Module 11 — Passing the Exam · Lesson 11.3
After You Pass
Registration, the state exams, continuing education, and keeping the licence
~11 min
What you'll learn
- Sequence the steps from passing scores to an approved registration
- Identify the state exams a representative typically also needs
- State the annual continuing education obligations
- Describe the Form U5 process and the Maintaining Qualifications Program
- Identify the principal and specialist registrations that follow
Passing produces a qualification. Registration is a separate act, performed by the firm, and there are several things between the two that candidates are rarely told about in advance.
From a score to a registration
Your result is reported to FINRA and appears in the Central Registration Depository, where your firm can see it. There is nothing for you to file.
Registration as a General Securities Representative requires both the Series 7 and the SIE to be valid at the moment registration is granted, plus the Form U4 the firm filed, plus completion of the background and fingerprint checks. The firm submits the registration request; FINRA grants it; and the date the registration becomes effective is the date from which you may do business.
Until that date you may not solicit business, accept orders or receive transaction-based compensation. New hires who have passed and are waiting frequently want to start calling prospects, and the answer is no.
The firm will also complete its own onboarding: the compliance manual, the code of ethics, the outside business activities and personal trading disclosures under Rules 3270 and 3280, the branch office registration if relevant, and its Firm Element training.
Your registration is with a firm. It does not travel with you as a personal credential — when you leave, it is terminated, and it is the next firm's filing that restores it.
The state exams
FINRA registration is not state registration. Most states require an agent to pass the Uniform Securities Agent State Law Examination — the Series 63 — before transacting business with their residents.
The Series 63 is written by NASAA and administered by FINRA: 60 scored questions plus 5 pretest questions, 75 minutes, and 43 of 60 correct to pass. Its subject is the Uniform Securities Act with NASAA's amendments and the rules on dishonest and unethical business practices — a body of law with very little overlap with the Series 7's product knowledge, and heavily weighted toward conduct. Its two largest topics are ethical practices and obligations at 25 percent and communication with customers and prospects at 20 percent.
Because the overlap is small, the Series 63 is a genuinely separate study effort — but a short one, and most candidates take it within a few weeks of the Series 7 while the compliance material is fresh.
Representatives who will give advice for a fee generally add the Series 65, the Uniform Investment Adviser Law Examination, or take the Series 66, which combines the agent and adviser-representative content in one exam and may be taken by someone who holds or is taking the Series 7. Which you need depends on how your firm is structured and how you will be paid, and the firm's registration department will tell you.
A handful of states have their own additional requirements, and states approve registrations on their own timetable, so being FINRA-registered and not yet approved in a particular state is a normal and temporary condition — during which you may not transact with residents of that state.
Continuing education and staying registered
The Regulatory Element is annual. Every registered person must complete it by December 31 each year, for each registration category held, through FINRA's online CE platform reached from the FinPro gateway. FINRA publishes the year's learning topics by October 1. Failing to complete it makes a person CE inactive, and a CE inactive person may not perform any activity requiring registration.
The Firm Element is your firm's own annual training programme, built from its needs analysis and written training plan, sized to its business and its regulatory concerns, and documented.
Your Form U4 must be kept current. Amendments are required for changes in residential address, for new disclosure events — criminal charges, regulatory actions, customer complaints, judgments, liens, bankruptcy — and for outside business activities. The reporting deadlines are short and the obligation is continuing, not annual.
When you leave a firm, it files a Form U5 within thirty days, stating the reason for termination. That statement follows you into CRD and is seen by every firm that considers hiring you, so how a departure is characterized matters more than most people realise at the time.
If you leave the industry, the Maintaining Qualifications Program lets you keep a terminated registration alive for up to five years by completing CE annually, rather than requalifying by exam if you return. Eligibility requires having been registered in that category for at least a year immediately before termination, not being statutorily disqualified, and not having been CE inactive for two consecutive years. Enrollment must happen within two years of the termination date. Without it, a qualification generally expires two years after termination and the exam must be taken again.
What comes next
The Series 7 is a representative registration and there is a natural progression from it.
Supervisory registrations. The General Securities Principal, Series 24, permits supervision of a member's investment banking and securities business — approving accounts, approving communications, supervising representatives. The General Securities Sales Supervisor, Series 9 and 10, covers sales supervision including options. The Municipal Securities Principal is the Series 53, and the Municipal Fund Securities Limited Principal is the Series 51. The Financial and Operations Principal is the Series 27 or 28.
Specialist representative registrations sit alongside: Series 79 for investment banking, Series 86 and 87 for research analysts, Series 99 for operations professionals, Series 4 for registered options principals, Series 57 for securities traders.
And outside FINRA entirely, the professional designations — the CFP, the CFA, the CPA — are the credentials that mark a career rather than a permission.
One last thing worth saying plainly at the end of a course like this. The material you have just learned is a floor, not a ceiling: it is the minimum body of knowledge the industry requires before it will let you advise anyone. The rules exist because people were harmed, the products have features their sellers routinely misdescribe, and the customer sitting across from you generally cannot check what you tell them. Knowing this material well enough to pass is the requirement; knowing it well enough to be honest when it is inconvenient is the job.
Key takeaways
- ·Registration requires both exams valid at grant, the firm's Form U4, and completed background and fingerprint checks — and you may not do business until it is effective.
- ·Most states additionally require the Series 63; fee-based advice adds the Series 65 or 66.
- ·The Regulatory Element is annual and due by December 31; the Firm Element is your firm's own annual programme.
- ·A Form U5 is filed within thirty days of leaving, and its stated reason follows you in CRD.
- ·The MQP keeps a terminated registration alive for up to five years through annual CE, with enrollment within two years of termination.
That completes the course. The next thing to do is not to read it again — it is to work practice questions, revisit what you got wrong, and keep the revisits on the calendar until the exam.
Sources
- 1.Continuing Education (CE)
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) · finra.org
The annual Regulatory Element due by December 31 for each registration held, the October 1 publication of learning topics, and the Firm Element's needs analysis and written training plan requirements.
- 2.The Maintaining Qualifications Program (MQP)
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) · finra.org
Up to five years to re-register without requalifying by exam, the annual CE requirement, the eligibility conditions and the two-year enrollment deadline.
- 3.Series 63 Test Specifications, effective June 12, 2023
North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) · 2023
The Series 63's topic weights, including ethical practices and obligations at 25 percent and communication with customers and prospects at 20 percent.
- 4.FINRA Rule 1220 — Registration Categories
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) · FINRA Manual
The representative and principal registration categories, including the General Securities Representative, General Securities Principal and the specialist categories.