The Series 24 (General Securities Principal) exam has 150 scored questions (plus 10 unscored), a 70% passing score (105 of 150), and a 195-minute limit. The fee is $235, and it requires sponsorship plus an underlying rep-level registration (usually the Series 7). It qualifies you to supervise nearly all of a broker-dealer's business — the standard license for compliance officers, branch leadership, and anyone starting a broker-dealer.
The Series 24 is FINRA's flagship principal exam. Passing it qualifies you as a General Securities Principal — authorized to supervise a member firm's investment banking and securities business: underwriting, trading and market making, advertising and communications, and overall regulatory compliance. It's the credential FINRA expects behind a firm's supervisory structure, which is why it's effectively mandatory for chief compliance officers, sales managers above the branch level, and founders registering a new broker-dealer.
Two scope carve-outs matter. The Series 24 does not cover supervision of options (that's the Series 4) or municipal securities (Series 53), and financial/operations principal duties need the Series 27. For supervising sales activity specifically — the branch-manager role — FINRA offers a narrower alternative, the Series 9/10, which trades breadth of authority for coverage of options and munis at the sales level.
| Scored questions | 150 (plus 10 unscored pretest) |
| Time limit | 3 hours 15 minutes (195 minutes) |
| Format | Multiple choice, four options |
| Passing score | 70% (105 of 150) |
| Fee | $235 (non-refundable) |
| Prerequisites | Sponsorship + rep registration (Series 7, 57, 79, 82, or 86/87) |
| Delivery | Prometric center or online proctored |
FINRA splits the exam across five supervisory functions. The opening function is small; the remaining four are nearly equal heavyweights, so there's nowhere to hide a weak area:
| Function | ~Questions | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Registration & personnel management | 9 | 6% |
| 2. General broker-dealer activities | 45 | 30% |
| 3. Retail & institutional customer-related activities | 32 | 21% |
| 4. Trading & market-making activities | 32 | 21% |
| 5. Investment banking & research | 32 | 21% |
The material is regulation in depth: written supervisory procedures, U4/U5 and registration mechanics, communications approval, best execution and trade reporting, Reg SHO, suitability and complaint handling, underwriting rules, and research analyst conflicts. Unlike the Series 7, there's little math — the difficulty is precise recall of who must approve what, within how many days, under which rule.
Estimates put the pass rate around 70–75%, but that number flatters the exam — everyone sitting it already passed a representative exam, and many still fail. The challenge is threefold: sheer volume (it's the longest exam most candidates have taken since the Series 7), lookalike rules with different day-counts and approval chains, and "best answer" supervisory judgment questions where two responses are defensible and FINRA wants the one a prudent principal would take first. Experienced managers often lose points precisely where their firm's practice differs from the rulebook answer.
Plan on 60–100 hours over 6–8 weeks. Industry experience helps with context but doesn't substitute for rule precision — most failed attempts come from candidates who leaned on experience for the judgment questions and hadn't memorized the mechanics behind them. Timed, full-length practice matters here more than on shorter exams: 195 minutes of dense regulation is an endurance event.
The Series 24's failure mode is drowning: hundreds of rules that blur together after passive reading. The exam rewards durable, differentiated recall — knowing that this filing is 30 days and that one is 10 business days, without hesitation. Retrieval practice forces those distinctions to form; spaced repetition keeps them separated as the pile grows; immediate correction of misses stops confusions from fossilizing.
Trelos is built entirely around those techniques. It teaches each rule, drills it the way FINRA words it, and schedules your reviews so 150 questions of supervisory detail stay straight — weighted across the four heavyweight functions where the Series 24 is decided.
Start the Series 24 on Trelos — freeNo credit card. Feel the retention engine work in your first session.Your firm completes the principal registration and you can formally take on supervisory responsibility — approving accounts and communications, overseeing trading desks, and signing off where FINRA requires a principal. Many Series 24 holders layer on the Series 4 (options), 53 (municipals), or 27 (FinOp) as their firm's needs dictate. If your supervisory scope is really branch-level sales across all products including options and munis, compare the Series 9/10 before committing.