Texas Bar Exam Quick Facts
Administering Body: Texas Board of Law Examiners
UBE State: Yes
Passing Score: 270
MPRE Required: 85
Next Exam: 23-24 February 2027
First Filing Deadline: 1 September 2026
Score Transfer Window: 5 years
NextGen UBE From: July 2028
Sources: Texas Board of Law Examiners, examination dates; NCBE jurisdiction profile for Texas. Checked 1 August 2026. The July 2026 exam was held on 28-29 July 2026; figures here look forward to the February 2027 administration.
What Kind of Exam Texas Gives You
Texas administers the Uniform Bar Examination. That single fact decides most of what your preparation looks like: you study general American law rather than a long list of Texas-only subjects, and the score you earn is portable to other UBE jurisdictions instead of being locked to one state.
The practical consequence is that a Texas bar candidate and a New York bar candidate sit substantially the same exam. The difference is the number each state demands. Texas requires 270. New York requires 266. The exam does not get harder as you cross the state line, but the bar you must clear does move.
Being a UBE state does not mean there is nothing Texas-specific. Every applicant admitted from February 2021 onwards must complete the Texas Law Component: roughly 12 hours of recorded lectures with "hurdle questions" you have to answer correctly before the next segment unlocks. It is not scored like an exam, but you cannot be licensed until it is done, and it applies whether you sit the Texas exam, transfer a UBE score in, or are admitted without examination.
Plan for the switch: Texas is scheduled to administer the NextGen UBE for the first time in July 2028. Anyone sitting in 2027 takes the current exam. If you are choosing a law school now, check which exam you will actually face in your bar year.
Source: Rules Governing Admission to the Bar of Texas, Rules 2(a)(8) and 5(b); Texas BLE FAQ. Checked 1 August 2026.
Texas Bar Exam Format
The exam runs over two consecutive days. The written day comes first, the multiple-choice day second.
Day 1: Written Components
Multistate Essay Examination (MEE)
Six essay questions, 30 minutes each, three hours in total. Each question is self-contained and tests a single subject area or a narrow combination of two.
Multistate Performance Test (MPT)
Two closed-universe tasks, 90 minutes each, three hours in total. You are given a case file and a library and asked to produce a working document. No outside legal knowledge is required or rewarded.
Day 2: Multistate Bar Examination (MBE)
200 multiple-choice questions split into two three-hour sessions of 100 questions each. The MBE is scaled and carries half the total UBE score, which makes it the single most efficient place to gain or lose points.
What Texas Requires for Admission
Passing the exam is one requirement among several. The full set:
Exam and Score
- UBE score of 270 or higher
- MPRE score of 85 or higher
- Texas Law Component, roughly 12 hours
Eligibility and Character
- JD from an ABA-approved law school
- Character and fitness investigation, run by Texas itself, not through NCBE
- Declaration of Intention to Study Law, if you are a J.D. student at a Texas law school
The requirement people discover too late: if you are working towards a J.D. at a Texas law school, you must file a Declaration of Intention to Study Law during your studies, not when you apply for the exam. Timely deadlines are 1 October for autumn entrants, 1 May for regular spring entrants, 15 September for summer entrants, and within 60 days of matriculating if you transfer in from out of state. The fee is $190. It is an administrative form, but missing it creates a problem you cannot fix in bar-prep season.
Who this does not apply to: LL.M. students at Texas law schools are exempt, and students at law schools outside Texas never file one. If you are applying from an out-of-state school, this requirement is not yours.
Sources: Rules Governing Admission to the Bar of Texas (effective 6 January 2026), Rule 6; Texas BLE FAQ; NCBE character and fitness, Texas. Checked 1 August 2026.
Texas Bar Exam Pass Rates
Texas pass rates sit above the national picture, and the July 2025 administration was an unusually strong one for graduates of Texas law schools.
| Group (July 2025) | Pass Rate |
|---|---|
| Overall | 75.22% |
| All first-time takers | 84.11% |
| Texas law schools, first-time takers | 90.67% |
| Texas law schools, first-time takers (July 2024) | 88.67% |
3,145 people sat the July 2025 Texas exam in total. Of those, 3,112 were first-time takers or repeaters and counted towards the pass rate; the other 33 were courtesy seats, candidates sitting purely to earn a UBE score to transfer elsewhere, who are excluded from the published rates.
First-time takers from Texas law schools passed at over 90%, the highest rate for that group on a July exam in more than two decades. The overall figure sits well below it because it includes repeat takers, so if you are a first-time graduate of a Texas school the 90.67% line describes your position far better than the 75.22%.
Source: Texas Board of Law Examiners, July 2025 Examination Statistics (published 14 October 2025). Checked 1 August 2026.
Fees and Filing Deadlines
The fee depends on who you are, not on when you file. Filing late does not change the base fee; it adds a separate late fee on top.
| Applicant category | Exam application fee |
|---|---|
| In-state law students | $450 |
| Out-of-state law students | $640 |
| Attorneys licensed in another state | $1,190 |
| Foreign-trained applicants | $1,290 |
| Re-applicants | $545 |
| Laptop examination fee | $50 |
| Declaration of Intention to Study Law | $190 |
| Late fees (added, not replacing) | $150 or $300 |
February 2027 exam deadlines
- Registration opens: 30 June 2026
- Timely filing deadline: 1 September 2026
- Late filing deadline: 1 November 2026 (+$150)
- Final filing deadline: 1 December 2026 (+$300)
- Exam: 23-24 February 2027
July exams run on the same cycle shifted six months: registration opens 4 December, timely deadline 1 February, late 1 April (+$150), final 1 May (+$300).
Fees went up in July 2026: the Board raised bar exam application fees by $150, and re-application fees by a further $75, beginning with the July 2026 exam. The tiers above are the current published figures, but check the Board's own fee schedule before you pay rather than relying on any third-party page, including this one.
Sources: NCBE UBE jurisdictions, application deadlines and fees chart for Texas; Texas Board of Law Examiners, deadlines. Checked 1 August 2026.
Transferring a UBE Score Into or Out of Texas
A UBE score earned in another jurisdiction can be transferred to Texas if it meets the Texas cut score and is still within the transfer window.
Coming into Texas
- Minimum score: 270
- Transfer window: 5 years from the exam
- Still required: MPRE, character and fitness
Leaving Texas
A 270 clears the cut score in a large number of UBE jurisdictions, since many sit at 266 or below. Some sit above 270. Transfer windows also vary by state and are often shorter than Texas's five years, so check the destination jurisdiction rather than assuming your score travels.
Source: NCBE jurisdiction profile for Texas. Verified 1 August 2026.
How to Prepare for the Texas Exam
1. Aim above 270, not at it
Targeting the exact cut score leaves no margin for a bad essay or a mis-timed MPT. Aiming for the mid-270s buys you a buffer and makes the score portable to jurisdictions with higher cut scores.
2. Treat the MBE as half the exam, because it is
The MBE carries 50% of the UBE score and is the most predictable component to improve. Volume of timed practice questions, with genuine review of why wrong answers were wrong, moves this number more reliably than re-reading outlines.
3. Practise the MPT under a clock
The MPT tests document production under time pressure, not memory. Candidates lose points here to poor triage of the file rather than to gaps in legal knowledge, and that is a skill that only improves with timed repetition.
4. File on time and save $300
Missing the timely deadline adds $150, and missing the late one adds $300 on top of your application fee. Filing in the first window is the cheapest decision available to you in the whole process, and it also gets your character and fitness determination back faster.
Keep Going
The bar exam is the last gate, not the first. These guides cover the steps that come before it.