FL-SO-D Pass Rate 2026: What the Data Shows

Why There's No Single Published FL-SO-D Pass Rate

If you're searching for a headline percentage - "X% of candidates pass the FL-SO-D exam" - you should know why that number doesn't exist in any official Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) publication. The Class "D" Security Officer License assessment isn't a centralized, vendor-proctored exam with aggregated statewide reporting. Instead, it's administered by a licensed Class DS school or training facility as a built-in part of the approved 40-hour curriculum. Testing happens throughout the course or at its conclusion, with a minimum of two aggregate testing hours required.

Because every Class DS school runs its own assessment sessions, there is no centralized clearinghouse tracking and publishing a single pass/fail statistic the way some national certification bodies do. That's an important distinction to understand before you go looking for a magic number - and it's part of what makes this article different from generic "here's the pass rate" content. What the available data does show is the structure of the exam itself: how many questions are asked, how they're distributed across the 18 required domains, and exactly how many correct answers are needed to pass.

What the 128-of-170 Threshold Actually Tells You

The concrete, verifiable data point every candidate should anchor to is this: approved FL-SO-D assessments total 170 questions, and 128 correct answers are required to pass. That's roughly a 75% threshold on a fixed-length exam - not a percentile rank, not a scaled score, and not something that moves based on how other candidates in your cohort perform.

This matters because it reframes the entire "pass rate" conversation. Instead of asking "what's the average pass rate," the more useful question is: "which of the 170 questions am I most likely to miss, and which domains do those questions come from?" For a full breakdown of how the scoring threshold interacts with domain content, see FL-SO-D Passing Score 2026: Exactly What You Need to Pass.

Domain Question Allocation: The Real Difficulty Map

The most reliable "data" available to a candidate isn't a pass-rate percentage - it's the official question allocation across the 18 domains defined in the Security Officer Training Curriculum Guide (P-01878, revision 11/2018), incorporated into Florida Administrative Code as Ref-10454 under Rule 5N-1.140. These allocations tell you exactly where the exam concentrates its questions, and they should drive how you size your practice sets. For the complete content breakdown of each domain, see FL-SO-D Exam Domains 2026: Complete Guide to All 18 Content Areas.

Four domains - Legal Aspects of Private Security (26), Medical Emergencies (19), Observation and Incident Reporting (17), and Special Issues (17) - together account for 79 of the 170 questions, nearly half the exam. That's the single most important "data point" a candidate can use to allocate study time.

Format Mechanics That Quietly Affect Your Odds

Beyond raw question counts, a few structural rules shape how the exam is written and, indirectly, how predictable it is:

• True/false cap: No more than 50% of the questions in any given subject may be true/false. That means every domain also includes multiple-choice or other formats, so you can't rely on binary guessing to clear a domain.
• Two-hour minimum, not a time limit: The curriculum requires at least two aggregate hours of testing across the 40-hour course. This is a floor for how much testing must occur, not a ceiling on how long you have - don't confuse the two when planning your pace.
• School-administered, not vendor-booked: Because a licensed Class DS school delivers both training and the assessment, question presentation, pacing, and session structure can vary slightly between schools even though the domain allocations and passing score are fixed statewide.

These mechanics are worth understanding before exam day. For a deeper look at how these rules translate into real difficulty, read How Hard Is the FL-SO-D Exam? Complete Difficulty Guide 2026.

Who Sits for This Exam and Why Outcomes Vary

Candidates pursuing the Class "D" Security Officer License come from a wide range of backgrounds: career changers entering unarmed guard positions, applicants transitioning from military or law enforcement, and current employees whose employer requires state licensing to work contract security posts, retail loss prevention, or facility access roles. Because Class D alone does not authorize carrying a firearm for security duties, most candidates are pursuing entry-level or mid-level unarmed officer roles rather than armed positions.

Outcomes on the assessment tend to track two things more than any demographic factor: how much attention a candidate paid during the required 40 instructional hours, and whether they treated the heavily-weighted domains (Legal Aspects, Medical Emergencies, Observation and Incident Reporting, Special Issues) as priority review areas rather than background material. Applicants must also meet baseline eligibility - at least 18 years old and the agency's status and suitability requirements - before training even begins. If you're unsure whether you qualify, review FL-SO-D Requirements 2026: Eligibility, Prerequisites & How to Qualify before enrolling in a course.

Building a Study Plan Around the Real Numbers

Rather than a generic weekly study template, the smartest approach is to size your review time to the official question allocations. A domain worth 26 questions deserves proportionally more review sessions than one worth 4 - that's the actual "data" this exam gives you, and it should drive your calendar more than any outside study framework.

For a structured walkthrough of this exact approach, see FL-SO-D Study Guide 2026: How to Pass on Your First Attempt, and use FL-SO-D Cheat Sheet 2026: One-Page Review of Must-Know Facts as a fast-reference tool during your final review days. You can reinforce every domain with realistic practice questions on the main practice test platform before you sit for the real assessment.

After You Pass: What the Renewal Data Shows

Passing is only half the lifecycle. The Class "D" license is valid for two years, and the published renewal schedule lists a $45 renewal fee plus $16.75 for fingerprint retention. Training completed on or after July 19, 2023 uses FDACS certificate verification during the application process, so keep your school training certificate accessible when you apply or renew. If you're weighing total costs before enrolling, compare these figures against course tuition in FL-SO-D Certification Cost 2026: Complete Pricing Breakdown.

Because live-online instruction and testing are permitted under compliant platforms with instructor, identity, attendance, and platform safeguards, some candidates complete their 40 hours remotely - but self-paced exam practice on its own does not replace the approved training requirement. Once you're licensed, explore what roles are actually available in FL-SO-D Jobs.

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