Series 7 and 6
The Series 6 exam in 2026
Ten practice questions across the Series 6 outline, each corrected at once. Below: who needs this license, what it allows you to sell and how the exam is built.
Your score · Series 6
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| Pass: scaled score of 70; here 7 of 10 correct (70%), an approximation |
| You can still miss 3 |
Practice questions written by Radif Partners from the official outline topics. They are not questions from the real exam. Progress is kept in this browser only (local storage) and never sent.
The Series 6, FINRA's Investment Company and Variable Contracts Products Representative exam, qualifies a person to sell a narrower range than the Series 7: mutual funds and other open-end investment company shares, closed-end funds during their initial offering, and variable annuities and variable life insurance. It is the exam of many bank and insurance-based representatives whose business centers on packaged products. The format is short: 50 scored questions plus 5 unscored ones, 1 hour 30 minutes to answer them, and a scaled passing score of 70 (FINRA Series 6 page). Since January 1, 2026 it costs $100, up from $75. Like the Series 7, it needs a sponsoring FINRA member firm, and the SIE is its corequisite: both must be passed for the registration. The content outline follows the same four job functions as the Series 7, with different weights: investment information and recommendations carries 25 items, half the exam, and seeking business 12, a much larger share than on the Series 7.
Mutual fund offering price
Public offering price
$21.05
| Charge per share | $1.05 |
| Charge as share of NAV | 5.26% |
| Shares bought | 475.000 |
The sales charge is a percentage of the offering price, not of the NAV: POP = NAV / (1 - sales charge).
Questions, formats and fees by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · Method
The Series 6 in figures
| Series 6, 2026 | |
|---|---|
| Questions | 50 scored questions plus 5 unscored |
| Time | 1 hour 30 minutes |
| Passing score | 70 (scaled) |
| Fee | $100 ($75 until the end of 2025) |
| Sponsoring firm | required |
| Corequisite | SIE |
Same four functions, different balance
The outline borrows the structure of the Series 7: seeking business, opening accounts, providing information and recommendations, processing transactions. What changes is the weight of each and the products behind them.
| Function | Subject | Series 6 items | Share on the Series 6 | Share on the Series 7 | Our questions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F1 | Seeking business | 12 | 24% | 7% | 22 |
| F2 | Opening accounts | 8 | 16% | 9% | 21 |
| F3 | Funds, variable contracts and recommendations | 25 | 50% | 73% | 51 |
| F4 | Orders and transactions | 5 | 10% | 11% | 10 |
The comparison shows the character of the exam. Seeking business and account opening together take a far larger share than on the Series 7, so rules about communications, prospectuses, customer information and suitability matter more. The products function is still the largest, but its content is concentrated on funds, variable contracts and municipal fund securities such as 529 plans.
What the products function asks
Investment companies
Open-end and closed-end structures, unit investment trusts and ETFs, fund objectives from growth to balanced and money market, share classes, 12b-1 fees, breakpoints, letters of intent, rights of accumulation and redemptions. The outline also names market timing and late trading among the sales practices to know.
Variable contracts
Separate accounts, accumulation units and annuity units, the assumed interest rate and its effect on payments, death benefits and riders, exchanges between annuities, and the tax treatment during accumulation, at annuitization and on surrender.
Fund pricing
The arithmetic of the Series 6 is mostly about prices. A fund with a net asset value of $20 and a 5% sales charge has a public offering price of $21.05, because the charge is a percentage of the offering price, not of the NAV. FINRA Rule 2341 caps the charge at 8.5% of the offering price (Rule 2341). The calculator under the citable block does the computation for any NAV, charge and amount; the fund pricing page adds the reverse calculation and the other caps.
Who takes the Series 6
Under FINRA Rule 1220, the investment company and variable contracts products representative is a limited category: the registration covers those products and nothing more. If your role may grow into stocks, bonds or options, the Series 7 may be the better first step; the license finder compares the paths. Most states also ask for a state law exam, often the Series 63. Once registered, a representative who later moves into supervision can take the Series 26, the principal exam for this product range, which costs $200 in 2026.
Accounts and suitability
The account opening function covers the same ground as on the Series 7 with a fund and annuity slant: registration types, retirement plans and rollovers, customer identification, privacy notices, and the investment profile behind a recommendation. Questions often ask which share class or which product suits a customer of a given age, horizon and amount, and whether an annuity exchange is in the customer's interest.
Preparing for it
Start from the SIE if it is not yet passed: much of the Series 6 vocabulary comes from it. Then work the practice sets above function by function, with extra time on the communication rules and on fund pricing, and finish with the timed Series 6 mock of 50 questions in the official proportions.