TL;DR: PRC Resolution No. 2113 set the 2026 Licensure Examination for Professional Teachers for March 15 and September 20. There are now three examinee tracks, not two: elementary without specialisation at 40% General Education and 60% Professional Education, and both elementary-with-specialisation and secondary at 20/40/40. The March 2026 sitting passed 56.03% of elementary and 73.10% of secondary examinees — nothing like the 25-45% band most guides still print.
Introduction
PRC calls this examination the Licensure Examination for Professional Teachers, or LEPT. Almost everyone else calls it the LET. It is administered by the Professional Regulation Commission through the Board for Professional Teachers under Republic Act No. 7836, the Philippine Teachers Professionalization Act of 1994, as amended by RA 9293 in 2004.
Two things about this exam are widely misreported online, and both are checkable in about five minutes. The passing rate is not 25-45%. And the elementary examination is no longer only two components for every candidate.
2026 LEPT schedule
PRC Resolution No. 2113 promulgated the 2026 schedule. These are the two Professional Teachers rows:
| Detail | First sitting | Second sitting |
|---|---|---|
| Exam date | March 15, 2026 (Sunday) | September 20, 2026 (Sunday) |
| Filing opens | December 3, 2025 | May 22, 2026 |
| Filing deadline | February 3, 2026 | July 23, 2026 |
| Target release of results | May 15, 2026 | November 27, 2026 |
Both 2026 filing windows have closed. The resolution lists 40-plus testing centres per sitting and the lists differ between them — the September list adds Antique, Catarman, San Jose in Occidental Mindoro and Valencia, while the March list carried Marinduque, Romblon and Sablayan. PRC also designates additional centres by separate resolution during the year, so check the current centre list rather than the annual schedule alone.
The March 2026 sitting ran in 41 testing centres and its results were released on May 12, 2026, thirty-nine working days after the exam.
The three examinee tracks and their weights
This is the change to know. The PRC programme for the September 20, 2026 LEPT, approved 7 July 2026, sets out three tracks:
| Track | General Education | Professional Education | Specialisation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elementary examinees | 40% | 60% | — |
| Elementary examinees with specialisation | 20% | 40% | 40% |
| Secondary examinees | 20% | 40% | 40% |
The elementary-with-specialisation track is not a rounding detail. If you are an elementary applicant whose degree carries a specialisation, your General Education weight halves and you sit a third test in the afternoon. Guides that describe the elementary LET as a flat 40/60 for everybody are describing one of three tracks.
The timings in the programme: General Education 8:00 to 10:00 a.m., Professional Education 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., and Specialisation 3:00 to 6:30 p.m. for the tracks that sit it. That is a nine-and-a-half-hour day for three-component examinees, which is worth building into your practice schedule.
The coverage of these components follows the PRC-CHED joint memorandum circular aligning the LEPT with the teacher education curriculum, which PRC applied from the September 2025 sitting onward. It changed which specialisation an examinee sits based on their degree, including for the newer BPEd, BCAEd and BTVTEd programmes. If your degree is one of those, read PRC's guidelines on that circular rather than a generic subject list.
Who may sit: Section 15 as amended by RA 9293
Section 15 of RA 7836 sets the requirements at the date of filing. The applicant must be a Filipino citizen or a citizen of a country with reciprocity in the practice of teaching, at least 18 years old, in good health and of good reputation with high moral values, not convicted by final judgment of an offence involving moral turpitude, and a graduate of a government-recognised school with the minimum educational qualification for the level.
RA 9293 amended the educational qualifications. As they now stand:
- Preschool — a bachelor's degree in early childhood education (BECEd) or its equivalent
- Elementary grades — a bachelor's degree in elementary education (BSEEd) or its equivalent
- Secondary grades — a bachelor's degree in education or its equivalent with a major and a minor, or a bachelor's degree in arts and sciences with at least 18 units in professional education
- Vocational and two-year technical courses — a bachelor's degree in the field of specialisation or its equivalent, with at least 18 units in professional education
The 18-unit route is a secondary and vocational route. It is not a general-purpose exemption, and a non-education graduate cannot use it to sit the elementary examination. RA 9293 raised that figure from the 10 units originally in RA 7836, which is why older material quotes the lower number.
Board for Professional Teachers Resolution No. 242, s. 2000 prescribes which degrees count as equivalents under Section 15(e), so if your degree title is not one of the four named above, that resolution is the document that decides it.
Documentary requirements and the fee
Applications go through PRC's LERIS system and are completed at a PRC Regional Office or Offsite Service Centre. The PRC 2026 Citizen's Charter puts the application fee for a baccalaureate licensure examination at PHP 900, with PHP 600 for a non-baccalaureate examination and PHP 450 for a conditional or removal application.
The documents are the standard PRC set: PSA birth certificate, transcript of records with the Special Order number where applicable, evidence of the degree, marriage certificate where the name has changed, the LERIS application form, ID photos to specification, and a valid government-issued ID. Non-education graduates using the 18-unit route need documentation of those professional education units. PRC revises its documentary checklists more often than the statute changes, so verify the current list before you file.
Passing criteria, and where the rule comes from
RA 7836 sets no passing mark. Section 14 defines the components of the examination. Section 16 requires the Board to report the ratings obtained by each candidate to PRC within 120 days of the examination, for approval and appropriate action. Neither section states a threshold.
The mark actually applied is a general average of at least 75% with no rating below 50% in any component. That comes from the Board for Professional Teachers, not from Congress. We flag the distinction because it matters: a Board rule can be revised by the Board, and a statutory rule cannot. Before a sitting, confirm the current rule from PRC rather than from a reviewer.
Falling short is not necessarily the end. Under Section 26 as amended by RA 9293, a candidate who fails with a rating not lower than five percentage points from the passing general average rating is eligible as a para-teacher on a two-year special permit issued by the Board, renewable once for a non-extendible two years. Para-teachers are assigned where DepEd or the Bangsamoro education authority identifies a shortage or absence of a professional teacher, and the permit states the area of assignment. The same provision allows a special permit for a person who has excelled and gained international recognition as a widely acknowledged expert in their field.
What the passing rates actually show
PRC published the March 15, 2026 results on May 12, 2026:
| Level | Passers | Examinees | Passing percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elementary | 18,376 | 32,796 | 56.03% |
| Secondary | 45,001 | 61,561 | 73.10% |
PRC also broke out first-timers from repeaters. Of the 18,376 elementary passers, 15,670 were first-timers and 2,706 repeaters. Of the 45,001 secondary passers, 39,446 were first-timers and 5,555 repeaters.
Two conclusions follow. First, the "25% to 45%" band that circulates in LET guides — including, until this update, in ours — is not what recent sittings look like. Second, first-timers dominate the passer counts at both levels, which is the usual pattern and the reason a fresh graduate should not read the all-takers rate as their own odds.
Rates move between sittings. Read the figure PRC published for the specific cycle you care about rather than a range, and see our education schools by LET passing rate post for school-level performance.
Exam-day rules, from the PRC programme
Bring: Notice of Admission, one long transparent white plastic envelope for valuables, one long brown envelope, two or more No. 2 pencils, a black-ink ballpen, and packed snacks, meals, medication and sanitary items in transparent containers with enough drinking water for the day. Nobody may hand food to an examinee once the exam is running.
Prohibited: books, notes, review materials and anything containing coded data or formulas; smart watches, phones, earplugs, transmitters, portable computers and Bluetooth devices; and bags of any kind.
Calculators: prohibited entirely at the elementary level. At the secondary level, prohibited except for Mathematics majors under Commission Resolution No. 1809-2024. Where allowed, one calculator per examinee, inspected and reset before the examination begins.
Wear: a tucked-in white polo shirt with a collar for male examinees, or a tucked-in white blouse or shirt with a collar for female examinees, in both cases with no seal, logo or mark, and decent pants or slacks.
Timing: verify your school and building assignment on prc.gov.ph two to three working days beforehand, and report no later than 5:30 a.m. Late examinees are not admitted.
PRC applies the search and inspection rules in Annex A of PRC Memorandum Order No. 57, s. 2020.
Preparing for the exam
Nothing here is regulated. It is what the structure of the exam implies.
Weight your study to your own track. The three tracks have different weights, so the same advice does not fit all of them. An elementary examinee without a specialisation should put the bulk of their time into Professional Education at 60%. A secondary or elementary-with-specialisation examinee is looking at two 40% components and should not let Specialisation crowd out Professional Education, or the reverse.
Do not write off General Education. At 20% it is a fifth of a three-component score, which is enough to move a borderline average either way, and it also has the 50% floor to clear.
Practise the full day. A three-component sitting runs from 8:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. with the hardest-weighted test last. Nobody discovers that problem in an untimed reviewer.
Confirm your specialisation against the PRC-CHED alignment guidelines. If your degree is BPEd, BCAEd, BTVTEd or another recently restructured programme, which specialisation test you sit is set by that circular, and revising the wrong subject is an expensive mistake.
Know the professional-education law content properly. RA 7836 as amended and the Code of Ethics for Professional Teachers are standing content. Given how much education law has changed recently, use the current text rather than a reviewer printed several years ago.
For options, see our roundup of LET review centres, and LET application requirements for the filing detail.
After you pass
Registration. Section 17 provides that registration as a professional teacher commences from the date the name is enrolled in the roster of professional teachers. Section 18 requires every registrant to take the professional oath before practising.
Public school hiring. DepEd runs its own selection process for teaching positions, governed by its current hiring guidelines rather than by PRC. Those guidelines have been revised, so read the DepEd issuance in force when you apply rather than a summary of an older ranking system.
Professional organisation. Section 22 integrates the teaching profession into one national organisation recognised by the Board and the Commission. Registrants are encouraged to join, and benefits and privileges of membership follow payment of membership fees and dues. Membership in the integrated organisation is not a bar to membership in other associations.
Renewal and CPD. Section 10 of RA 10912, the CPD Act of 2016, makes continuing professional development a requirement for renewing the professional identification card, which runs on a three-year cycle. PRC has extended acceptance of a CPD undertaking in place of full compliance for renewal to 31 December 2026 under Resolution No. 2200, s. 2026. Confirm the position at your own renewal date.
Sources
- Republic Act No. 7836, Philippine Teachers Professionalization Act of 1994 — Sections 13 to 18, 22 and 26
- Republic Act No. 9293 (2004), amending RA 7836 — 18-unit route, para-teacher permits, five-year lapse rule
- PRC Resolution No. 2113, Schedule of Licensure Examinations for the Year 2026 — Professional Teachers rows 11 and 52
- PRC, Programme of the LEPT on September 20, 2026 — three tracks, weights, timings, prohibited items, attire
- PRC, March 2026 LEPT results
- PRC, Guidelines on the PRC-CHED JMC aligning the LEPT with the teacher education curriculum
- Board for Professional Teachers Resolution No. 242, s. 2000, on equivalent degrees
- PRC Citizen's Charter 2026, 1st Edition — examination application fees
Note on one figure. The 75% average with no rating below 50% is attributed to the Board for Professional Teachers. We were unable to open the Board resolution itself, so we have described it as the Board's rule and pointed out that RA 7836 contains no passing mark, rather than presenting the threshold as statutory.
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