When Do FRM Results Come Out? The Eight Week Rule, Read Correctly
Almost every answer to this question online says six to eight weeks after the exam. That phrasing is close enough to sound right and wrong in the one place that matters.
GARP commits to making results available in the candidate portal within eight weeks of the exam window closing. Not eight weeks after your exam. Eight weeks after the last candidate in your window sits. Since a Part 1 window runs across seven days, two candidates who took the same paper can wait very different lengths of time, and the one who sat on the first morning waits the longest. That single distinction settles most of the anxiety in this period, because it turns an unknown date into an arithmetic one.
Key Takeaways
- GARP commits to results within eight weeks of the exam window closing, not eight weeks after the day you sat.
- Every candidate in a window receives their result on the same date, so an early slot means a longer wait.
- For November 2026 the ceilings are 15 January 2027 for Part 1 and 20 January 2027 for Part 2.
- The time is spent on standard setting and psychometric review across the whole cohort, not on marking.
- The report gives a pass or fail plus a quartile for each topic area. There is no score and no published passing mark.
- Quartiles are relative to your cohort, so use them to rank your own topics rather than to judge whether you know one.
The number most candidates are carrying is the wrong one
GARP publishes one commitment and it is worth reading exactly. Results are accessible on the candidate portal within eight weeks of the exam window closing. There is no promised date, no published hour, and no separate schedule for Part 1 and Part 2 beyond the fact that their windows close on different days.
Two things follow immediately. The first is that the clock does not start on your exam day. It starts on the last day of the window, which for a Part 1 candidate may be six days after they sat. The second is that eight weeks is a ceiling rather than a target. Releases have often landed earlier than the ceiling, which is where the widely repeated six to eight weeks comes from, but an earlier release is an observation about past windows and not a commitment about yours. The only number you can plan a decision around is the eight.
Counting eight weeks forward from the day you sat, then treating the date you land on as a deadline GARP has missed. A candidate who sat on the first day of a seven day window and counts from their own exam day will be a full week early, will conclude on that date that something has gone wrong, and will spend the last week of a normal wait convinced they have been forgotten.
The reason the window exists at all is capacity. A single day sitting for a global candidate population is not deliverable at test centres, so GARP spreads Part 1 across roughly a week and Part 2 across the days immediately after. Grading cannot begin in earnest until every candidate has sat, because the standard has to be set once across the whole cohort rather than separately for the people who happened to book early.
Working out your own results date
The calculation has two inputs: the closing date of your window and the number eight. Everything else is noise.
Take the November 2026 administration, where GARP has published Part 1 across 14 to 20 November and Part 2 across 21 to 25 November. The Part 1 window closes on 20 November, so the eight week ceiling falls on 15 January 2027. The Part 2 window closes on 25 November, so its ceiling falls on 20 January 2027.
| Exam | Window | Window closes | Results by, at the latest |
|---|---|---|---|
| Part 1 | 14 to 20 November 2026 | 20 November 2026 | 15 January 2027 |
| Part 2 | 21 to 25 November 2026 | 25 November 2026 | 20 January 2027 |
Two candidates sit Part 1 in November 2026. One books the first available slot on 14 November. The other books the last, on 20 November. How long does each of them wait?
- The window closes on 20 November for both of them, regardless of which day each one sat.
- Eight weeks from 20 November is 15 January 2027. That is the same date for both.
- Candidate A sat on 14 November, so the wait from their own exam day is 62 days, which is eight weeks and six days.
- Candidate B sat on 20 November, so the wait is 56 days, exactly eight weeks.
- A Part 2 candidate who sat on 21 November waits until 20 January, which is 60 days, even though they sat a full week after Candidate A.
Answer: the results date belongs to the window, not to the candidate. Booking an early slot buys a shorter preparation runway and a longer wait, and booking a late slot does the reverse. Neither changes when the result appears.
One practical consequence for candidates who book early in the window: if you plan to travel or take leave after the exam, plan it for the fortnight after you sit rather than the fortnight before the ceiling. The end of the wait is fixed and the beginning is not.
Why it takes eight weeks and not two
The exam is multiple choice and machine marked, so the obvious question is why the answer does not arrive the same evening. The marking is not what takes the time. The standard setting is.
GARP does not publish a fixed passing score. There is no number of correct answers that guarantees a pass and no percentage published after the fact. The passing standard is determined for each administration, which means the raw responses of the entire cohort have to be in before anyone can be told whether they cleared it. This is why the window has to close first, and it is also why a candidate who sat on day one cannot be graded ahead of the rest.
The work in between is psychometric. Individual questions are examined for how they performed across the cohort, since a question that strong candidates got wrong at a higher rate than weak ones is usually a flawed question rather than a hard one. Comparability across administrations has to be checked as well, because the May paper and the November paper are not identical and the standard is supposed to mean the same thing in both. Borderline cases receive additional review. None of this is fast, and none of it is work you would want skipped, because the value of the certification to everyone holding it depends on the standard being defensible.
The eight weeks are not administrative slowness. They are the price of a standard that is set once across a global cohort rather than applied mechanically to each script. A designation that graded on a fixed raw score would return results faster and would mean less.
It also explains why the result is binary. If the standard is set for the administration rather than fixed in advance, a raw score released alongside it would invite exactly the comparison it is not designed to support.
What actually arrives, and what does not
You will receive an email telling you the result is available, and the result itself sits in the GARP candidate portal. Candidates regularly report that the email lands in a promotions or spam folder, or goes to an address they no longer check, so the portal is the reliable place to look and the email is only the prompt. It is worth confirming that the email address on your GARP profile is current well before the ceiling date rather than during the week you are watching for it.
What arrives is narrower than most candidates expect.
| You receive | You do not receive |
|---|---|
| A pass or fail outcome | A numerical score |
| A quartile placement for each topic area, comparing you with other candidates in the same administration | The passing standard for your administration |
| Confirmation of your eligibility to register for the next step | A question by question breakdown |
The quartile placements are the only diagnostic information in the report, and they are the part most often misread. That is worth a section of its own.
Reading the quartile report correctly
For each topic area, the report tells you which quartile of candidates you fell into, with the first quartile being the strongest performing group. Every candidate reads it looking for the topic they were weakest in, and a good number of them draw the wrong conclusion from what they find.
The quartile is relative, not absolute. It tells you how you performed against other candidates on that topic in that administration. It does not tell you whether you understood the topic. Those two things come apart in both directions, and both directions matter.
A candidate who fails the exam overall may still find a first quartile placement in Quantitative Analysis. That does not mean quantitative analysis was a strength. It means that on the questions in that paper, in that window, they were less weak than most of a cohort that also struggled. Equally, a candidate who passes comfortably may sit in the third quartile on Valuation and Risk Models, which does not mean they cannot value an instrument. It means that particular set of candidates was strong on that particular set of questions.
Use the quartile report to rank your topics against each other, not to judge whether you know a topic. Your weakest quartile is the honest place to start revision. Your strongest quartile is not evidence that the topic is finished, particularly if you are progressing to Part 2, where several Part 1 topics reappear at a level that assumes fluency rather than familiarity.
The report is more useful for a candidate who has to resit than for one who has passed, and it is most useful in the first week you receive it. Candidates who wait a month before opening it properly have usually lost the memory of which questions felt uncertain, and the quartiles on their own cannot reconstruct that. We recommend reading the report against your own notes from exam day while both are still fresh.
One caution on comparing reports with other candidates. Quartiles are relative to a cohort, and cohorts differ between administrations. Two candidates in different windows holding the same quartile in the same topic have not necessarily performed the same, and there is no reliable way from outside to convert one into the other.
The one decision the wait actually forces
The waiting period is usually described as something to survive. In practice it contains a single decision with real consequences, and it is worth making deliberately rather than by default.
A Part 1 candidate from a November window receives their result in the middle of January. The early registration window for the following May exam is generally still open at that point, but not by a wide margin, and GARP publishes each cycle separately rather than committing to a fixed pattern. The decision is therefore whether to register for Part 2 before you know the Part 1 result, at the early fee, or to wait for certainty and accept whichever fee tier is open when you decide. Check the published deadline for your own cycle against your window closing date before assuming either way, since the gap has been narrow in some cycles.
There is a second decision hiding inside the first, and it is the one that matters more. A candidate who stops studying entirely for eight weeks does not restart where they left off. Part 2 assumes Part 1 fluency, and Part 1 material decays fastest in exactly the topics Part 2 leans on hardest, which are the quantitative and valuation foundations rather than the descriptive ones. Two months of complete disengagement is not neutral, and candidates routinely underestimate what it costs them in February.
Take a genuine break of one to two weeks. Then, for the remaining six, keep a light rhythm rather than a full study load. Four to six hours a week reading the Part 2 curriculum outline and revisiting the Part 1 topics that Part 2 builds on is enough to hold the material in place. This is not preparation for Part 2. It is preventing the cost of restarting from scratch, and the candidates who do it are visibly ahead when the result arrives.
We should be honest about the ordinary case as well. Most candidates spend some of these eight weeks reconstructing the paper from memory and estimating how many questions they got wrong. That estimate is not informative, because you do not know the passing standard, you do not know the cohort, and your recollection of which answers were uncertain is systematically biased toward the ones that troubled you. Finding the paper difficult is close to universal among candidates who pass. It carries no signal either way.
If the result is a fail
Around half of Part 1 candidates clear it in a typical window, which means a fail is an ordinary outcome rather than a verdict on ability. The useful response is mechanical rather than emotional.
Open the quartile report while the exam is still fresh and identify the two weakest topic areas. Then ask a harder question than the report can answer on its own: was the weakness conceptual, or was it pace. A candidate who understood the material but ran out of time in the fourth hour has a different problem from one who could not attempt the questions at all, and the quartile looks the same in both cases. Only your own memory of the exam separates them, which is the practical reason to read the report early.
The next window is three or four months away, and a resit is rarely a matter of covering the curriculum again from the beginning. Most candidates who fail narrowly do so on two topic areas and on pacing, and both are addressable in a focused cycle. Candidates who fail across the board are usually candidates who ran short on total preparation hours, and the honest fix there is the plan rather than the technique. On that point our position has not changed: we recommend planning against 500 to 600 hours per part rather than the average, because an average blends candidates who arrived with very different starting points.
Finally, remember what a pass on Part 1 does and does not do. Clearing Part 1 does not make anyone an FRM. Certification requires both parts, plus two years of relevant professional experience in financial risk, demonstrated within five years of passing Part 2. The results email is a milestone in a longer sequence, and treating it as the finish line is the most common way candidates lose momentum after a good outcome.
The short version
- GARP commits to results within eight weeks of the exam window closing, not eight weeks after your own exam day.
- Everyone in a window receives their result on the same day, so sitting early means waiting longer.
- For November 2026 the ceilings are 15 January 2027 for Part 1 and 20 January 2027 for Part 2.
- The time goes on standard setting and psychometric review across the whole cohort, not on marking.
- You receive a pass or fail plus quartiles by topic. There is no score and no published passing mark.
- Quartiles are relative to your cohort. Use them to rank your own topics, not to judge whether you know one.
Frequently Asked Questions
When exactly do FRM results come out?
GARP commits to making results available in the candidate portal within eight weeks of the exam window closing. There is no announced date and no fixed hour. The commonly quoted six to eight weeks describes what has often happened rather than what is promised, so the eight week ceiling measured from the window closing date is the only figure to plan against.
Does the wait start from my exam day or the end of the window?
From the end of the window. A Part 1 window runs across about seven days, so a candidate who sits on the first day waits roughly six days longer than one who sits on the last, and both receive their result on the same date. Counting eight weeks forward from your own exam day will make you a week early and will make a normal wait look like a delay.
Do Part 1 and Part 2 results arrive together?
No. The two windows close on different dates and each carries its own eight week ceiling. In November 2026, for example, Part 1 closes on 20 November and Part 2 on 25 November, so the Part 2 ceiling falls about five days after the Part 1 ceiling.
Will I get a score with my result?
No. GARP reports a pass or fail outcome together with a quartile placement for each topic area, comparing you with other candidates in the same administration. There is no numerical score, no published passing mark and no question by question breakdown.
What if the results email never arrives?
Log in to the GARP candidate portal directly, since the portal is where the result actually sits and the email is only a prompt. These emails frequently land in promotions or spam folders, and they go to whichever address is on your GARP profile, so confirm that address is current before the ceiling date rather than during the week you are watching for it.
Should I register for Part 2 before my Part 1 result arrives?
It depends on the fee tiers open in your cycle. November results usually land while the early registration window for the following May exam is still open, but the margin has been narrow and GARP publishes each cycle separately. Check the published early deadline against your window closing date, then decide whether the fee saving is worth registering without certainty.
Loading comments...
Add your Thoughts: