SJC Customs Training

The percentage of first-time takers to pass the Customs Broker License Examination is most likely well within the single digits these past 3-4 exams, which means that 90+% of exam candidates must take the exam again to reach their goal.  Even in relatively high pass rate years, the percentage of those who do not pass on the first attempt cannot be much lower than 80%.  Year after year, therefore, the majority of those who DO pass the exam have taken it at least twice and more than likely even three or four times.

Of course, many would argue that an exam that has a failure rate of over 90% must inherently be unfair.  But, because the exam is merely one part of a process that produces licensed customs brokers, one response to such an argument is that the system may be calibrated to produce a certain number of brokers per year.  So, if the low exam pass rate is not causing that number to exceed or fall below an acceptable range, there may be less incentive to change the exam.

Put another way, CBP may believe that the current virtual requirement of having to take the license exam at least twice is acceptable.  Who knows, they may even believe that this is a welcome or desirable result.

As they say, it is what it is.

SJC, as noted in this space previously, believes there are significant benefits to taking the exam a second, third or even more times.  None of these benefits necessarily outweighs the time, energy or psychological burden that accompany multiple attempts.  But, at least one thing should be absolutely clear: no one should give up on passing the exam after one attempt or two.  Because of the virtual requirement of taking the exam more than once, not doing so would, in essence, be the same as not following standard practice.