Question 1

What is on the SAFE MLO test?

Accepted Answer

The content outline splits the paper into 5 content areas with a published share each: Federal Mortgage-Related Laws 24 percent, Uniform State Content 11 percent, General Mortgage Knowledge 20 percent, Mortgage Loan Origination Activities 27 percent, Ethics 18 percent. The outline lists the topics under each area and names the statute or regulation behind them, and it is the only document the registry publishes about what the test covers.

Question 2

How many questions is it, and how long?

Accepted Answer

The paper is 120 multiple-choice items, of which 115 are scored and 5 are unscored pretest questions that do not affect the result. The test itself runs 190 minutes; the appointment is longer than that because it includes the check-in.

Question 3

What score do you need to pass?

Accepted Answer

75 percent. The SAFE Act sets it at s. 5104(d)(3)(A), which says an individual has not passed a qualified written test without a score of not less than that many percent correct, and the handbook states the same figure. It is the same in every state.

Question 4

Why does my test look different from somebody else who sat the same day?

Accepted Answer

Because it is. The national test is assembled on the fly, so each candidate is given a distinct form built to the same content outline. The forms differ slightly in difficulty, so a score is statistically equated to a standard form before it is reported. That is what stops a candidate who drew a harder form being marked down for it.

Question 5

Can you take anything into the room?

Accepted Answer

No. Personal items go in a locker before you are seated, and that includes phones, watches, bags, coats, notes, pens and pencils. Dictionaries, books, papers of any kind including scratch paper, and reference materials are not permitted in the test room. The test center administrator hands out a four-function basic calculator, so the arithmetic is expected and the reference material is not.

Question 6

Is there an official study guide?

Accepted Answer

There is an official content outline and nothing else. The handbook says the outline is the only study material the registry publishes, and that it describes the content and the test specifications the test development committees approved. Everything else on the market is somebody else's reading of it, this site included, which is why every answer here names the section it came from.

Question 7

Do you have to take a course before sitting?

Accepted Answer

Not before the test. The handbook is explicit that no pre-licensure course is required in order to sit. Licensure is a separate matter: s. 5104(c) requires at least 20 hours of approved pre-licensure education, of which three hours are federal law and regulations, three are ethics and two are nontraditional mortgage products, whether or not a preparation course was taken. Several states add hours of their own on top.

Question 8

Which version of a rule does the test expect?

Accepted Answer

The current one. The handbook tells candidates to answer from the statutes, regulations and rules as they stand, and says candidates are responsible for keeping up with changes whether or not they appear on the outline. That matters most for the figures a rule resets every year, so every question on this site says which regime a number belongs to and from when.

Question 9

How do you book the test?

Accepted Answer

Through the registry, not through the test center. A test enrollment is requested and paid for in the system, which opens a 180-day enrollment window. Inside that window the candidate accepts the candidate agreement and schedules an appointment. Miss the window and it closes, and a new enrollment has to be created and paid for.

Question 10

Do you sit it again for each state you want a license in?

Accepted Answer

No. The national test with uniform state content is passed once and carries across the states that use it, which is the whole point of the uniform state portion: one paper instead of a state-specific test beside it. A license is still per state, because s. 5103 requires one in each jurisdiction an originator works in, and several states add education requirements of their own.

Question 11

Where do you sit it?

Accepted Answer

At a test center or under an online proctor. The handbook puts the center count at nearly three hundred locations across the United States, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, and an appointment is booked online or by telephone once the enrollment window is open.

Question 12

What do you bring, and when do you arrive?

Accepted Answer

A current government-issued photo identification carrying your signature, and nothing else you need in the room. The handbook asks candidates to arrive, or to log in for an online proctored sitting, thirty minutes before the appointment. Everything else goes in a locker.

Question 13

When do you find out whether you passed?

Accepted Answer

At the center, provisionally. A printed score report is handed over before the candidate leaves, and it is not official until the result is posted in the registry, which the handbook puts within 72 hours. An online proctored sitting has no printed report: the official result is emailed within three business days.

Question 14

How long do you wait to retake a failed test?

Accepted Answer

30 calendar days from the previous test date. After every third failed test the wait is 180 calendar days instead. The waits are the statute's, not the test center's: s. 5104(d)(3) allows three consecutive attempts at least thirty days apart and then makes a candidate wait six months. Each attempt is a separate enrollment that has to be requested and paid for again.

Question 15

Does passing make you licensed?

Accepted Answer

No. Nobody may originate without a license and a unique identifier, which is s. 5103, and s. 5104(b) lists what a state license rests on: no revoked license anywhere, no disqualifying felony, financial responsibility and general fitness, the pre-licensure education, the written test, and a net worth or surety bond. Passing is one line of that list. Education has a clock on it too, and has to be taken again by anybody who has not held a license or a federal registration for three years.

Question 16

What does the test cost?

Accepted Answer

The test costs $110 per attempt, paid to NMLS when the test enrollment window is opened. A retake is a new enrollment at the same fee. The enrollment window is 180 days. The fee is paid in the registry rather than at the test center, and the center takes no payment at all.

Question 17

What does this site cost?

Accepted Answer

The free questions cost nothing and need no account. The full bank is $79 USD plus tax, once, with no subscription and no renewal. Every answer in it names the section of the CFR or the US Code it comes from, which is what you are paying for.

Questions and answers

The test paper itself