Alabama Real Estate Exam Study Guide

Studying for the Alabama real estate exam doesn’t have to feel like guesswork. This guide is for anyone working toward an Alabama real estate license, whether you’re still in your 60-hour course or already looking at test center dates.

Here’s the quick overview. Pearson VUE gives the exam on behalf of the Alabama Real Estate Commission (AREC). You’ll answer 120 scored questions, 80 on national real estate topics and 40 on Alabama law, and you need a scaled score of 70 to pass.

We built our plan around the official content outline, so your hours go where the points are. We also put together a free study guide you can keep next to you as you work through it.

Download the free Alabama real estate exam study guide (PDF).

What’s on the Alabama Real Estate Exam

The Alabama exam has two parts, and each one runs on its own clock. The national part has 80 scored questions and gives you 2.5 hours. The Alabama part has 40 scored questions and gives you 1 hour, so you have 3.5 hours in all. You take it in person at a Pearson VUE test center.

A few extra pretest questions are mixed in: 5 on the national part and 5 to 10 on the state part. They don’t count, and nothing tells you which ones they are, so treat every question as if it counts.

Your result is reported as a scaled score of 70. That isn’t 70% correct, and it isn’t a set number of right answers. Pearson VUE adjusts for small differences between exam versions, which is why we never turn the 70 into “X out of 120.”

	National Portion	State Portion
Scored questions	80	40
Time Limit	150 minutes	60 minutes
Passing Score	Scaled score of 70
Examen fee	$73 per attempt

On the national side, Real Estate Contracts and Agency is the biggest category at 16 questions. Real Property Characteristics, Legal Descriptions, and Property Use and Property Value and Appraisal come next with 11 each. Together, these three represent 48% of the exam. 

The Alabama part is more concentrated. Violations Which May Result in Disciplinary Actions alone is 15 of the 40 questions, and Licensing Requirements adds 7. Together, they represent more than 50% of the exam.

All of these counts come straight from Pearson VUE’s official Alabama content outline.

National – Topic Area(80 scored items)	Items	Exam %	State – Topic Area (40 scored items)	Items	Exam %
Real Estate Contracts and Agency	16	20%	Violations Which May Result in Disciplinary Actions	15	38%
Real Property Characteristics, Legal Descriptions, and Property Use	11	14%	Licensing Requirements	7	18%
Property Value and Appraisal	11	14%	Broker Licenses, Company Licenses, and Place of Business	5	13%
Real Estate Practice	10	12%	RECAD	3	7%
Forms of Ownership, Transfer, and Recording of Title	9	11%	License Status	2	5%
Property Disclosures and Environmental Issues	9	11%	Recovery Fund	2	5%
Financing and Settlement	7	9%	Disciplinary Actions and Process	2	5%
Real Estate Math Calculations	7	9%	Trust Funds	2	5%
			Purpose of License Law/Rules and Regulation and Role of Commission	1	2%
			Estimated Closing Statement	1	2%

Your 4-Week Alabama Exam Study Plan

Our plan runs four weeks and adds up to about 58 hours of new material, plus a final week for timed practice. It isn’t evenly paced on purpose. The Alabama part has half as many questions as the national part, but those topics need more time per question because a national textbook won’t cover them.

• Week 1 is national foundations and takes about 15 hours. Start with Real Property Characteristics, Legal Descriptions, and Property Use, then move to Forms of Ownership, Transfer, and Recording of Title. Property ideas show up inside almost every other topic, so they come first. Property Disclosures and Environmental Issues rides along because lead paint, flood zones, and land use controls belong together. Close the week with the contract half of Contracts and Agency, covering valid contract elements, offers and counteroffers, earnest money, and contingencies.
• Week 2 is national advanced and takes about 18 hours. Begin with agency, which finishes the Contracts and Agency category, then work through Real Estate Practice (fair housing lives here), Property Value and Appraisal, and Financing and Settlement. Give Real Estate Math Calculations a full day, because formulas only stick when you work real problems.
• Week 3 is where Alabama stops looking like every other state’s exam, and it’s your heaviest week at about 25 hours. Spend roughly 9 of them on Violations Which May Result in Disciplinary Actions. Then cover Licensing Requirements, Broker Licenses, Company Licenses, and Place of Business, License Status, the Recovery Fund, Disciplinary Actions and Process, RECAD, Trust Funds, and the last two small topics. AREC updated several of these rules in 2025, so study the current versions.
• Week 4 is practice and review, about 10 to 12 hours. Time the national part at 2.5 hours and the state part at 1 hour, separately, so the real clocks feel familiar. Then spend the rest of the week on the topics where you keep losing points. A free practice exam on Lexawise is a good way to find them, and we link to it below.

Top Topics That Appear Most on the Alabama Exam

A handful of topics carry most of your score, and it helps to know why they matter, not just that they show up.

On the national side, Real Estate Contracts and Agency is the biggest category at 16 questions, and more than half of them ask you to apply a rule to a situation or analyze one. Every deal runs on a contract, and what you owe each party depends on the agency relationship, so these questions are really asking what you would do at that moment.

Property Value and Appraisal (11 questions) covers the three approaches to value, CMAs, and BPOs, which are tools you’ll use with clients. The math category then turns the same ideas into numbers, like NOI and cap rate. Closing isn’t its own category. It lives inside Financing and Settlement (7 questions), next to TILA, TRID, RESPA, and ECOA. Real Estate Math Calculations has 7 more, and since they’re all application or analysis questions, they’re predictable and a good place to lock in points.

Fair housing sits inside Real Estate Practice and is worth 3 of that category’s 10 questions. It covers protected classes, illegal practices, penalties, and prohibited advertising, which are situations where your own conduct is on the line.

On the Alabama side, Violations Which May Result in Disciplinary Actions is worth 15 of 40 questions, close to 38%. Its list covers things you’ll face in your first week, like advertising, disclosure, record keeping, rebates, commissions paid to unlicensed persons, and listing agreements. The questions ask whether an action would get a licensee in trouble, and knowing why each rule exists makes those answers much easier.

Licensing Requirements, Broker Licenses, Company Licenses, and Place of Business, and License Status add up to 14 questions. They decide who can do what, who answers for whom (the qualifying broker is the best example), and what happens when a license moves or goes inactive.

The small categories still deserve a look. Trust Funds is only 2 questions, but it’s about other people’s money, and AREC updated its deposit rules in 2025. The Commission’s role (1 question), the disciplinary process (2), and the Recovery Fund (2) add 5 more that are easy to pick up if you don’t skip them. RECAD, Alabama’s agency and disclosure law, is worth 3 questions and changed in 2025 too.

Alabama Real Estate Exam Study Tips

Start with the real law. The exam tests the Code of Alabama, Title 34, Chapter 27, and the Commission’s rules in Chapter 790-X of the Alabama Administrative Code. AREC changed several of them in 2025, so read the current text, not a copy from a few years back.

Learn the math early. You need to memorize 43,560 square feet per acre and 5,280 feet per mile, because the test center doesn’t give you either one. Personal calculators aren’t allowed, though an online calculator is built into the exam, so practice without your phone.

Understand the why, not just the what. If you know why a rule exists, like why a licensee can’t pay a rebate or why a written listing needs a fixed end date, you can handle a topic you’ve never seen worded that way.

Practice under the real clock: 2.5 hours for the national part and 1 hour for the state part. After each session, look at what you missed and spend your next study block there, instead of rereading what you already know.

Ready to see how your plan holds up on a real test? Take our free Alabama real estate practice exam, see your score, and find out which areas need more time.

Alabama Real Estate Exam Requirements

Here’s the quick reference for getting to the test center.

• Be a U.S. citizen, permanent resident alien or legally present in the U.S. 
• Be at least 19 years old.
• Show proof of bona fide residency in any state in the U.S.
• Show proof of high school graduation or GED.
• Not have been convicted of a felony or a crime involving moral turpitude. If an applicant has such a conviction, he/she may file an “Application for Determination of Licensing Eligibility” form with the Commission prior to completing any other licensing requirements. The Commission will review the applicant’s conviction(s) and determine if he/she is eligible to obtain an Alabama real estate license.
• Not have had a real estate application or license rejected or revoked in any state within the past two years.
• Complete an approved 60-hour pre-license course with a minimum passing grade of 70%.
• Pass the licensing examination.

Once you pass, your result is good for 90 days, so plan to apply for your license soon after. Requirements and fees can change, so confirm the current list with AREC before you apply. For the full walkthrough, see our Alabama real estate license requirements page.

Download Your Free Alabama Exam Study Guide

Think of the PDF as a companion to this plan. It packs the exam structure, the weight of every topic, the math formulas, and the key Alabama terms (AREC, RECAD, the Recovery Fund, the qualifying broker, and more) into one study guide you can keep open next to your course. It’s a direct download, no email needed, and it’s a study guide, not a practice test.

Download the free Alabama real estate exam study guide (PDF).

When you’re ready to practice, try our free Alabama real estate practice exam. And if you want the full question bank and a way to track your weak areas, our Alabama real estate exam prep picks up where this guide leaves off.