CIA Part 3 Pass Rate, Format & Study Guide

The certifying body does not publicly publish an official pass rate for this exam. Be wary of third-party sites citing a specific number here — treat any pass-rate claim you see elsewhere for this exam as unverified.

Same program-wide IIA policy as Parts 1 and 2: a 30-day wait after a failed attempt, a new registration and exam-fee payment per retake, and a maximum of 8 attempts per exam part within the 3-year program eligibility window.

Part 3 follows the same scale-score model as the rest of the CIA program — a passing score of 600 set via The IIA's standard-setting process, applied consistently across parts despite each part's specific pass threshold (in raw questions) being calibrated separately to that part's difficulty. Failing candidates get domain-level feedback; passing candidates get pass/fail only, no numeric score.

• Business Acumen35%
• Information Security25%
• Information Technology20%
• Financial Management20%

Part 3 is 100 questions in 2 hours, and Business Acumen alone is 35% of the exam — combined with Information Security (25%), those two domains make up 60% of the paper, versus 20% each for Information Technology and Financial Management. Since Part 3 pulls the most from outside a typical audit background (strategic management, org behavior, financial analysis), spend proportionally more prep time on Business Acumen and Information Security before treating IT and Financial Management as the lighter review pass.