Contract administration vs project management, on the Florida contractor exam, means two separate papers: 60 scored questions in 4.5 hours each for general contractors, scored on their own at 70 percent. Contract Administration tests contracts, permits and preconstruction. Project Management tests methods, materials, safety and plans, from the same approved books.
Listen to this article, about 19 minutes. A synthetic voice reads the article and announces each section title as it begins; tables are read row by row and the questions at the end are left out.
Recorded 15 October 2026 from the article as published that day. Press a chapter to jump there; the highlighted line is what is playing. A play button sits beside every section heading, and once you scroll past this player a bar at the bottom of the screen keeps the controls in reach. Tap or click any sentence to hear the reading start from there.
On this page: the content weights for Contract Administration and Project Management on all three licence types, quoted from rule 61G4-16.001, the minutes you get per question, and four dated accounts from candidates who sat both papers.
Think you already know this? Five questions, one minute.
Every answer is on this page. Answer from what you know now; the page fills in the rest.
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1. You pass Contract Administration and fail Project Management. What happens to the part you passed?
Rule 61G4-16.009 requires a candidate to retake only the tests they failed. It sets no waiting period, only a 30 day application deadline before the next exam. Read the section
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2. On the general contractor Project Management paper, what share of the weight sits in construction methods, materials, tools and equipment?
Rule 61G4-16.001 gives that area 63 percent, with 20 percent on safety and 17 percent on reading plans and specifications. Read the section
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3. On the residential Contract Administration paper, what weight does the rule give construction procedures and operations?
Rule 61G4-16.001 subsection (3) sets 11 percent for residential, against 13 percent for general and 14 percent for building contractors. Read the section
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4. For a general contractor, how long does each scored question get on either paper, before pilot questions?
The DBPR candidate booklet gives 60 scored questions in 4.5 hours. 3 minutes 15 seconds is the Business and Finance figure. Read the section
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5. A commenter found concrete questions hard because the concrete book they studied is not allowed in. Which title is that?
The 2026 reference list treats Design and Control of Concrete Mixtures as a study title you may not bring, as the approved books page sets out. Read the section
Almost every page that ranks for this question is a shop, and shops have a commercial reason to treat the two as one product. They are sold as a bundle, taught in one seminar and priced together, which leaves candidates with the impression that they are two halves of a single test. They are not. You can pass one and fail the other, and plenty of people do, because the two parts reward completely different habits in the same set of books.
Are Contract Administration and Project Management really two different exams?
Yes, in every way that affects you. Each is delivered separately, timed separately and scored separately against the same 70 percent standard. If you clear one and miss the other, the passed part stands and you resit only the part you failed, after reapplying. Rule 61G4-16.009 sets no waiting period, whatever the prep sites say. It asks only that the retake application reach the vendor "no less than thirty (30) days" before the exam you want, and that every part be passed within four years of the first attempt. We cover that process in detail in what happens when you fail a part.
The structure is identical, which is exactly why people conflate them. For general contractor candidates both deliver 60 scored multiple choice questions in 4.5 hours, per the DBPR candidate information booklet effective July 2024 and read on 11 October 2026. The building contractor versions carry 50 scored questions and the residential versions 45, in the same 4.5 hours. Both are open book. The booklet says a paper may also contain a small number of unscored pilot questions, so the count on screen can run a little above the scored count. The pass mark is 70 percent, which on 60 scored questions is 42 correct, and the booklet says scores are not rounded. If you have seen 65 questions and 4 hours 45 minutes on another site, or on this one before 11 October 2026, that is the paper and pencil session the registration pack still describes, not the computer based paper you will sit.
Where the two parts differ is not difficulty or length. It is the kind of lookup each one asks you to perform, and that difference decides how you should tab your books.
What is actually on each exam?
Both parts are built from a published content outline that assigns a share of the graded questions to each knowledge area. The shares below are the ones circulating consistently across independent prep sources summarising the department’s examination content information documents. Since 11 October 2026 they are checked against rule 61G4-16.001, last amended with effect from 16 December 2024, which sets exactly these figures for the general contractor papers and allows each weight to vary by plus or minus 3 percent. The prep school summaries this page previously leaned on had them right.
| Contract Administration | Project Management | |
|---|---|---|
| Scored questions, general contractor | 60 | 60 |
| Scored questions, building and residential | 50 and 45 | 50 and 45 |
| Time allowed | 4.5 hours | 4.5 hours |
| Pass mark | 70 percent, so 42 of 60 | 70 percent, so 42 of 60 |
| Largest knowledge area | Project contracts, around 40 percent | Construction methods, materials, tools and equipment, around 63 percent |
| Second area | Preconstruction activities, around 27 percent | Safety, around 20 percent |
| Third area | Obtaining licences, permits and approvals, around 20 percent | Reading plans and specifications, around 17 percent |
| Fourth area | Construction procedures and operations, around 13 percent | None, the outline runs to three areas |
| What it rewards | Finding a clause and reading it precisely | Knowing a method well enough to not need the book |
Read the right hand column again. Nearly two thirds of Project Management sits in a single area covering construction methods, materials, tools and equipment. That is roughly 38 of the 60 graded questions in one bucket. Contract Administration spreads its weight across four areas, with the largest at about 40 percent. The practical consequence is that a weak spot hurts you very differently on each paper.
Do building and residential candidates get a different split?
Slightly, and almost no prep page shows it. Rule 61G4-16.001 sets separate weights for the general contractor papers in subsection (1), the building contractor papers in (2) and the residential papers in (3), and lets each weight drift by "plus or minus three percent (3%)". The table copies them as the rule states them, read on 15 October 2026, with the scored question counts from the candidate booklet in the first row.
| Area | General | Building | Residential |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scored questions on each paper | 60 | 50 | 45 |
| Contract Administration: preconstruction activities | 27% | 28% | 29% |
| Contract Administration: project contracts | 40% | 38% | 40% |
| Contract Administration: licences, permits and approvals | 20% | 20% | 20% |
| Contract Administration: construction procedures and operations | 13% | 14% | 11% |
| Project Management: methods, materials, tools and equipment | 63% | 64% | 64% |
| Project Management: safety | 20% | 20% | 18% |
| Project Management: reading plans and specifications | 17% | 16% | 18% |
| Where the rule sets it | 61G4-16.001(1) | 61G4-16.001(2) | 61G4-16.001(3) |
Put the percentages against the question counts and the difference is small but real. A general contractor’s 60 Project Management questions at 63, 20 and 17 percent come to about 38 on methods, 12 on safety and 10 on plans. A residential candidate’s 45 at 64, 18 and 18 percent come to about 29, 8 and 8. Either way, roughly two of every three Project Management marks sit in one area. The building contractor version of Contract Administration leans a touch away from contracts, 38 percent against 40, and towards procedures and operations. None of that changes how to prepare. It does mean a residential candidate’s safety and plans questions are worth exactly the same number of marks each, which is a reason not to skip plan reading because it feels like the smaller topic.
Questions per area calculator
Pick your licence and the paper. It multiplies the scored question count by the weights in rule 61G4-16.001. The rule lets each weight move three points either way, so read the answers as about, not exact.
Weights from rule 61G4-16.001 subsections (1) to (3), amended 16 December 2024; question counts from the DBPR candidate booklet effective July 2024. It describes the paper, not your chances on it. Worked in your browser, nothing is stored or sent.
Why does the same book list serve both parts?
Because Florida approves references by licence category, not by examination part. The General, Building and Residential contractor lists cover Contract Administration and Project Management with one set of titles, which typically includes the Florida Contractors Manual, the relevant Florida Building Code volumes, OSHA 29 CFR 1926, AIA contract documents such as A201, A401 and A701, and a commercial construction reference. The full picture is in which books you may carry in, and the trap of buying the right title in the wrong year is in the edition trap.
One book list, two very different jobs. In Contract Administration the AIA documents and the manual do most of the work, and the skill being tested is navigation: find the article, read the sentence, answer what it says rather than what your last job did. In Project Management the code volumes and the methods reference do the work, and a large share of the questions expect knowledge you already carry, because looking up a span table you have never seen before costs more time than you have.
How much time do you actually get per question?
Four and a half hours across 60 scored questions is 4 minutes 30 seconds each, before any pilot questions. That sounds generous next to the Business and Finance exam, where 120 scored questions in 6.5 hours leaves about 3 minutes 15 seconds. It is generous, on Contract Administration, where a clean tab set turns most questions into a 90 second lookup and buys you the time to read a contract clause twice.
It is less generous on Project Management than the number suggests. When 63 percent of the paper draws on methods, materials and equipment, and the reference for that area is thick, an unfamiliar topic can absorb ten minutes and still produce a guess. Candidates who run out of time on this part usually did not run out of time. They ran out of recognition, and paid for it in lookups.
Which part should you sit first?
There is no rule requiring an order, and the honest answer depends on where you are coming from. Two patterns show up often enough to be worth naming.
- If you have run jobs and read contracts for years but came up through the trades rather than the office, Contract Administration is where the unfamiliar vocabulary lives. Sit it while your tabbing is freshest.
- If you are strong on paperwork and lighter on field methods, Project Management is the one that will punish you, and the one worth putting first so that a failure costs you a retake cycle early rather than late.
- If you are sitting all three, most candidates take Business and Finance first because it is the longest and the most self contained. See how the three parts fit together for how the sequence usually runs.
Where do candidates lose marks on each part?
The failure modes are distinct, which is the strongest argument for preparing them separately rather than as one block of study.
| Part | Typical loss | What fixes it |
|---|---|---|
| Contract Administration | Answering from site experience instead of from the document in front of you | Practise finding the governing clause and quoting it, even when you already know the answer |
| Contract Administration | Weak tabbing of the AIA documents, so contract questions become a hunt | Tab by article and topic, not just by document. See our guide to tabs, highlighting and notes |
| Project Management | Treating the largest knowledge area as lookup material | Learn methods and materials to recall level, and reserve the book for numbers |
| Project Management | Losing the safety questions, worth roughly 12 graded marks | OSHA 1926 rewards familiarity more than any other reference on the list |
| Both | Bringing a book that is the correct title in the wrong edition | Check the reference list in force on your test date, not your purchase date |
What do candidates who sat both parts report?
We read three Reddit threads from 2026, about 70 comments in all, and found four accounts specific enough to use from people who sat, or were about to sit, the Florida general contractor papers. They are what people report, paraphrased, not a measure of the exam, and one person’s practice counts are not a plan.
In January 2026 a candidate who had just passed all three papers posted notes on each in r/GeneralContractor. For Contract Administration they named the AIA documents and the Contractors Manual, some commercial building code, plenty of lien questions and, to their surprise, a lot of cubic yard calculations they traced to the commercial construction methods reference. For Project Management they named masonry, that same methods reference, OSHA and the building code volume, with more arithmetic. They reported working through more than 400 practice questions for Contract Administration over a month, and about 100 for Project Management in a week.
Days earlier, in the same subreddit, a candidate asked what the Project Management paper leaned on and was pointed at masonry in the building code, OSHA and the methods reference. They came back the next day to say they had passed, adding that Contract Administration had not been too bad either. In August 2026 another commenter on that thread said the concrete, excavation and plan reading questions were the hard ones, partly because the concrete book they had studied is not allowed in the room. That part checks out: Design and Control of Concrete Mixtures sits among the suggested study titles you may not bring, as the approved books page shows from the 2026 list.
The fourth account is about order. In July 2026 a commenter in r/Contractor described sitting Business and Finance in May, Contract Administration a month later in mid June and Project Management five days after that, with the licence issued by mid July.
Where the accounts agree with the rule: Project Management lives in methods, safety and plans, which is exactly what the 63, 20 and 17 percent weights predict. Where they cut against this page: the January poster found Contract Administration heavier on arithmetic than the word "paperwork" above suggests, and called both papers a test of finding information rather than a hard exam. Take the first point seriously and the second as one cheerful person’s view the morning after passing.
What has changed since this was first published?
The entries below record what moved and when, with the source each correction came from.
- 15 October 2026: building and residential weights added from rule 61G4-16.001 subsections (2) and (3); retake timing restated from rule 61G4-16.009; four FAQ answers that still quoted 65 questions, 4.75 hours and a 30 day wait corrected to match the body; candidate accounts from three 2026 Reddit threads added.
- 11 October 2026: exam length and question count corrected from 65 questions in 4 hours 45 minutes to 60 scored questions in 4.5 hours for the general contractor papers, per the DBPR candidate information booklet effective July 2024, which also lists 50 scored questions for the building papers and 45 for the residential ones.
- 11 October 2026: the knowledge area weights, previously labelled approximate, confirmed against rule 61G4-16.001, amended with effect from 16 December 2024. The figures were already right; the label is gone.
- 11 October 2026: the 30 day wait between attempts removed. Rule 61G4-16.009 sets no waiting period; the retake application must reach the vendor at least 30 days before the exam wanted.
- 11 October 2026: the $295 figure resolved. It is the first time cost of all three parts on the DBPR registration pack revised 1 August 2024, not a single retake.
What could not be verified for this article?
When this was written the department’s documents returned an access error to every attempt, so the figures came from prep school summaries. On 11 October 2026 they were read directly: the content weights from rule 61G4-16.001 and the question counts, times and the 70 percent pass mark from the candidate information booklet, through Internet Archive captures because the DBPR’s document host refuses automated requests from outside the United States. The structure figures changed as a result, from 65 questions and 4.75 hours to 60 scored questions and 4.5 hours for the general contractor papers.
The 4 hours 45 minutes that most prep sites quote, and this page quoted, is the paper and pencil session length in the registration pack. The computer based papers you will actually sit are listed at 4.5 hours in the booklet. If your booking confirmation says something different to either, your booking confirmation wins. The examinations are administered by Professional Testing, Inc., who can be reached on 407-264-0562, and that is the number to call rather than the company that sold you a course.
Fee figures are now settled from the pack. $295 is the first time cost of all three parts on the DBPR registration pack revised 1 August 2024: $135 to Professional Testing plus Pearson VUE fees of $80 for Business and Finance and $40 each for Contract Administration and Project Management. A single retake of one of these two parts is $175 on those figures. Rule 61G4-12.009 still says $80 per test, so the rule and the pack disagree on the cheaper parts, and the pack is what the payment screen follows. Pass rates are worth even more scepticism: figures around 50, 55 and 40 percent for the three parts circulate constantly and could not be traced to any published departmental source.
None of this changes the preparation. Two exams, one book list, two different skills. For those weights mapped area by area to the reference that covers each, with the question counts beside them, the general contractor study guide built from the DBPR outlines is the companion to this page. If you take one thing from this page, let it be that the part with 63 percent of its questions in a single knowledge area is not the part to walk into planning to look things up. Read why open book does not make it easy next if you have not already.
Frequently asked questions
Can I pass Contract Administration and fail Project Management?
Yes. The two are delivered, timed and scored as separate examinations against the same 70 percent standard. A part you pass stands on its own, and you resit only the part you failed. There is no waiting period; the retake application must reach the vendor at least 30 days before the exam you want. Nothing about passing one carries over into the other.
Do Contract Administration and Project Management use different books?
No. Florida approves reference materials by licence category rather than by examination part, so the same approved list covers both. What changes is which titles do the work. Contract Administration leans on the AIA documents and the Contractors Manual, Project Management on the code volumes, OSHA 1926 and the methods reference.
Is one of the two harder than the other?
Neither is harder by design. For general contractors both are 60 scored questions in 4.5 hours with the same pass mark. Project Management concentrates around 63 percent of its graded questions in one knowledge area covering construction methods, materials, tools and equipment, so a gap there is expensive. Contract Administration spreads its weight across four areas.
Why do some sites say 60 questions and others say 65?
Older prep pages, and the paper and pencil session in the DBPR registration pack, describe 65 questions in 4 hours 45 minutes. The DBPR candidate booklet effective July 2024 lists 60 scored questions in 4.5 hours for the computer based general contractor papers, plus a small number of unscored pilot questions. A 70 percent pass mark means 42 correct out of 60.
How much time do I get per question?
Four and a half hours across 60 scored questions works out at 4 minutes 30 seconds each, before any pilot questions. That is comfortable for contract lookups if your books are tabbed well, and much tighter on Project Management, where an unfamiliar methods or materials topic can absorb ten minutes and still end in a guess.
Should I sit both parts on the same day?
There is no requirement either way, and it depends on stamina. Two 4.5 hour open book examinations back to back is a long day, and fatigue costs more on the part you are weaker at. If you are sitting them separately, put the part you are least confident about first so that a failure, and the retake application that follows it, land early.
Finished the page? The same five questions from the top, to see what stuck.
Rules and fees change without notice. This page was verified on the date shown and is rechecked regularly. If you hit something different, tell us in the comments.
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