The ICC B1, B2 and F3 Exams: Code Books, Test Day, and How They Are Scored

These ICC exams are open book, which makes them sound easier than they are. The code book is on the desk, but the books are long and the clock is short. This guide covers what B1, B2 and F3 certify, which books and editions each one uses, how ICC scores and reports your result, how to register and test, and how to prepare for an exam where knowing your way around the book is part of the job.

What B1, B2 and F3 certify

All three are national certification exams from the International Code Council (ICC), the organization that develops the International Codes. ICC's exam catalog describes each one this way, in our words:

• B1 Residential Building Inspector: inspecting one- and two-family dwellings, townhouses of up to three stories, and accessory structures, against the International Residential Code (IRC).
• B2 Commercial Building Inspector: inspecting commercial buildings of any size or occupancy, against the International Building Code (IBC).
• F3 Fire Plans Examiner: reviewing submitted building, site and fire protection plans for fire and life safety, including occupancy, construction type, height and area limits, interior finish, fire protection systems and permits, against the International Fire Code (IFC) and the IBC.

A certification is valid for three years once you pass, and ICC renews it with continuing education units (CEUs) rather than a new exam.

The three exams at a glance

Every question is four-option multiple choice with one correct answer. B2 is the longest paper, but B1 is the tightest per question at 2 minutes each; F3 gets the same clock as B2 for 20 fewer questions. All three are open book, and you sit each one in a single session.

What each exam covers

ICC publishes an Exam Content Outline for each exam that gives every content area a weight, and its catalog shows the same weights for the 2021 and 2024 editions. Questions are drawn at random within those weights, so a single sitting will not necessarily touch every task in the outline.

B1 Residential Building Inspector

• Wall Construction and Coverings: 27%
• Public Safety and Special Construction: 17%
• Footings and Foundations: 16%
• Floor Construction: 14%
• Roof/Ceiling Construction: 14%
• Building Planning: 8%
• Code Administration: 4%

The B1 outline largely follows the IRC's own chapter order. Foundations are Chapter 4, floors Chapter 5, wall construction and wall covering Chapters 6 and 7, roof-ceiling construction and roof assemblies Chapters 8 and 9, and chimneys and fireplaces Chapter 10. Room dimensions, means of egress, smoke alarms and glazing sit in Chapter 3. Learning that map is the first step to finding things fast.

B2 Commercial Building Inspector

• Public Safety and Special Construction: 31%
• Wall Construction and Coverings: 21%
• Building Planning: 20%
• Footings and Foundations: 8%
• Floor Construction: 8%
• General Administration: 6%
• Roof/Ceiling Construction: 6%

Nearly a third of B2 is public safety: egress, fire protection systems, smoke and fire venting, interior finishes and insulation, safety glazing, and opening protection. That weighting is very different from B1, so do not assume a residential inspector's instincts carry straight across.

F3 Fire Plans Examiner

• Fire Protection: 35%
• Egress Safety: 25%
• Hazardous Materials: 20%
• Occupancy: 15%
• Administration: 5%

F3 works across two books, and they overlap. The IFC and the IBC each have a Chapter 7 on fire and smoke protection features, a Chapter 9 on fire protection and life safety systems and a Chapter 10 on means of egress, and many section numbers appear in both. Occupancy classification, types of construction and height and area limits are IBC chapters (3, 6 and 5), though the 2024 IFC also carries occupancy classification in its own Section 203. ICC says its questions are written to point you toward the right reference, so read the stem for that cue before you open a book.

The subdomain breakdown for each exam is on our course pages for B1, B2 and F3.

Open book: what you can bring, and which edition

ICC lets you bring copyrighted, bound books into the exam. In practice:

• Bound means the book as published, a three-ring binder, or stapled. Photocopies are not allowed.
• Highlighting and notes written in ink are fine.
• Tabs are fine if permanently attached, meaning they cannot come off without damaging the page.
• No added material. You cannot insert your own pages into a book, and study guides, presentations and practice questions are not allowed. Neither are eBooks on a device.

On ICC's PRONTO delivery you also get Digital Codes for Exams, ICC's on-screen code library, at no extra cost. You can use it instead of your printed books or alongside them. ICC notes that it gives general access only, without the personal notes or premium features of your own Digital Codes subscription, and that it carries the references available in Digital Codes Premium. F3's two NFPA standards are listed under External References, with no Digital Codes Premium version listed, so do not assume they will be on screen; bring your own bound copies.

Get every book on the list. ICC is direct that a reference in the catalog will be used for questions. B2 lists both the Concrete Manual and ACI 318-19, and ICC says you need one of the two, not both. F3 lists the 2019 editions of NFPA 13 and NFPA 72 for its 2021 exam and the 2022 editions for its 2024 exam.

2021 or 2024?

ICC currently offers all three exams against both the 2021 and the 2024 editions, and you choose the code cycle when you buy the exam. Pick the edition that matches the code you work with, or the one your employer or jurisdiction asks for, then buy and tab that edition. The editions are not interchangeable. In the IRC, Section R310 is Emergency Escape and Rescue Openings in 2021 and Smoke Alarms in 2024, and means of egress moved from R311 to R318. Tabs and memorized section numbers from one edition send you to the wrong provision in the other, and the wrong provision still looks like a plausible answer.

How ICC scores and reports the result

Your raw score is the number of questions you answer correctly. ICC converts it to a scale score, and 75 is the pass mark on its national certification exams. ICC is explicit that this 75 is not a percentage. Exam forms differ slightly in difficulty, so the number of correct answers needed to reach 75 changes from form to form, and ICC does not publish it. The passing standard itself is set with the Angoff method, in which a panel of experts judges what a minimally competent candidate should be able to answer.

The "70 percent to pass" figure you may see quoted belongs to ICC's contractor and trades exams, not to these certification exams. Anyone telling you B1 takes exactly 45 right out of 60 is guessing.

Results are available as soon as you finish. A pass report says PASS and shows no number. A fail report shows your score and a chart of your performance in each content area, which is the most useful study plan you will get for a retake. Because the raw score is simply a count of right answers, a question left blank can only cost you: answer every one.

Registering and test day

You buy and schedule through a myICC account, and you pay before you schedule.

• Buy the exam on ICC's store and choose the 2021 or 2024 code cycle. On October 6, 2026 each of these three exams was listed at $320, or $255 for ICC members.
• Enter your legal first and last name exactly as it appears on the government-issued photo ID you will show. ICC will not let you test on a mismatch and does not refund the fee. The ID must be original, unexpired and signed.
• Schedule within a year. A purchase gives you 365 days to schedule or reschedule.

ICC lists B1, B2 and F3 as PRONTO exams, its Proctored Remote Online Testing Option, which runs on the ProctorU platform. You choose between two ways of sitting it:

• Online with a remote proctor, available around the clock and bookable as late as 90 minutes beforehand. You need a computer with a webcam and a microphone, the Guardian Secure Browser, a desk or table rather than a soft surface, and your face in view from chin to forehead for the whole exam. Have a phone available for check-in. Chromebooks, tablets and Linux are not supported.
• In person at a Meazure Learning test center, scheduled after you buy the exam.

Either way there is no scratch paper and no pen. PRONTO gives you an on-screen notepad, and you can bookmark a question and return to it before you submit. If you have read that ICC exams are taken at Pearson VUE, ICC uses Pearson for its contractor and trades exams; these three are PRONTO.

Retakes, and keeping the certification

For national certification exams ICC allows six attempts within a six-month period, and you pay the fee each time. After a sixth attempt you wait six months from the first attempt before you can register again. ICC's own advice to repeat candidates is to work from the content-area chart on the fail report and the content outline, not just to reread the same material.

Once you pass, the certification lasts three years and is renewed with CEUs through your myICC account.

How to prepare for an open-book exam

ICC says plainly that its open-book exams test whether you can apply the code, not how well you can look things up. Both matter on the day: there is no time to look up every question, and you cannot apply a provision you cannot find. A plan that respects both:

• Own the exact books. Every reference listed for your edition, in that edition. Practice in the book you will sit with.
• Learn the map before the details. Know which chapter each outline area lives in, where the definitions are (Chapter 2 in all three codes), and that a rule is often changed by an exception right after it or a footnote under its table. A provision read without its exception or footnote is an easy way to pick a confident wrong answer.
• Use the index. When a question uses a term you cannot place, the index is usually faster than flipping chapters.
• Tab and highlight at home, with restraint. You cannot write in the book during the exam. Tab the chapters and tables you return to most; if everything is tabbed, the tabs stop telling you anything.
• Read the stem twice. ICC points candidates to the words that turn a question: minimum, maximum, not, except.
• Practice against the real clock with the book open. B1 gives you 2 minutes a question. Time your lookups, and learn the provisions you hit most often well enough to go straight to them, so the clock is spent on the questions that genuinely need the book.
• Bookmark and move on. Every question counts the same. If a lookup stalls, mark it and come back.
• Rehearse the platform. ICC's free PRONTO 101 course walks through the exam interface with a sample quiz, and its equipment check tells you whether your computer will work. Do both well before test day.