams from 1 September 2026 to 31 August 2027.

The CII’s study text for the unit is “Financial protection. London: CII. Study text R05”, the title given in the syllabus’s learning support list. The R05 unit page, read on 7 November 2026, lists the study material on RevisionMate as the “2026–27 edition (applicable to exams sat 01 September 2026 to 31 August 2027)” and says: “A new edition of the study text is usually available in July every year.” The edition you need follows your exam date, not the date you buy:

Where to get it. The study text comes from the CII with the unit itself, bought from the R05 unit page (when we read it on 7 November 2026 the page’s shop panel showed “This item is not currently available to purchase”, so check it when you buy). The page describes three ways to buy the unit: “Enrolment plus” (the default), which includes the study text and the revision aids (Key Facts Booklet, Audio Revision, Knowledge Checker and E-learn) on RevisionMate; “Enrolment only”, which includes the study text; and “Assessment only”, an exam entry that “does not include access to any study material”. Digital access lasts “12 months from the date of purchase”, and if a new edition comes out in that time “you will automatically receive access to the material on RevisionMate”. With the “Digital and print” option you also receive the latest printed edition (2026–27). If you are given a printed copy second-hand, check the edition printed on it covers your exam date.

Keep the edition current. The CII posts corrections and updates in the unit page’s “Learning solutions update” panel. On 7 November 2026 it listed, for the 2026–27 edition, web update 1 (2 September 2026) and, under the Chancellor’s Budget, a Budget summary dated 28 October 2026 and an October 2026 version of the 2026–27 tax tables that prints 2027/28 figures beside 2026/27 ones. The Budget summary says its proposals are “subject to amendment before the Finance Act”, and under the general rule a new tax year is examined from 1 September, so for an exam before 1 September 2027 learn the 2026/27 column.

The study text is not the whole syllabus. The examination guide says “the examination is based on the syllabus, rather than on any particular tuition material”, and that the CII “recommends that students consult other reference materials to supplement their studies”, pointing to the additional reading in an appendix of the study text.

A four-week plan (our suggestion). The unit page gives R05 as 50 study hours, so four weeks is about 12 to 13 hours a week (our arithmetic). Order the text by the syllabus’s question numbers so the heaviest outcomes get the most time: