The Series 9/10 (General Securities Sales Supervisor) registration requires two separate exams: the Series 9 (55 scored questions, 90 minutes, options supervision) and the Series 10 (145 scored questions, 4 hours, general securities supervision), each with a 70% passing score. Combined fees run $410, and you need a valid Series 7 plus sponsorship. It's the branch-manager license — sales supervision across every product, including the options and munis the Series 24 doesn't cover.
The Series 9/10 qualifies you as a General Securities Sales Supervisor — the classic branch office manager registration. It authorizes supervision of sales activities across the widest product set of any principal exam: corporate equity and debt, investment company products and variable contracts, municipal securities, options, government securities, and DPPs. It satisfies the supervisory testing requirements of FINRA, NYSE, Cboe, MSRB, and Nasdaq in one registration.
The trade-off versus the Series 24 defines the choice. The 9/10 covers sales supervision only — it doesn't let you supervise underwriting, trading, market making, advertising, or firm-level compliance. The 24 covers all of that, but excludes options and municipal supervision. Wirehouse and regional branch managers overwhelmingly hold the 9/10, because a branch's daily reality is retail sales across everything, options included.
| Series 9 | Series 10 | |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | Options sales supervision | General securities sales supervision |
| Scored questions | 55 (+5 unscored) | 145 (+10 unscored) |
| Time limit | 90 minutes | 4 hours |
| Passing score | 70% | 70% |
| Prerequisite | Valid Series 7 + firm sponsorship (both exams) | |
| Combined fee | $410 total (paid per exam) | |
| Sequencing | Either order; both passed within two years of each other | |
Everything a supervisor must approve, monitor, and escalate in options accounts: account approval and suitability (including the Registered Options Principal framework), position and exercise limits, communications rules, margin implications, and handling complaints and errors. Even though it's the short exam, it assumes your Series 7 options knowledge is current — strategies, breakevens, and assignment mechanics show up wearing supervisory clothes.
The long haul: hiring and registration of reps, account opening and supervision across product types, sales practice rules (suitability, churning, unauthorized trading), municipal and government securities sales rules, variable products, communications approval, and complaint/dispute procedures. It's four hours of "who approves what, when, and what happens when a rep gets it wrong."
FINRA doesn't publish pass rates, and the two halves fail people differently. The Series 9 fails candidates whose options fluency faded since the Series 7 — supervision questions presume you can still read a spread instantly. The Series 10 fails candidates on endurance and rule blur: 145 scored questions of lookalike sales-practice regulations where day-counts, approval chains, and escalation duties swap between similar rules. Neither exam has meaningful math; both punish imprecise recall.
Plan on 50–90 hours total, typically weighted two-thirds to the Series 10. Most candidates sit the exams a few weeks apart rather than same-day — sequencing the 10 first while motivation is highest, then the 9 with a focused options refresher, is a common and sensible pattern. If your options knowledge is rusty, budget dedicated review before touching Series 9 supervisory material; supervision of a strategy you can't read is unlearnable.
Two exams, one failure mode: rules that blur. Passive re-reading makes 20 similar supervisory obligations feel familiar and leaves them indistinguishable under the clock. What separates them durably is retrieval practice — being forced to produce which principal approves this account within how many days — plus spaced repetition to keep early material alive while you push through the Series 10's volume, and immediate correction of every miss.
Trelos is built entirely around those techniques. It teaches each rule, drills it the way FINRA words it, and schedules reviews so both exams' material sticks — including the options refresher the Series 9 quietly demands.
Start the Series 9/10 on Trelos — freeNo credit card. Feel the retention engine work in your first session.With both exams passed and registration complete, you can supervise sales activity — approving new accounts, reviewing correspondence and trades, and serving as the branch's front-line principal. Supervisors moving toward firm-level compliance, trading oversight, or running a broker-dealer add the Series 24; note that even with a 9/10, options and municipal principal functions beyond sales supervision require the Series 4 and 53 respectively.