NBCOT pass rate for the OTR and COTA exams

How many NBCOT exams were given in 2025?

NBCOT gave 14,732 OTR exams and 5,028 COTA exams in 2025. That year 169,736 people held the OTR, and NBCOT published 63,226 COTA certificants. These totals count every sitting, so one person who tests twice counts twice.

The pass rates below count new graduates only, and NBCOT gives two versions: passing at the first attempt, and passing at any attempt within the year.

Pass rates by school program

NBCOT’s School Performance Data lets you pick a state, a program type (occupational therapy doctoral or master’s, or occupational therapy assistant) and a year from 2021 to 2025. A program’s percentage counts its new graduates who passed during the testing year regardless of attempts, the reporting standard set by the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education (ACOTE). If you test within a year of graduating from a US program, NBCOT reports pass and fail totals to your program without names, and gives program directors a list of the candidates who pass.