SIE Content Outline 2026: Four Sections, 75 Scored Items, 5 Pretest

The SIE tests "basic knowledge of the securities industry": industry terminology, products, how markets are structured, the regulators and what they do, and practices that are regulated or prohibited. FINRA publishes exactly what that covers in a free content outline, and every real exam draws from it. The current file carries a © 2025 notice and sits at a 2025-10 address on finra.org. Its structure is short: four sections, 75 scored items, weighted heavily toward products and toward trading and customer accounts. This guide goes through all four sections at the level of the outline's own sub-headings, lists the main rules and Acts the outline names under each (the outline's own lists are longer), and shows the one change from the 2024 file. ProSyllabus is an independent study site, not part of FINRA, NASAA or Prometric. Every rule here is quoted or summarised from FINRA's own pages, rule filings and the SIE content outline; FINRA, and for the NASAA exams the state regulators, decide every individual case.

SIE Content Outline (c) 2025.

Section 1 is the map of the industry: who regulates, who participates, where trading happens, how the economy moves prices, and how new securities are sold. The outline's rule list for this section includes FINRA Rules 2266 (SIPC information), 2269 and 5250; MSRB Rules G-11, G-32 and G-34; Securities Act sections 7, 8, 10 and 23 with Rules 215 (accredited investor) and 431; Exchange Act sections 3(a), 12, 15 and 15A; Regulation D; Rules 144, 144A, 145, 147 and 164; and the Securities Investor Protection Act of 1970. For a reader in India, the new vocabulary is mostly institutional: the SEC, FINRA and MSRB as distinct bodies, the difference between the Fed's monetary policy and fiscal policy, and US-specific terms such as blue-sky laws (state securities laws).

This is the largest section by far, 44% of the scored exam. The outline lists each product and then a "knowledge of" list, which tells you the depth expected: for bonds, the relationship between price and interest rate, yield, ratings, and call and conversion features; for options, strike, premium, in- and out-of-the-money, covered versus uncovered and exercise versus assignment; for packaged products, loads, share classes, NAV and breakpoints. Several products are US-specific and will be new even to experienced Indian market professionals: 529 education savings plans, ABLE accounts, local government investment pools, municipal general-obligation and revenue bonds. Rules named here include FINRA 2261, 2262, 2310, 2330, 2342 and 2360; MSRB D-12, G-17, G-30 and G-45; CBOE Rule 1.1; Exchange Act Rules 3a11-1 and 10b-18; and Investment Company Act sections 3(a), 4 and 5 with Rule 12b-1. Nothing on this page is investment advice: securities products appear here only as exam content.

Section 3 is where back-office and operations experience helps most: order types, settlement cycles (the outline names T and T+1), corporate actions and their effect on price and cost basis, proxies, account types and registrations, and records. It is also the section with the longest rule list in the outline, covering FINRA's conduct rules (2010, 2020, 2090 know your customer, 2111 suitability, 2210 communications, 3240 borrowing from customers, 3310 AML, 4210 margin, 5130 IPO restrictions, 5270 front running, 5310 best execution and more), MSRB conduct rules, Regulation Best Interest (Rule 15l-1), Form CRS, Regulation S-P, Regulation T, the Telemarketing Sales Rule, and USA PATRIOT Act sections 314, 326 and 352. Anti-money-laundering is spelled out in detail: the stages (placement, layering, structuring), SAR and CTR reporting, FinCEN, OFAC and the SDN list.

The smallest section concerns the people in the industry rather than the products: who must register, what disqualifies someone, fingerprinting and background checks, continuing education, and the events an employee must report. The outline's list for this section includes, among others, the FINRA By-Laws (Articles I, III, IV, V, VI, XII, XV), the 0100 and 1000 rule series, Rules 1122, 1240, 2263, 3270 (outside business activities), 3280 (private securities transactions), 4513, 4530 and 8312 (BrokerCheck), MSRB G-2, G-3, G-7, G-10, G-20 and G-37, and SEC Rule 17f-2 on fingerprinting.

The outline makes a point that shapes how to study. "Much of the content on the SIE outline is based on common securities industry knowledge and general concepts", it says, giving as examples "the relationship between the price and yield of a bond and the rights of a common stockholder". Other items rest on specific rules, such as "the reporting requirements for a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR)" and Form U4 filing. The exam tests both. It names four Acts as the foundation: the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Investment Company Act of 1940 and the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. The outline does not say whether you must recognise exact rule numbers. Use the lists as source references, learn the concept and the requirement behind each, and read the rule itself when a prep book is vague.

FINRA offers a free, untimed SIE practice test of 75 questions "similar to those you might find on the SIE exam", with feedback at the end. Two cautions come from FINRA itself: your score on it "should not be taken as an absolute prediction" of the real result, and each real exam "will include some, but not all, of the content" in the outline. Use the practice test to find the sections where you are weakest, then study those from the outline headings above, rather than repeating the same 75 questions. ProSyllabus has no SIE practice quizzes yet, so this guide does not point you to any.