The customs broker exam, explained: format, scoring, dates, and fee

The Customs Broker License Examination, usually shortened to CBLE, is the single knowledge gate to an individual customs broker license in the United States. It is run by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and passing it is what proves you have, in the words of the regulation, “sufficient knowledge of customs and related laws, regulations and procedures” to be trusted to file entries on an importer’s behalf. This guide lays out exactly what the exam is: its format, how it is scored, when it runs, what it costs, and what it covers. Every figure below is dated against the official CBP source.

The format at a glance

Element	Detail
Questions	80 multiple-choice
Time limit	4.5 hours
Format	Open book, delivered electronically
Passing score	75 percent, at least 60 of 80 correct
Frequency	Twice a year, the fourth Wednesday of April and October
Examination fee	$390

The exam is a single 80-question paper with four answer choices each. There is no essay, no oral component, and no separate practical section: the “practical exercises” you hear about are ordinary multiple-choice questions that happen to require you to work through a scenario, such as calculating duty or reading an entry summary, before you can choose an answer.

It is open book, and that is the whole trick

You may bring and use the permitted reference materials during the exam: the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS) and Title 19 of the Code of Federal Regulations (19 CFR), along with the CBP-supplied directives named in the notice of examination. Nothing is memorized under exam conditions, because everything you need is legally in front of you.

That sounds generous until you see the size of it. The HTSUS and 19 CFR together run to roughly 6,500 pages. With 80 questions in 4.5 hours you have on average a little over three minutes per question, and many questions demand two or three separate lookups. The candidates who pass are not the ones who know the most: they are the ones who can find the governing citation fast. This is why the exam is really a test of navigation speed, and why our open-book strategy guide and the navigation-speed trainer are built around drilling lookups rather than memorizing rules.

How it is scored

You need 75 percent to pass, which on an 80-question exam means 60 correct answers. There is no penalty for a wrong answer beyond losing that question’s point, so you should answer every question even when you have to guess. After the exam, CBP publishes an answer key and a formal appeal window during which candidates may challenge specific questions; a successful challenge can change the accepted answer for everyone, which occasionally moves a borderline score across the line.

For the license itself, the passing grade has to have been earned within the three-year period before you submit your license application. Pass the exam and then wait four years to apply, and the result has expired.

When it is held and how to register

The CBLE is offered twice a year, on the fourth Wednesday of April and the fourth Wednesday of October. For 2026 that is April 22 and October 28. Registration and payment run through CBP’s eCBP portal, and registration closes well before exam day, so you cannot decide to sit it the week before. CBP posts the exact registration window and the current notice of examination on its customs-broker pages, and because those dates move each cycle you should confirm them directly against CBP rather than trusting a secondary date you found in a study forum.

What it costs

The current examination fee is $390, paid through the eCBP portal when you register. That fee is only the exam. If you pass and go on to apply for the license, there are further fees:

Fee	Amount	When
Examination fee	$390	At registration, every attempt
Individual license application	$300	When you apply for the license after passing
Triennial status report	$100	Every three years, for all license holders
Annual permit user fee	$185.38	Annually, for a broker operating under a permit

Only the $390 exam fee is unavoidable to sit the test. The rest apply as you move from passing candidate to working, licensed broker. Because these figures are set by regulation and updated periodically, treat the amounts here as current as of the review date and confirm the live number on CBP’s fees page before you pay.

What the exam covers

CBP does not publish a fixed percentage blueprint, but the subject areas are well established from decades of released exams. The exam draws across:

• Entry and entry summary procedures (19 CFR Parts 141 to 143)
• Classification under the HTSUS and the General Rules of Interpretation
• Valuation and appraisement (19 CFR Part 152)
• Trade agreements and special programs
• Broker compliance, powers of attorney, and recordkeeping (19 CFR Parts 111 and 163)
• Marking, bonds, drawback, foreign trade zones, and warehouse entries
• Antidumping and countervailing duties, intellectual property rights, fines and penalties, and quotas

Classification and Entry are consistently the two heaviest areas, together making up close to half of a typical paper, with classification alone often running 18 to 20 questions. That weighting is why serious preparation front-loads the HTSUS and the entry regulations. Our study plan and is the CBLE hard guides go into how to spend your time against that weighting.

Who can take it

To sit the exam you must, on exam day, be a U.S. citizen at least 18 years old and not an officer or employee of the U.S. Treasury Department. There is no experience or education prerequisite to take the test. The stricter requirements, being at least 21 and of good moral character, attach to the license application, not the exam itself. The full path from sitting the exam to holding a license is laid out in how to become a licensed customs broker.

Next steps

If you are just starting, read the open-book strategy guide to understand why lookup speed decides the exam, then run a timed drill in the navigation trainer to see where your current lookup time lands. When you want to test recall on real scenario questions, the free practice test uses original questions written against the public exam blueprint.

Sources: U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Customs Broker License Examination notice of examination and Customs Broker Fees pages (cbp.gov), and 19 CFR Part 111 (ecfr.gov). Figures reviewed 2026-07-22. Exam dates and fees are set by CBP and change periodically; confirm the live figure against cbp.gov before you register or pay.