DEA PTA Scoring Chart: Every Event, Every Point (2026)

The DEA PTA is scored on a chart you can read tonight, and the pass line is 12 points across four events with at least 1 point in each. Most people who fail it never sat down with the chart. They trained hard, they trained wrong, and a single event at minus 2 ended the whole test.

I know this test from both directions. I went through DEA’s hiring process myself and took this assessment, and I spent four years as a task force officer working alongside DEA agents, watching applicants come through and watching a few of them go home. The chart below is the same one those applicants were scored on, pulled from DEA’s own Physical Task Assessment Guide and kept verified on my PT standards hub.

How is the DEA PTA scored?

Four events, always in this order: sit-ups, 300-meter sprint, push-ups, 1.5-mile run. No more than 10 minutes of rest between them. Every event scores from minus 2 to 10 on a male or female table. There are no age brackets, so a 36-year-old applicant is scored against the same numbers as a 23-year-old.

Then the rules that decide the day:

• Full PTA: at least 1 point in every event and 12 points total.
• A minus 2 in any event is an automatic fail, no matter what you scored elsewhere.
• Conditional-offer stage: 9 points, with one zero allowed and no negatives.

Twelve points sounds friendly until you do the math. Twelve across four events is an average of 3 per event, and 3 points is not a great performance on any of these tables. What kills people is the floor, not the total. A zero anywhere fails the full test even at 30 points overall.

The DEA PTA scoring chart

Every number below is straight from DEA’s published guide. I didn’t round anything and I didn’t estimate anything. Minus 2 is a failing score in that event.

Sit-ups (reps in 1 minute)

Points	Male	Female
-2	31 or under	29 or under
0	32-37	30-34
1	38	35-36
2	39-42	37-40
3	43-44	41-42
4	45-47	43-46
5	48-49	47-48
6	50-51	49-50
7	52-53	51-52
8	54-55	53-54
9	56-57	55-56
10	58+	57+

300-meter sprint (seconds)

Points	Male	Female
-2	55.1+	67.5+
0	52.5-55.0	65.0-67.4
1	51.1-52.4	62.5-64.9
2	49.5-51.0	60.0-62.4
3	48.0-49.4	57.5-59.9
4	46.1-47.9	56.0-57.4
5	45.0-46.0	54.0-55.9
6	44.0-44.9	53.0-53.9
7	43.0-43.9	52.0-52.9
8	42.0-42.9	51.0-51.9
9	41.0-41.9	50.0-50.9
10	40.9 or under	49.9 or under

Push-ups (maximum reps, untimed, continuous)

Points	Male	Female
-2	19 or under	4 or under
0	20-29	5-13
1	30-32	14-18
2	33-39	19-21
3	40-43	22-26
4	44-49	27-29
5	50-53	30-32
6	54-56	33-35
7	57-60	36-38
8	61-64	39-41
9	65-70	42-44
10	71+	45+

1.5-mile run (minutes:seconds)

Points	Male	Female
-2	13:30+	15:00+
0	12:25-13:29	14:00-14:59
1	12:15-12:24	13:35-13:59
2	11:35-12:14	13:00-13:34
3	11:10-11:34	12:30-12:59
4	10:35-11:09	11:57-12:29
5	10:15-10:34	11:35-11:56
6	9:55-10:14	11:15-11:34
7	9:35-9:54	11:06-11:14
8	9:20-9:34	10:45-11:05
9	9:00-9:19	10:35-10:44
10	8:59 or under	10:34 or under

What does a passing DEA PTA actually look like?

Read the 3-point row across all four tables, because that’s the cleanest picture of a bare 12.

For a male applicant, 3 points in every event is 43 to 44 sit-ups, a 300-meter sprint between 48.0 and 49.4 seconds, 40 to 43 push-ups, and a 1.5-mile run between 11:10 and 11:34. For a female applicant it’s 41 to 42 sit-ups, a sprint between 57.5 and 59.9 seconds, 22 to 26 push-ups, and a run between 12:30 and 12:59.

That’s the pass line. Notice how narrow the bands are. A male applicant who runs 11:36 instead of 11:34 drops from 3 points to 2. If the sprint was already a 2, he’s now at 10 and the test is over. The chart doesn’t care that he was close.

Now the other direction. Scoring 5, 5, and 5 in three events and then minus 2 in the fourth is a fail. Not a 13. A fail. The minus 2 rule exists because DEA wants agents with no dead event, and the scoring structure enforces it harder than any test I’ve seen except the FBI’s version of the same idea. The 1-point floor works the same way. Three strong events and a zero fails the full PTA.

Rest is part of the chart too. Ten minutes maximum between events means your push-ups come off a sprint and your run comes off the push-ups. A number you hit fresh in the gym is not the number you’ll post on test day.

How do you add up your DEA PTA score?

Score each event on its own table above, add the four numbers, then check the total against two rules: 12 or better, and nothing below 1. That’s the whole calculation. It takes a minute, and it’s the only honest way to find out where you stand before somebody with a clipboard and a stopwatch tells you.

Run a real one. Say a male applicant posts 45 sit-ups, a 50.2-second sprint, 38 push-ups, then 12:05 on the run. Off the tables that’s 4 for the sit-ups, 2 for the sprint, 2 for the push-ups, 2 for the run. Ten points. He didn’t zero anything, he wasn’t embarrassing in any event, and he still failed. You can clear the floor in all four and miss the total by two.

Now a female applicant: 43 sit-ups, 58.0 on the sprint, 25 push-ups, 12:20 on the run. That’s 4, then 3, then 3, then 4. Fourteen points with at least 1 everywhere, and she’s through. She isn’t fast and she isn’t strong by this chart’s standards. She’s a little better than 3 in every column, which is exactly what a pass looks like.

Do that arithmetic with your own numbers before your next workout, because it tells you which event to train.

Does the hiring-stage score use the same chart?

Same point tables, different arithmetic. DEA’s Special Agent Test Preparation Guide, still the posted version, scores the hiring-stage assessment on three events instead of four: sit-ups, push-ups, and the 1.5-mile run, with no 300-meter sprint and the run’s point value doubled. The bar there is 9 points with one zero allowed and nothing negative.

Doubling the run changes who passes. Take the male applicant from a minute ago, the one with 45 sit-ups, 38 push-ups, and 12:05 on the run. On the three-event math that’s 4, then 2, then 2 doubled to 4. Ten points against a 9-point bar, and he’s through. The exact same performance scored 10 against the full PTA’s 12 and sent him home. One set of numbers, two verdicts, depending on which version of the test somebody hands you.

Two things follow from that. The run carries twice the weight of any other event at the hiring stage, so it’s the one worth most of your training time if that’s the test in front of you. And a strong sprint buys you nothing there, because the sprint isn’t scored. Come the academy, all four count and the sprint is back, so don’t let the hiring-stage math talk you out of training it.

What was my weak event, and how did I fix it?

The run. My sit-ups and push-ups were fine because those are the events every cop trains by default, and my run was the one that would have cost me points I couldn’t afford to lose. A trainer added sprint work to my program, short repeats with real rest, and my mile-and-a-half time dropped enough to move me up the chart. Nothing clever about it. I benchmarked against the target table every couple of weeks and put the work where the chart said the points were.

That’s the whole method, and it’s the same one I used on every agency’s test. Score yourself against these four tables this week, protocol-correct and in order with the rest windows, then train the event that scored lowest until it stops being the lowest. If you want that programmed out for you, I built a 5-week plan for the DEA PTA specifically, written backward from these exact tables and DEA’s form protocols. If you’d rather start free, every agency’s test on one printable sheet goes on the gym wall and the comparison of all eight federal PT tests explains why point-scored tests like this one punish the applicant who’s merely adequate everywhere.

Do you get a second attempt on the DEA PTA?

DEA’s Test Preparation Guide describes two opportunities within 60 days of application, and it ties the second attempt to clearing the published cut scores on the first. Read that section of the guide yourself before you count on a do-over, because the language is narrower than “you get two tries.”

The academy is where the retest rules actually bite. You take the PTA on Day 2 and again at Week 12. Fail on Day 2 and you get one retest at Week 6. By then you’ve quit your job, sold or rented your house, and driven across the country, so the version of you that shows up on Day 2 needs to be the fittest version, not the one who scraped 12 points months earlier. I’ve watched people at the academy fail a physical test over a couple of reps. Every one of them had passed the same test to get there.

One more thing to settle with your recruiter. DEA’s 2019 Test Preparation Guide, which is still posted, describes a three-event hiring-stage version of this test with no sprint and the run points doubled. The 2023 PTA Guide describes four events and never mentions the three-event variant. Ask which one your division runs. Train all four regardless, because the academy runs all four.

The DEA-specific rules people miss

• Form counts to DEA’s protocol, not your gym’s. Sit-ups need your hands crossed on your chest and staying there, elbows past the tops of the knees, shoulder blades touching on the way down, feet held. Reps outside the spec don’t exist. The full form rules for every event are on the hub’s DEA section.
• Hands on the ground at the sprint start fails the event. Standing start, on the whistle, stay in your lane.
• Push-ups are untimed but continuous. The guide says no resting. Train as if any pause ends the count, because you won’t be told the grader’s interpretation until it’s too late to matter.
• The scale hasn’t changed since 2016. The July 28, 2022 changes moved the hiring-stage thresholds and added the Week 6 academy retest, but the point tables above are the same ones I trained to. Old-looking charts online might be right, or they might be the three-event version. Check them against the tables here.

DEA’s next special agent announcement posts to USAJOBS on October 19, 2026, and I walked through what that public notice actually says if you’re planning to apply. Count backward from that date. The PTA invitation can arrive with days of notice, and the sprint and the run don’t improve in days. Take the four tables above to a track this week and find out which row you’re really on.

Quick answers

How is the DEA PTA scored?

Each of the four events (sit-ups, 300-meter sprint, push-ups, 1.5-mile run) is scored from minus 2 to 10 points on separate male and female tables with no age brackets. The full PTA requires at least 1 point in every event and 12 points total, and a minus 2 in any single event fails the whole test.

What is a passing DEA PTA score?

For the full PTA, 12 points total with at least 1 point in each event. At the conditional-offer stage, DEA's materials describe a 9-point standard that allows one zero but no negatives. Train for the 12 with margin, because the academy retests you on Day 2 and again at Week 12.

How many times can you take the DEA PTA?

DEA's Test Preparation Guide describes two opportunities within 60 days of application, with the second attempt tied to clearing the published cut scores on the first. At the academy, a failed Day 2 PTA gets one retest at Week 6 before the final Week 12 test.