National Citizenship Bee

Middle & Elementary School Divisions Homepage

New for the 2025-2026 Academic Year!

National Citizenship Bee
National Citizenship Bee

National Citizenship Bee Middle & Elementary School Divisions Overview

National Citizenship Bee

The National Citizenship Bee is a quiz competition for individual students, testing knowledge of government, politics, international relations, current events, economics, business, American society, US history, and US geography at a grade-appropriate level. For students competing in the various Middle and Elementary School Divisions, the National Citizenship Bee consists of two stages. The first is a 35 question multiple-choice National Qualifying Exam. The second stage is the National Championships, which will take place in-person on Thursday, May 21, 2026 at the Hyatt Regency Orlando together with the other in-person events of the IAC Middle and Elementary School National Championships. The National Championships of the National Citizenship Bee is entirely a buzzer-based quiz competition.

  • Eligibility: Students in 8th grade and younger. There is no younger age limit.

  • Competitors:  Individual students. Separate age divisions for 8th Graders, 7th Graders, 6th Graders, 5th Graders, 4th Graders, and for students in 3rd Grade and Younger.

  • Competition Style: Multiple-choice exam for the National Qualifying Exam. In-person buzzer-based quiz tournament at the National Championships.

  • Inquiries: Contact ems-info@iacompetitions.com

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IAC Students

Competition Format

The National Citizenship Bee is a two-stage competition, consisting of the National Qualifying Exams and the National Championships.

Stage
1

National Qualifying Exam

For the National Citizenship Bee, students first compete in the Qualifying Stage through the National Qualifying Exam. The National Qualifying Exam is a 35 question multiple-choice exam. All questions have 4 possible answer choices. The National Qualifying Exams for the Middle and Elementary School Divisions are scored on the basis of 2 points for a correct answer, and 0 for a question left unanswered or for an incorrect answer. There is thus no penalty for guessing, and students taking these exams should answer every question as best as they can.

Students may take the National Citizenship Bee National Qualifying Exam online, at all in-person National Science, History and Geography Bee Regional Tournaments, or at all in-person National History Bee and Bowl Regional Tournaments during the lunch break. There are four versions of the Middle and Elementary School National Qualifying Exams, which are known as Red, White, Blue, and Gold. For National Qualifying Exams that are offered at National Science, History, and Geography Bee Regional Tournaments, the Exam Set corresponds to the question set that the tournament is using. If the Exams are taken at National History Bee and Bowl Regional Tournaments, then if the tournament is run on C Set, then the Red Set exam version is offered. If the tournament is run on B Set, the White Set exam version is offered. If the tournament is run on A Set, the Blue Set exam version is offered.

For the National Citizenship Bee, the questions on all four versions of the National Qualifying Exams follow the National Qualifying Exam Question Distribution.

If taking the National Citizenship Bee National Qualifying Exam online, students have a 20 minute time limit.

If taking the National Citizenship Bee National Qualifying Exam at an in-person National Science, History, and Geography Bee Regional Tournament, students may also take the National Qualifying Exams for the National Biology Bee, National Humanities Bee, National Mathematics Bee, US Geography Bee, and US History Bee. At these tournaments, National Qualifying Exams are not timed on an exam-by-exam basis, but rather, students can take them in the designated Exam Room whenever it is open. Students cannot leave the Exam Room and come back to an exam that they had previously started. Students should be mindful of their schedule for the day and plan the times when they wish to take exams accordingly.

If taking the National Citizenship Bee National Qualifying Exam at an in-person National History Bee and Bowl Regional Tournament, students may also take the National Qualifying Exams for the other five National Qualifying Exams as listed in the above paragraph. If a student takes just one exam, they have 20 minutes. If a student takes two exams, they have 40 minutes, but if they take three, four, five, or six exams, they still only have 40 minutes (as time is limited during the lunch break of a tournament).

Students qualify for Nationals through the National Qualifying Exams in one of three ways:

  • 1

    Scoring 50 or higher on any version of the National Qualifying Exam.

  • 2

    Scoring among the top 50% of students in one’s National Citizenship Bee National Championship age division (i.e. 8th grade, 7th grade, 6th grade, 5th grade, 4th grade, or 3rd grade and younger) at an in-person tournament. This is inclusive of odd numbers of students and ties for the last qualifying spot. By way of example, if there are nine 6th Grade students taking the exam, and two of these students tie for fifth place with a score of 43, they would both qualify.

  • 3

    Scoring at or above the official National Qualifying Score in one’s age division for each exam version. The National Qualifying Scores are calculated for each exam version on the following dates: Red Set – December 6, 2025, White Set – February 7, 2026, Blue Set – March 7, 2026, Gold Set – April 7, 2026. Thereafter, the National Qualifying Scores do not change even though additional students will take each exam version.

Students need only to qualify on any one version of the National Qualifying Exam in any given academic year to be able to compete at the National Championships. If a student qualifies on one version of the Exam, and then takes a different version of the exam but does not qualify on that version, they remain qualified.

The cost is $20 per Exam Version per student.

For all questions on the National Qualifying Exams of the National Citizenship Bee, please email ems-info@iacompetitions.com.

Stage
2

National Championships

The second stage of the National Citizenship Bee for the Middle & Elementary School Divisions is the National Championships, which for the 2025-26 academic year will take place in-person at the Hyatt Regency Orlando on the late afternoon and evening of Thursday, May 21 at the IAC Middle and Elementary School National Championships. We hope that you will be able to join us! Competing students will play three preliminary round matches using standard International Academic Competitions buzzer-based rules with 30 questions each. There will then be either one or two playoff rounds. One playoff round will be played if there are 30 students or fewer in an age division; two playoff rounds will be played if there are 31 or more students in an age division. The exact number of students who make the playoffs will be a function of the total number of registrants.

Different age divisions will be held at the National Championships for students in 8th Grade, 7th Grade, 6th Grade, 5th Grade, 4th Grade, and 3rd Grade and Younger.

The cost to compete at the 2026 National Citizenship Bee National Championships is $115. Registration for the National Championships of the National Citizenship Bee will open in November and run through early May on this page.

For all questions on the 2026 Middle & Elementary School National Championships, please email ems-info@iacompetitions.com.

National Citizenship Bee Practice Resources

Past Questions

While there are not yet any past questions, as the National Citizenship Bee is debuting in 2025-26, we recommend looking at past National History Bee, National Geography Bee, and US History Bee questions. You may also wish to review past National Championship Exams, especially the National Political Science Exam.

Quiz Bowl Packets

This site has links to hundreds of thousands of additional questions; most of which would not fall under the question distribution of the National Citizenship Bee, though a good many would.

Rules & FAQs

Please see the files here that pertain to the National Citizenship Bee.

The hotels where we have room blocks, especially the host hotel, provide us with meeting space to hold the competitions and with sleeping accommodations for our staff, which we need to fly in from around the country. They do this in return for a commitment to fulfill a large number of sleeping room bookings over the course of Nationals weekend. For students who live near the Nationals host site for whom it would make sense to attend Nationals as a day trip and go back to their home each night, this rule does not apply.

For Varsity and Junior Varsity students (i.e. students in 9th-12th grade), we offer the National Political Science Bee instead. The questions in this competition are more narrowly-focused on politics, government, political economy, and current events. These subjects are not taught as frequently to younger students, thus the National Citizenship Bee has a somewhat different distribution of questions, with proportionally more American history and geography in the questions. Note, however, that ambitious students in 8th grade and younger are eligible to compete in the National Political Science Bee. However, they must do so by taking the Varsity and Junior Varsity National Qualifying Exams (i.e. high school-level difficulty). If they qualify, they would then be eligible to attend the National Political Science Bee National Championships in Arlington, VA on the Thursday evening of the Varsity & Junior Varsity IAC National Championships at the Crystal Gateway Marriott.

National Citizenship Bee Results

Past National Citizenship Bee National Qualifying Exam Results

Results from the 2025-26 National Qualifying Exams for the National Citizenship Bee will be posted through the relevant links here when available.