The FBI PFT Changed: Pull-Ups In, Sit-Ups Out (2026 Guide)

If your FBI PFT prep starts with sit-ups, you’re training for a test that no longer exists.

I watch this happen every week now. Somebody finds a confident three-year-old video, runs the program faithfully, and shows up prepared for a format the FBI retired. I’ve failed a federal fitness test myself for a smaller version of the same mistake, so this one is personal.

The FBI changed its Physical Fitness Test in late 2025, and the internet has not caught up. YouTube is still full of confident walkthroughs of the old format, old points tables, and the old 12-point pass line. Meanwhile the test people actually take now looks like this, per the FBI’s own published standards, which I keep compiled and verified on the standards hub:

Four scored events, in this order: pull-ups or chin-ups, the 300-meter sprint, push-ups, and the 1.5-mile run. Sit-ups are gone. Passing is at least 1 point in every event and at least 10 points total, scored on male and female tables with no age brackets.

Two more current rules that bite people:

• Walking during the 1.5-mile run doesn’t just cost you points. It disqualifies the event and books a minus 2. A bad pacing day becomes a failed test through that one tripwire, so pace math matters as much as fitness.
• No more than 5 minutes between events. This is a fatigue-management test, not four fresh efforts. Training the events in sequence, on the clock, is half the preparation.

Why the pull-up change matters more than it looks

Swapping sit-ups for pull-ups isn’t a cosmetic edit. It changes who passes.

Sit-ups were the event almost everyone could grind out with two weeks of floor work. Pull-ups are the opposite kind of event: they punish bodyweight, they expose upper-body gaps that push-ups hide, and they respond slowly to training. If you cannot do them today, you cannot cram them in October. Dead hangs, negatives, band-assisted reps, and patience are the road, and the road takes weeks.

The old-test YouTube guides fail you twice here. They spend your training time on an event that no longer counts, and they leave you standing at the bar on test day discovering the one event you never programmed for. Of everything I compiled building the standards hub, this swap is the change most likely to fail a genuinely fit applicant.

And a word on form, from expensive personal experience: I once failed an FBI push-up test while in the best shape of my life, because their grader counted to a published spec my gym reps didn’t meet. Every event on this test has a protocol, the graders count to it silently, and reps outside it simply don’t exist. Train in the FBI’s published form standards, not your gym habits.

The 10 versus 12 confusion, settled

Forums are full of people talking past each other on the pass line, because they’re describing different tests. The retired sit-ups format passed at 12 points. The current four-event format passes at 10, with at least 1 point in every event. When you see 12 quoted in 2026, you’re reading about the old test, and it’s a reliable tell that the rest of that guide is stale too.

Worth knowing where this gate sits: the official PFT is step four of ten in the FBI’s published hiring process, and there’s a second fitness test waiting before you report to Quantico.

Don’t train to the 10, though. The pass line is the floor, the academy retests you against harder daily reality, and a one-point cushion evaporates on a windy run day. Build margin in every event, with your weakest one getting the most work, because the 1-point-per-event floor means your worst event can fail you regardless of your best.

How to actually prepare

Score yourself this week against the current tables on the standards hub. Not a guess, an actual timed, counted, protocol-correct self-test. I tell every applicant the same thing I practiced through my own application years: the physical test is the one gate you can always be working on, so it never gets a day off. That number tells you where your training lives for the next five weeks.

Then train the test: all four events, in order, inside the rest windows, in the published form specs, twice a week, with targeted work on your weakest event between. If you want that programmed for you, my 5-week FBI PFT plan is built backward from the current test, pull-ups included, with the pacing math for the sprint and the run.

The FBI publishes the answers to this exam. The only people who fail it are the ones who trained for a different exam, and right now the internet is manufacturing those people daily. Check your sources against the bureau’s own pages, check your bracket, and get on the bar this week, because pull-up strength is the one thing on this test that arrives on its own schedule.

Quick answers

Does the FBI PFT have pull-ups now?

Yes. The current FBI PFT opens with pull-ups or chin-ups as a scored event, followed by the 300-meter sprint, push-ups, and the 1.5-mile run. Sit-ups are no longer on the test, and any guide that leads with them is teaching the old format.

What score do you need to pass the FBI PFT?

At least 1 point in each of the four events and at least 10 points total, per the FBI's current published standards. The old 12-point threshold belongs to the retired sit-ups format. One more current rule with teeth: walking during the 1.5-mile run disqualifies that event and records a minus 2.

How should I train for the new FBI PFT?

Train the four current events in the FBI's published protocols, and give pull-ups priority if they're new to your programming, because they punish bodyweight and can't be crammed. Score yourself against the current tables regularly and build margin above 10 points, not a landing on it.