How many Customs Broker Exam questions come from ACE?

70 of the 1,261 questions CBP has released are answered from ACE — 5.6% of everything on record, about 4.1 on a paper of 80. ACE has been cited in 15 of the 17 released sittings, averaging 4.1 questions a paper.

How much ACE do you need to know for the exam?

ACE has been cited in 15 of the 17 released sittings, averaging 4.1 questions a paper. The answers come out of CBP's own ACE documentation rather than the regulations, so the material to have open is different from the rest of the paper — and worth finding before exam day rather than during it.

ACE (Automated Commercial Environment) on the Customs Broker Exam

70 of the 1,261 questions CBP has released are answered from ACE — 5.6% of every question on record, about 4.1 on a paper of 80. Cited in 15 of the 17 published sittings.

Questions

Sittings cited in

15 of 17

Per paper

~4.1

What CBP asks out of ACE

ACE, the Automated Commercial Environment, is the system a broker actually files in: entry and entry summary, cargo release, manifests, the partner-government message sets and the reports that come back out. Questions on it are answered from CBP's ACE documentation rather than from the regulations.

The questions are not spread evenly. Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) accounts for 17 of them, which is where to start if this is a weak spot.

Topic	Questions	Share of these
Automated Commercial Environment (ACE)	17	24%
Entry & Entry Summary	17	24%
Practical Exercise	11	16%
Quota	6	9%
Broker Compliance	5	7%
Anti-Dumping & Countervailing Duties	4	6%
Valuation & Appraisement	2	3%
Foreign Trade Zones & Warehouses	2	3%
Classification	2	3%
Bonds	2	3%
Free Trade Agreements	1	1%
Drawback	1	1%

Questions answered from ACE

The 24 most recent, newest sitting first. Each one shows CBP's official answer and the exact citation behind it.

Drill all automated commercial environment (ace) questions →

Where the text is

The exam is open book, so the only thing that matters on the day is how fast you reach the right paragraph.

CBP's ACE documentation →

Question counts are from CBP's published papers and answer keys, 2018–2026, checked October 6, 2026 against CBP's own release. One count per question: a question citing three subsections counts once.

Questions candidates ask about this

How many Customs Broker Exam questions come from ACE?: 70 of the 1,261 questions CBP has released are answered from ACE — 5.6% of everything on record, about 4.1 on a paper of 80. ACE has been cited in 15 of the 17 released sittings, averaging 4.1 questions a paper.
What does ACE cover?: ACE, the Automated Commercial Environment, is the system a broker actually files in: entry and entry summary, cargo release, manifests, the partner-government message sets and the reports that come back out. Questions on it are answered from CBP's ACE documentation rather than from the regulations. On the exam it shows up mostly in Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) (17 questions), Entry & Entry Summary (17 questions), Practical Exercise (11 questions).
How much ACE do you need to know for the exam?: ACE has been cited in 15 of the 17 released sittings, averaging 4.1 questions a paper. The answers come out of CBP's own ACE documentation rather than the regulations, so the material to have open is different from the rest of the paper — and worth finding before exam day rather than during it.

What else answers these questions

Find out where you actually lose marks

Knowing that this carries 70 questions is only useful next to knowing how many of them you get right. The diagnostic is weighted like a real paper and takes fifteen minutes.

Free 15-minute diagnostic Every provision the exam tests