Does the RE5 expire? Validity, CPD and staying authorised

No. Nothing published by the FSCA or Moonstone sets an expiry date on a passed RE5 result. Once you pass, the pass stands. What lapses is your authorisation to give advice, and that depends on your fit and proper status, your CPD and your place on an FSP's representative register.

Does the RE5 expire?

There is no stated validity period. No renewal exam, no revalidation, no requirement to rewrite the paper after a set number of years. Your result is recorded against your ID number and your certificate is issued once.

Be careful how far you push that. The absence of an expiry rule is exactly that, an absence. The FSCA has not published a rule saying a 2012 pass is valid forever, and it has not published one saying it lapses.

The honest answer: the result does not expire because time passed. Something else does.

The thing that actually lapses is your authorisation, not the exam result

People ask this because someone has told them they are no longer compliant. Usually the exam is not the problem. Three other things are.

Fit and proper status. Competence under the FAIS fit and proper requirements is an ongoing standard, not a one-off event. Passing the RE5 satisfies the regulatory examination leg only, not the qualification, experience or CPD legs.

Your entry on the representative register. Authorisation attaches to a person acting for a specific FSP in specific product categories. Leave the FSP and the entry is removed. The RE5 pass follows you, the authorisation does not.

CPD. Continuous professional development runs in cycles of 12 months, from 1 June to 31 May. Under Board Notice 194 of 2017 the minimum is 6 hours per cycle if you render a single subclass within a single class of business, 12 hours for more than one subclass within a single class, and 18 hours for more than one class of business. If you become liable partway through a cycle the requirement is pro rated. This is the requirement most likely to put you out of compliance while your RE5 pass sits perfectly valid.

What happens if you leave the industry and come back later

Your RE5 result does not disappear while you are out. On return, a new FSP re-appoints you and checks your competence file: qualification, regulatory examination, experience and CPD. You do not rewrite the exam because you changed employer.

The gap that usually needs fixing is CPD, not the RE5. What no source settles is whether an unusually old pass draws extra scrutiny. If that is you, ask the FSP's compliance officer in writing rather than assuming.

The deadline that does bite: DOFA and the two year rule

This is the real clock, and it runs at the start of your career, not the end. Under FAIS Notice 86 of 2018, a supervised representative must complete the applicable regulatory examination within two years of their date of first appointment, their DOFA.

The 1 February 2019 line matters. For appointments from 1 February 2019 onward, the two-year period runs from your start date and the annual 30 June deadline no longer applies. For appointments before that date, the older mid-year 30 June provision still applies.

Find your DOFA before you plan anything else. It is on the FSP's records and every other deadline is measured from it, as working backwards from your DOFA deadline sets out step by step.

What happens if you miss the DOFA deadline

You cannot remain on the FSP's representative register. That is the stated consequence in Moonstone's DOFA guidance.

Debarment is what follows, and it is recorded. In practice an FSP may remove a representative from its register first, so the person avoids a debarment record. Either way you stop rendering financial services, and re-entry means a fresh DOFA.

This is why the rewrite timeline matters. Fail with four months left and you still have four months. Our guide on how to pass the RE5 rewrite covers rebooking and what to change in the way you study.

How many times can you write the RE5?

There is no stated limit on attempts in FSCA or Moonstone material.

Two things limit you in practice. The first is your DOFA deadline: unlimited attempts inside a two-year window stop helping once the window closes. The second is money. Every attempt costs R1 300, VAT inclusive, per examination per candidate, set by the FSCA. There is no rewrite discount and no re-registration, you log in and rebook, with payment due within 24 hours.

The pass mark does not move either: 65% of a 50-question paper means 33 correct answers, which is 66%, and both numbers describe the same threshold. Before paying for another sitting, spend about 15 minutes on the free readiness check. It scores you against every FSCA qualifying criterion the exam tests and returns a topic-by-topic heat map, so you know whether you are 5 marks short or 15.

What your employer needs on file

Your certificate is evidence in the FSP's competence register. The FSP must be able to show an auditor or the FSCA that every representative met the competence requirements on the day they rendered advice.

Keep the certificate, the exam date and your DOFA together, and give the FSP a copy, not a promise. Our breakdown of what belongs in a representative competence register lists what compliance officers ask for, and the RE5 certificate explained covers what the document itself does and does not prove. If you are moving toward oversight, how to become a Key Individual covers the RE1 side, and the complete RE5 guide covers the exam itself.

PassPath is an independent study platform. The RE5 is written through Moonstone; PassPath is not affiliated with Moonstone or the FSCA.