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United States · License exam

The ham radio Technician license exam

The ham radio Technician license exam is Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Element 2: 35 multiple-choice questions, and you pass with 26 correct. It’s the first exam for every new ham, and passing it is all you need for a Technician license. The questions come from the 2026‑2030 Technician pool written by the National Conference of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators (NCVEC), used for exams from July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2030. A team of Volunteer Examiners (VEs) gives it in person or by video.

  • 35Questions on Element 2
  • 26Correct answers to pass
  • July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2030Dates of the Technician pool
Download the Technician pool

Updated October 2026 · Written from official sources, listed at the bottom of this page

What’s on the ham radio Technician license exam?

The pool’s syllabus splits the exam into 10 subelements and says how many questions each one gets:

SubelementOn examIn pool
T1 FCC rules668
T2 Operating procedures337
T3 Radio wave propagation335
T4 Amateur radio practices223
T5 Electrical principles450
T6 Components446
T7 Practical circuits444
T8 Signals and emissions447
T9 Antennas and feed lines223
T0 Safety336

Rules, operating and safety make up 12 of the 35 questions. The electronics subelements, T5 to T7, add another 12, so the math and circuit questions matter as much as the rules.

NCVEC: 2026-2030 Technician pool and syllabus, errata of February 19, 2026 (PDF) ↗

The 2026-2030 Technician question pool

NCVEC released this pool on December 18, 2025 and put it into the public domain. An errata notice on February 19, 2026 reworded four questions, so use a copy dated February 19, 2026 or later. The pool comes with three diagrams, T-1 to T-3, that some questions refer to.

Exams given from July 1, 2026 use this pool, and it stays valid until June 30, 2030.

Practice tests and study guides for the Technician exam →

Who gives the ham radio Technician exam

At least three accredited VEs run every session, under a Volunteer Examiner Coordinator (VEC). To give the Technician exam, a VE must be 18 or older and hold a General, Advanced or Amateur Extra license. No VE may test their own relatives, and the team watches you for the whole exam.

If you don’t pass, you can try again, but never with the same question set. A retest at the same session costs another session fee; the cost page has the details.

How exam sessions work, in person and online →Exam session fees →

What a Technician license lets you do

The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) describes it as all amateur privileges above 30 MHz, including the 2 meter band used by handheld radios, plus a little high frequency (HF) access. On HF, Technicians can use Morse code on parts of the 80, 40 and 15 meter bands, and Morse, voice and digital modes on part of 10 meters.

Technician frequencies band by band →ARRL: Getting Your Technician License ↗
Sources: NCVEC · ARRL · eCFR and 3 more. Checked October 2026.

Rules and fees can change, so check the official site before your test.

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