Series 24

The exam contains 150 items allocated across five major job functions: 9 on registration and personnel management, 45 on general broker-dealer activities, and 32 each on customer-related activities, trading and market making, and investment banking and research. Because roughly one-third of the exam sits in a single function, plan your study time accordingly.

The Series 9 and 10 are limited principal exams that qualify a branch manager to supervise sales activities - corporate securities, investment company products, variable contracts, municipal securities, options, government securities and DPPs - but not underwriting, trading, advertising or firm-wide financial compliance. The Series 24 covers those broader areas, but the general securities principal qualification does not cover municipal securities or options.

Yes. The Series 24 has corequisite requirements: you must also pass the SIE and a representative-level exam, or the Series 16. The combination determines the registration - SIE plus Series 7 yields General Securities Principal; 57 yields Securities Trader Principal; 79 Investment Banking Principal; 82 Private Securities Offerings Principal; 86 and 87 Research Principal.

No. Candidates must be associated with and sponsored by a FINRA member firm or another applicable self-regulatory organization member firm to be eligible for principal-level qualification exams. Your firm files the registration through the individual registration process; there is no self-sponsored pathway.

The current waiting periods are 30 days after the first and second unsuccessful attempts and 180 days after the third. Effective January 19, 2027, those shrink to 15 days and 60 days respectively. The new periods apply automatically to new enrollments and open enrollments without an appointment; requests made before that date will not be processed.

Those figures are not published on the exam information page this guide is based on, so we do not state them. Confirm the current appointment length, passing standard, and fee with FINRA or your firm's registration contact before you schedule, since they are set outside the content outline.

A general securities principal's supervisory responsibilities are governed by the limits of their representative-level registrations. Covered supervisory activities explicitly include advertising, market making, trading, and underwriting - the same four areas that distinguish the Series 24 from the limited Series 9/10 sales supervisor exams.

Start with general broker-dealer activities, the 45-item function, since it underpins supervision of written procedures, registration, and conduct rules. Then take the three 32-item functions in the order you find least familiar, and finish with the 9-item registration and personnel management function, which is small enough to review last without risk.

Treating the Series 24 like a product exam. The questions test supervisory judgment - whether a principal detected, escalated, documented and remediated - not whether you can price a bond. Weak spots are usually trading and market making and investment banking and research, where candidates skim the outline because the topics feel familiar from representative-level study.