For the first time since the National Council Licensure Examination was revised in 2023, the annual pass rate has decreased, according to new data from the National Council of State Boards of Nursing.
Only 69.1% of nursing candidates passed the exam in 2025, representing a decline from the 73.3% pass rate in 2024 and the 69.7% rate in 2023.
In April 2023, the council launched the Next Generation NCLEX, which is designed to better measure clinical judgment and decision-making.
After the redesign, the percentage of nurses who took the NCLEX-RN pass rate increased, from 63.4% in 2022 to 69.7% in 2023.
The rise in pass rates subsequently raised some eyebrows, with critics saying the test got easier and educators were teaching to the test. Nurse educators and chief nursing executives at hospital systems disagreed, arguing the higher pass rate reflected improvements in education programs and resources, such as more hands-on training and NCLEX prep courses.
In 2024, four chief nursing executives told Becker’s the COVID-19 pandemic was a factor for the decline in pass rates, as 72.8% of NCLEX-RN candidates passed the test in 2019. Pass rates continued to decline through 2022 to 63.4%, an all-time low over the past decade.
Prior to the pandemic, this figure was relatively stable, with an average pass rate of 72.05% between 2016 and 2019, according to the council.
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