How many questions are on the Red Seal exam?

Questions by trade

These are the counts on each trade's exam information page as of October 2026. Trades update their standards and exams from time to time, so check your own trade before you plan your study.

What the questions look like

Every question is multiple choice, with four options and exactly one correct answer. Each is worth one mark. Red Seal says there are no trick questions, but the wrong options aren't always obvious.

There are three kinds of question. Knowledge and recall questions check facts and definitions. Procedural and application questions ask how you'd do a task, and can include calculations, diagrams or code. Critical thinking questions ask you to work through a problem. The mix varies by trade. For Carpenter, for example, 75 to 85% of questions are procedural and application.

How the questions are split across topics

Each question links to a sub-task in your trade's Red Seal Occupational Standard. Tradespeople from across Canada decide how many questions each part of the standard gets.

The Carpenter exam is a good example. Of its 100 questions, 20 are on framing, 16 on concrete work, 14 each on planning and layout, exterior finishing and interior finishing, 12 on common occupational skills and 10 on renovations.

Pacing yourself

You have 240 minutes. Divide that by the number of questions to get your average time per question: about 2.4 minutes on a 100-question exam, or 1.6 minutes on 150. There's no penalty for a wrong answer, so answer every question.

What about pass rates?

Red Seal doesn't publish pass rates on its website, and we haven't found official figures from the provincial authorities we checked. Be wary of numbers you see quoted elsewhere.