Michigan bar exam: Legacy or current exam until July 2028; NextGen afterward.
| July exam | Mar. 1, late filing May 15 |
| February exam | Nov. 1, late filing Dec. 15 |
| Fees | First-time $400 + C&F; attorney $400 + C&F; repeater $300; laptop Varies |
| MPRE minimum | 85 |
Dates can change. Check the board’s site before you pay.
Before filing in Michigan, check the current NCBE profile ↗.
| Rule | MCL 600.947 and 600.947a |
| Accommodation | Statutory admission of a military spouse attorney licensed in another U.S. jurisdiction, territory, or DC; notice to the Board of Law Examiners required on terminating events |
| Duration | Continues until a triggering event (spouse leaving active duty, or PCS outside Michigan without an unaccompanied-orders exception); 30-day notice required (180 days if due to the service member's death or disability) |
| Supervision | Not stated in the statute text located: this is full admission via a bar-exam-equivalent route, not supervised practice |
| Adopted | 2016 (Public Act 423 of 2016) |
Confirm current status directly with Michigan's bar admission authority ↗: this area of law shifted federally in December 2024 and states are still catching up.
The Michigan Board of Law Examiners set the UBE passing cut score at 268. Michigan gave its first UBE on February 21 and 22, 2023. A transferable score may not be older than three years and must come from a full UBE exam that the applicant passed, and the Board's page said that as of May 16, 2026 it accepted current UBE scores from the February 2024 exam onward. Score transfer requests are completed through the State Bar of Michigan's admissions page.
The Board's policy for calculating a UBE total is to add the MBE score and the written scaled score, each reported to the first decimal place, and round the sum to a whole number. Its example: a written score of 159.6 and an MBE score of 152.7 total 312.3, which rounds to 312, the final score reported to jurisdictions. The Board grades the MPT and MEE on NCBE's 6-point scale.
Source: Uniform Bar Exam 2026 ↗
Every applicant must complete the Michigan Law Basics online training to receive official bar exam results. The training is a collaboration between the Board of Law Examiners and the Institute of Continuing Legal Education, and as of August 1, 2026 ICLE raised its price to $129. An applicant for admission by examination may not complete the training until finishing law school. All applicants for admission without examination whose applications are postmarked March 1, 2023 or later must also complete it, as must UBE score transfer applicants.
Source: Board of Law Examiners ↗
Electronic payment is available for Rule 5 admission without examination applications, re-examination applications, recertification applications and bar exam transfer applications. Paying for a re-examination does not guarantee or constitute a seat: an applicant must contact the Board about eligibility. The Board asks applicants not to contact it about a seat number or when results will be released, because it will not provide that information.
Beginning with the July 2026 exam, the MEE no longer tests Conflict of Laws, Family Law, Trusts and Estates or Secured Transactions, to align with the NextGen subject matter. From July 2026 through February 2028, Family Law and Trusts and Estates are tested regularly on the MPT.
The Board of Law Examiners publishes a statistics sheet after every exam, and one file carries the last fifteen. Each shows total applicants, and splits first-time takers from reapplicants. Adding the fifteen exams gives 4,290 passers out of 7,424 applicants, about 57.8%.
The two sittings are different populations. The seven July exams passed 3,045 of 4,772 applicants (63.8%), and the February exams 1,245 of 2,652 (46.9%). July has roughly two-thirds of the applicants and mostly first-timers, whereas in February 2026 217 of the 326 applicants (67%) were reapplicants.
Reapplicants are the weak spot in every row: they passed 16.0% in July 2023 and 19.1% in July 2024, against 68.1% and 76.8% for first-timers those summers. The lowest overall rate in the fifteen exams was February 2023 at 35.0% (118 of 337), and the highest was July 2020 at 70.3% (508 of 723). Percentages in the table are computed from the Board's counts, and the Board itself rounds to whole numbers.
The Board breaks out the six schools it lists as Michigan law schools, which include the University of Toledo, and a group of out-of-state schools. In February 2026 the Thomas M. Cooley group was the largest at 86 applicants, of whom 28 passed (33%). Michigan State had 49 applicants and 47 of them were reapplicants, so its 26 passers (53%) mostly represent second and later attempts, and only 2 were first-timers.
Michigan State's two first-timers both passed, and Wayne State's first-timers passed 7 of 8. First-time counts this small do not support a comparison between schools, so treat the first-time column as counts, not a ranking.
The July 2025 sheet counts 754 applicants and 490 passing (65%). First-time takers passed at 76% (430 of 564) and reapplicants at 32% (60 of 190). The University of Michigan passed 43 of 46 (93%), Wayne State 96 of 129 (74%), Michigan State 112 of 160 (70%), Detroit Mercy 101 of 161 (63%) and Thomas M. Cooley 30 of 104 (29%).
The school totals blend first-timers and reapplicants. Cooley's 104 applicants included 62 reapplicants (60%), while Wayne State's 129 included 19 (15%). Among first-time takers alone the range was 40% at Cooley (17 of 42) to 93% at Michigan (41 of 44), which is a narrower and fairer comparison than the totals.
Source: Michigan Board of Law Examiners: July 2025 Bar Examination Statistics ↗
268 on the UBE. The Michigan Board of Law Examiners set that cut score when Michigan gave its first UBE on February 21-22, 2023.
No older than three years, from a full UBE exam that you passed. As of May 16, 2026 the Board accepted scores from the February 2024 exam onward.
A required online training run by the Board with ICLE. Exam applicants must finish it before receiving official results, and it costs $129 as of August 1, 2026.
It adds the MBE and written scaled scores to the first decimal place and rounds the total to a whole number. For example, 159.6 plus 152.7 is 312.3, which becomes 312.
No. The Board says not to contact it about seat numbers or when results will be released, and it will not provide that information.
No. Starting with July 2026 the MEE drops Conflict of Laws, Family Law, Trusts and Estates and Secured Transactions. Family Law and Trusts and Estates still appear on the MPT through February 2028.
No. Payment does not guarantee or constitute a seat, and you must contact the Board about eligibility.
Yes. An applicant for admission without examination whose application is postmarked March 1, 2023 or later must complete the Michigan Law Basics online training, just as exam and UBE transfer applicants do.
47%: the Board of Law Examiners reports 152 of 326 applicants passing, with first-time takers at 61% (67 of 109) and reapplicants at 39% (85 of 217).
65%: 490 of 754 applicants passed, and first-time takers passed at 76% (430 of 564), by the Board's own statistics sheet.
Compare other state bar exam guides: Minnesota · Mississippi · Missouri · Montana · Nebraska · Nevada
Source: NCBE Comprehensive Guide: Michigan ↗ · reviewed August 21, 2026.