GA-CAC Pass Rate 2026: What the Data Shows

Why There's No Official Published Pass Rate

If you're searching for a hard percentage on how many candidates pass the Georgia Conditioned Air Contractor Class II (Unrestricted) License Exam, you won't find one published by the Georgia Construction Industry Licensing Board or by PSI, the administering testing vendor. Unlike some national certifications that release annual pass-rate reports, Georgia's Division of Conditioned Air Contractors does not make candidate performance statistics public. Any number you see floating around the internet claiming to be "the GA-CAC pass rate" should be treated with skepticism - and in some cases it may even be describing an entirely different credential that happens to share the same acronym.

What this means practically is that your preparation strategy shouldn't be built around beating a statistic. It should be built around understanding exactly how the exam is scored, which domains carry the most weight, and which parts of the required experience and knowledge base tend to trip candidates up. That's the approach this article takes, and it's the same approach used throughout our GA-CAC Study Guide 2026.

What Actually Determines a Pass or Fail

Since there's no pass-rate benchmark to chase, the more useful question is: what actually separates a candidate who passes from one who doesn't? Based on the exam's structure, three factors matter most:

• Depth of qualifying field experience. Class II licensure by examination requires five years of full-time qualifying experience, including two years of commercial supervisory work, one year as a service technician or service supervisor, and two years of installation as a lead mechanic - with at least one commercial year on systems exceeding 175,000 BTU heating and 60,000 BTU cooling. Candidates who've genuinely logged this experience tend to recognize exam scenarios faster than those who are stretching to meet the minimum.
• Comfort navigating the approved references under time pressure. This is an open-reference exam, but that's a double-edged sword - if you don't already know where to find things in the 2024 Georgia Gas and Mechanical Codes or the 2023 NEC, flipping pages eats your clock.
• Mastery of System Design, which dominates the scoring at 55% of the exam. A candidate can be strong everywhere else and still struggle if this domain isn't solid.

For a full breakdown of prerequisites before you even schedule, see our GA-CAC Requirements 2026 guide.

The 70-Point Threshold You're Really Up Against

The exam consists of 100 scored questions plus 20 unscored beta questions, split across two parts of three hours and thirty minutes each. To pass, you need a minimum final scaled score of 70. Because the beta questions are unscored and indistinguishable from scored ones, you can't identify which 20 don't count - every question needs your full attention as if it were scored.

A scaled score isn't the same as "70 out of 100 raw questions correct." Scaled scoring adjusts for question difficulty across the beta pool and item variations, so the practical takeaway is simple: don't try to reverse-engineer how many questions you can afford to miss. Instead, aim to genuinely understand the material well enough that your raw performance comfortably clears the threshold with margin. Our GA-CAC Passing Score 2026 article goes deeper into how the scaled score works and what margin candidates should target.

Domain Weighting and Where Candidates Lose Points

The exam covers four content domains, and they are not weighted evenly. Understanding this weighting is the single most actionable piece of pass-rate-adjacent information available, because it tells you exactly where to invest study hours.

System Design being the majority of the exam means Manuals J, D, N, and Q - the Board-approved heat-loss/gain and duct-design training documentation - need to be second nature, not something you're relearning during the test window. Candidates who under-invest here because Installation and Maintenance "feel" more hands-on familiar are the ones most likely to fall short of 70. For a domain-by-domain breakdown with specific subtopics under each area, read our GA-CAC Exam Domains 2026 guide.

Exam Format Mechanics That Shape Outcomes

Several administrative details affect performance even before you get to content knowledge:

• Board approval comes first. You cannot simply register - you must be approved by the Board before you're permitted to schedule with PSI.
• Reference restrictions are strict. Only the approved 2024 Georgia Gas and Mechanical Codes (with Georgia amendments) and the 2023 NEC are allowed for exams scheduled May 1 through December 31, 2026. Permanent tabs, highlighting, and underlining are allowed in these references; photocopies and handwritten notes are prohibited. Bringing an unapproved reference or annotation style can create problems at check-in.
• Time is split into two large blocks. Two sessions of three hours and thirty minutes each is a long day of sustained, code-reference-heavy reasoning. Physical and mental stamina management matters as much as content knowledge.
• The application fee is $110 for Class II licensure by examination - budget for this alongside the rest of the licensing pathway. Our GA-CAC Certification Cost breakdown covers this and other associated expenses in full.

For the current testing windows and scheduling deadlines tied to these reference editions, check GA-CAC Exam Dates 2026.

What Happens After a Failed Attempt

The retake structure is one of the most important pieces of pass-rate context, because it directly shapes how much risk a rushed first attempt carries. After two failed attempts, Georgia requires candidates to complete a Board-approved review course before they're permitted to sit for a third exam. That's a meaningful consequence - it costs time, money, and adds a mandatory administrative hurdle that a well-prepared first attempt avoids entirely.

This retake rule is exactly why candidates should treat their first sitting as the real attempt rather than a "practice run." Underestimating how difficult the exam actually is is a common reason candidates end up in the two-failure bracket.

Who Sits for This Exam

Candidates for the Class II Unrestricted exam are typically technicians and installers already deep into their careers - the five-year experience requirement (commercial supervisory work, service technician or supervisor time, and lead-mechanic installation experience on larger commercial systems) means most people sitting for this exam are not entry-level. Alongside the experience affidavits and references, candidates must also pass a criminal background check, hold EPA Section 608 Type II and Type III certification, complete Board-approved heat-loss/gain and duct-design training, and provide identity and lawful-presence documentation.

Because of this experience floor, employers hiring for Class II Unrestricted-licensed roles are generally looking for contractors capable of running commercial installation and service work independently, not assisting on it. If you're weighing whether the licensure pathway is worth the time investment relative to what it opens up professionally, our ROI analysis and salary guide unpack that from a career-outcomes angle, and GA-CAC Jobs looks at where the license actually gets used in the field.

Building a Study Plan Around the Real Risk Areas

Given that there's no published pass rate to benchmark against, the smartest use of preparation time is aligning your study calendar with the exam's actual weighting rather than spreading effort evenly across all four domains. Since System Design carries 55% of the scored questions, it deserves the largest and earliest block of dedicated study time - not an afterthought squeezed in during the final week.

Run timed practice sessions on our practice test platform to simulate the two-part, 3-hour-30-minute format before exam day, and keep a running list of any reference lookups that took too long - those are exactly the tab-placement fixes worth making before you sit for the real thing. For a condensed reference of the highest-yield facts across all domains, our GA-CAC Cheat Sheet is designed as a final-week review tool, and the full study guide lays out the entire preparation arc in more detail.

Frequently Asked Questions