Your RE5 deadline: how to work backwards from your DOFA date

Your RE5 deadline is two years from your DOFA, your date of first appointment as a representative. That is the date the exam must be passed by, not booked by. Working backwards, allow up to 20 working days for results and 11 working days for the registration cut-off: your last safe date to write is roughly a month before your deadline, and your last safe date to register roughly six to seven weeks before it.

What is your RE5 deadline?

Two years from your DOFA, your date of first appointment as a representative. Not two years from when you started studying. Under FAIS Notice 86 of 2018 a supervised representative must complete the applicable regulatory examination inside that window, and for most representatives that is the RE5.

Your DOFA is not on your payslip. It sits in your FSP's records and on the representative register the FSP maintains, so ask your compliance officer for the exact date in writing. A two-week error there is a two-week error in everything below.

What does DOFA mean and why is every other date measured from it?

DOFA stands for date of first appointment: the date you were first appointed as a representative of an FSP and added to its register. It is a fixed fact recorded by the FSP, and it does not reset when you change employers or product categories. Three dates follow from it: the date you must have passed by, the last date you can register, and the last point at which a second attempt fits.

What is the 1 February 2019 dividing line?

Appointed on or after 1 February 2019. Your two-year clock runs from your start date and the annual 30 June deadline no longer applies. A DOFA of 14 May 2025 means a deadline of 14 May 2027.

Appointed before 1 February 2019. The older mid-year provision tied to 30 June still applies, so do not assume the rolling calculation. Confirm with your compliance officer: the two rules can land months apart.

How do you work backwards from your DOFA deadline?

Most people plan to the exam date instead of the results date. Passing after your deadline does not count. Build the timeline in this order.

1. Start at your DOFA deadline. The day the pass must exist, not the day you must have written.

2. Subtract up to 20 working days for results. Moonstone allows itself a maximum 20 working day lead time from exam to results release. Often it is sooner, but you cannot plan on sooner. Twenty working days is four weeks of Mondays to Fridays, roughly one calendar month. That gives your last safe date to write.

3. Subtract 11 working days for the registration cut-off. Registration closes 11 working days before each sitting, a little over two calendar weeks. That gives your last safe date to register.

4. Subtract the wait for a sitting with seats. Sittings do not fall on the day you need one. The schedule rolls roughly four months ahead, and the 9 August 2026 capture held 74 exam days across 579 sittings, 135 of which had zero seats left. Your last safe date to write is a ceiling; the real date is the nearest open sitting before it.

5. For a rewrite, run the cycle twice. Up to 20 working days for the first result, 11 working days of registration lead time for the second attempt, then up to 20 working days for the second result. That is 51 working days of administration, before any studying.

Working days are not calendar days, and the gap compounds. Thirty-one working days, the single-attempt figure, is about six and a half calendar weeks. Fifty-one is about ten to eleven calendar weeks. Public holidays extend both, so treat these as minimums.

A worked example (illustration only, use your own DOFA)

Assume a DOFA of 1 March 2025, so a deadline of 1 March 2027. Subtract 20 working days for results: the last safe date to write is around the start of February 2027. Subtract 11 more working days: the last safe date to register is around mid-January 2027. If the nearest open sitting is a fortnight earlier, that fortnight goes too.

Now fit a rewrite in. Write in mid-November 2026 and results arrive by mid-December. Rebook immediately, allow the 11 working day cut-off, and the earliest sitting you can reach is mid to late January 2027. Those results land in late February, just inside 1 March, with no slack.

So the honest headline: if you want room for one rewrite, sit your first attempt roughly three to four months before your DOFA deadline, not weeks before. That is arithmetic, not caution. Fifty-one working days of administration, plus a wait for an open seat, plus restudy time uses all of it. The live RE5 exam dates schedule turns those targets into a booking, and how to pass an RE5 rewrite covers the weeks in between.

How much time do you need to prepare for the RE5?

It depends on where you are starting, and that is measurable rather than a matter of opinion. Someone scoring in the high fifties on a full-length practice attempt needs a different envelope from someone in the thirties. The pass mark is 65%, which on a 50-question paper means 33 correct, or 66%: how the RE5 pass mark works explains both numbers.

Treat preparation as a block of weeks sitting before the administrative countdown, not overlapping it, and ending on or before your last safe date to register. A realistic RE5 study plan structures those weeks, and choosing study material covers what to work from.

What if your RE5 deadline is inside 60 days?

Check the live schedule first. Registration closes 11 working days before each sitting, and roughly a quarter of sittings in the last capture were already full, so the exams you can reach are fewer than the exams on the calendar. Open the RE5 exam dates page, filter to your province, and find sittings early enough for results to land in time.

Register before you feel ready. The fee is R1 300 including VAT per attempt, payable within 24 hours of registration. There is no stated limit on attempts, so booking early risks a repeat fee while booking late risks your place on the register. Those are not equivalent risks. How to book the RE5 exam covers the steps.

Then compress preparation into the weeks you have bought. Diagnose first, so the time goes on the topics costing you marks. Sixty days is enough to write. It is not enough to spend three weeks deciding.

What happens if you miss your DOFA deadline?

You cannot remain on your FSP's representative register. The consequence set out in the FAIS framework is debarment, and in practice some FSPs remove a representative from the register before that point, so no debarment record attaches to the person. It is serious, but administrative, and it follows a date.

No source sets an expiry on a passed regulatory exam result itself. What lapses is your authorisation and fit-and-proper standing, which depend on CPD and FSP registration: does the RE5 expire? covers the distinction.

Does the same timeline apply to key individuals and the RE1?

The structure is identical and only the exam changes: up to 20 working days of results, 11 working days of registration lead time, then the wait for an open sitting. The RE1 is the longer paper at 80 questions, where 65% means 52 correct, and availability is tighter, at 569 of the 579 sittings in the August 2026 capture.

Use the live RE1 exam dates schedule the same way, and read the RE1 exam guide and how to become a key individual for scope and appointment requirements.

Where should you start?

With two numbers: your DOFA and your current score. Your compliance officer has the first. For the second, the free PassPath readiness check takes about 15 minutes, needs no card, scores you against every FSCA qualifying criterion the exam tests, and returns a red-to-green topic heat map.

That is the first step in the countdown, because you cannot size a study block without knowing how far you are from 33 out of 50. Start the free readiness check, then read whether you are ready for the RE5 and set your date from the schedule.

PassPath is an independent study platform. The RE1 and RE5 are written through Moonstone; PassPath is not affiliated with Moonstone or the FSCA.