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California is one of the few U.S. jurisdictions that lets a lawyer admitted in another country sit its bar exam without a U.S. law degree. The State Bar's own words: "If you have been fully admitted to the practice of law in any U.S. or foreign jurisdiction, you are qualified to take the California Bar Examination without additional legal education" (Foreign Education). Foreign-trained candidates were 19.8 percent of General Bar Exam takers in July 2025 and 33.0 percent in February 2026 (July 2025 statistics; February 2026 statistics).
This guide is written for those candidates, and for everyone sitting the exam in a language that is not their first, whether they trained in China, Japan, Korea, India, Latin America or elsewhere. The exam is administered by the State Bar of California, often called "CalBar" (calbar.ca.gov), under the authority of the California Supreme Court. AntCABar is an independent course, not affiliated with or endorsed by the State Bar of California. Every fact links to the official page it comes from, at the State Bar of California, the California Supreme Court or the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE). We re-check each page after every official announcement. Last verified: September 24, 2026.
The exam at a glance (current format, through February 2028)
| Item | Detail | Official source |
|---|---|---|
| Length | Two days, entirely in person at State Bar test sites in California. There is no remote sitting and no site outside California. | July 2026 exam page |
| Day 1 (Tuesday), written | Five one-hour essays and one 90-minute Performance Test (PT). You are seated at 8:20 a.m. Morning session: essays 1 to 3 (3 hours). Afternoon session: essays 4 and 5 plus the PT (3.5 hours). Typed on your own laptop in ExamSoft Examplify; handwriting is optional. | July 2026 exam page; Scope |
| Day 2 (Wednesday), MBE | The NCBE Multistate Bar Examination (MBE): 200 multiple-choice questions in two 3-hour sessions of 100. 175 questions are scored (25 per subject) and 25 are unscored pretest items. Answered on a paper Scantron sheet with a No. 2 pencil, not on the laptop. | July 2026 exam page; NCBE MBE |
| Weighting | Written 50 percent, MBE 50 percent, combined on a 2,000-point scale. | Grading |
| Passing score | 1,390 of 2,000. Below 1,350 fails after one read. Scores from 1,350 to 1,389 get a full second read, and the average of the two reads must reach 1,390. | Grading; July 2025 bulletin |
| Subjects | 13 essay subjects. Seven are also MBE subjects: Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Criminal Law and Procedure, Evidence, Real Property, Torts. Six are essay-only: Business Associations, Community Property, Professional Responsibility, Remedies, Trusts, Wills and Succession. | Scope |
| Sittings | The last Tuesday and Wednesday of February and July. | Supreme Court order S296951 |
| Next sittings in this format | February 23–24, 2027 (posted). July 27–28, 2027 (anticipated, not yet posted). February 29 to March 1, 2028 by the same rule, the last sitting in this format. | Dates and Deadlines; State Bar notice, July 15, 2026 |
Who can sit
There are three routes for candidates educated outside the United States, all under Rule 4.30 of the Rules of the State Bar (Title 4 rules PDF):
- Admitted abroad (Route A). A lawyer fully admitted in any foreign jurisdiction registers as an attorney applicant and sits the two-day General Bar Exam. No LL.M., no credential evaluation and no transcripts are required (Foreign Admitted Attorneys).
- Foreign law degree, not admitted (Route B). A holder of a first degree in law, for example an LL.B., needs a credential evaluation and one year of U.S. legal education. In practice that year is a 20-unit LL.M. (Guidelines PDF).
- Foreign law study without a law degree (Route C). Possible, but it requires the First-Year Law Students' Examination and a U.S. JD-type program (Foreign Education).
One point surprises many foreign attorneys. The one-day Attorneys' Examination is only for lawyers with an active U.S. license in good standing for four or more years (Rule 4.3(C); Attorney Applicants). A lawyer admitted only abroad takes the full two-day General Bar Exam. That lawyer still pays the higher attorney-applicant fees (Appendix A). The details, and a decision flow, are on Eligibility for foreign-trained lawyers.
Which exam you will take, sitting by sitting
On July 15, 2026 the California Supreme Court approved a new exam. From July 2028 California will use the NCBE's NextGen Uniform Bar Exam (order PDF; State Bar notice). The table shows what that means for each sitting.
| Sitting | Format | Status |
|---|---|---|
| February 2027 | Current two-day exam: 5 essays + PT, 200 MBE questions, 1,390 passing score | Posted (Dates and Deadlines) |
| July 2027 | Same current format | Dates anticipated from the last-Tuesday rule; not yet posted |
| February 2028 | Same current format. Last sitting in this format and last scheduled one-day Attorneys' Exam | Inferred from the July 2028 NextGen start (State Bar notice) |
| July 2028 | NextGen UBE only: nine hours over 1.5 days, in person, on NCBE's ITS platform. No California component. Sites in Roseville, Oakland and Ontario. $145 NCBE technology fee (current figure) | Approved (Notices page) |
| February 2029 | NextGen UBE, still no California component | Approved (State Bar notice) |
| July 2029 and later | NextGen UBE plus a California component, if the Court approves the recommendation due February 26, 2027 | Proposed only (order PDF) |
Everything on AntCABar today targets the current format. The full story is on The 2028 NextGen change.
Key numbers to plan around
- Fees. Exam application $878 for a general applicant or $1,650 for an attorney applicant. Registration $155 or $310. Moral character $900 or $1,054. Laptop $153. MPRE $185, paid to the NCBE (Appendix A; NCBE MPRE registration). Every charge is on Fees.
- February 2027 deadlines. Applications open October 1, 2026. Timely deadline November 2, 2026. Final deadline January 4, 2027, with late fees of $50 and then $250 (Dates and Deadlines). Every sitting is on Dates and deadlines.
- Results. About 9.5 weeks after a February exam and about 14 weeks after a July exam, released in the Applicant Portal at 4:00 p.m. Pacific on a Friday. July 2026 results come on November 6, 2026 (California Bar Examination; Board action, July 16, 2026).
- Pass rates. July 2025: 54.8 percent overall, 18.2 percent for foreign attorneys and 13.4 percent for foreign-educated LL.M.-route applicants. February 2026: 30.8 percent, 22.2 percent and 17.8 percent (July 2025 statistics; February 2026 statistics).
Why the exam is hard for non-native English readers
In our view, the pass-rate gap is not mainly about legal knowledge. Foreign attorneys already practice law. We think the gap comes from three things the current format rewards: reading speed, writing five structured essays in five hours, and California-only subjects that no home-country training covers. Community Property is tested entirely under California law (Family Code and Probate Code §§ 100–103). Wills and Succession is tested entirely under the California Probate Code. Professional Responsibility is answered under both California and ABA rules (Scope), and it appeared on 49 of the last 50 exams (SmartBarPrep frequency analysis).
AntCABar is built to close that gap: a plain-English textbook for all 13 subjects, an MBE bank, and essay and PT practice with IRAC templates. Start with the subject list.
المصادر الرسمية
- State Bar of California: California Bar Examination, Dates and Deadlines, Scope of the Examination, Grading, Foreign Education, Attorney Applicants, Appendix A Schedule of Charges, Exam statistics.
- California Supreme Court: Administrative Order 2026-07-15-01, S296951.
- NCBE: California jurisdiction summary, MPRE registration.