United States Geography Bee
Varsity & Junior Varsity Divisions

Option A: National Qualifying Exam

For the Varsity and Junior Varsity Divisions, students can compete in the Qualifying Stage through the National Qualifying Exam. The National Qualifying Exam is a 50 question multiple choice exam. Note that the same Varsity & Junior Varsity Geography National Qualifying Exam qualifies students for the US Geography Bee, the National Geography Bee, and the US Geography Championships. For the Varsity and Junior Varsity Qualifying Exams, all questions have 4 possible answer choices. The National Qualifying Exams are scored on the basis of 2 points for a correct answer, 0 for a question left unanswered, and -1 point for an incorrect answer. This scoring system rewards partial knowledge but not random lucky guesses. Students who have no clue about a particular question should thus leave it unanswered, but if they can narrow down the answer choices, they should likely then take their best guess even if they are not 100% sure.

Students may take the Geography National Qualifying Exam online, and at all in-person National History Bee and Bowl Regional Tournaments during the lunch break. There are three versions of the Varsity and Junior Varsity National Qualifying Exam, which are known as Set A, Set B, and Set C. For National Qualifying Exams that are offered at National History Bee and Bowl Regional Tournaments, the Exam Set corresponds to the question set that the tournament is using. The questions on the B and C Set versions of the National Qualifying Exams follow the National Qualifying Exam distribution for the National Geography Bee. The questions on the A Set version mirror the distribution found in the multiple choice section of the AP Human Geography Exam.

If taking the Exam online or at an in-person tournament, students typically have a 20 minute time limit. When taking the exam at an in-person tournament, students may also take the National Qualifying Exams for the National Biology Bee, National Humanities Bee, National Political Science Bee, National Science Bee, and/or US History Bee. 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 3-5 exams (it is not permitted to do all 6), they still only have 40 minutes (as time is typically limited during the lunch break of a tournament).

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

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 2025-26 Geography National Qualifying Exam for the Varsity & Junior Varsity Divisions, please email hs-info@iacompetitions.com.

Option B: National Geography Bee Regional Tournaments

The second option for competing in the Qualifying Stage is to compete in a National Geography Bee Regional Tournament at our National Science, History and Geography Bee Regional Tournaments (there are no US Geography Bee Regional Tournaments, but finishing high enough at any National Geography Bee Regional Tournament can qualify a student for the US Geography Bee National Championships).

Over 100 of these are held each year both in-person around the USA and online; for students competing in the Varsity or Junior Varsity Division at these, no qualification is needed. At these tournaments, there is a Varsity Division and a Junior Varsity Division. For students competing in the National Geography Bee, the Varsity / Junior Varsity cutoff is done on a birthdate basis; thus students born before July 1, 2010 are considered to be in the Varsity Division for the 2025-26 academic year (this includes most 10th graders). Students in 8th grade and younger are invited to participate in their grade-level division (provided they have qualified through the Online Regional Qualifying Exam) at these tournaments, although they can also choose to play in the Junior Varsity Division regardless of whether they have qualified on the Online Regional Qualifying Exam or not. At the Regional Tournaments, students compete in 3 preliminary rounds with 30 questions each. The top students advance to the final round, which will likewise have 30 questions, though these on average, will be somewhat more challenging.

All National Geography Bee Regional Tournament questions are played with a buzzer system. Students are read paragraph-length questions out loud with the clues arranged in decreasing order of difficulty. Students buzz in when they believe they know the answer; if they are correct, they score the point for that question, otherwise they cannot ring in again. Please see the rules files posted here for further details on how the competition works.

Students qualify for the US Geography Bee National Championships if their cumulative score is in the top 50% of their age division at the end of the three preliminary rounds. This is inclusive of ties for the last spot and odd numbers of students (just like on the National Qualifying Exams). The cost is $50 per student per competition.

For all questions on the 2025-26 National Geography Bee Varsity / Junior Varsity Regional Tournaments, please email hs-info@iacompetitions.com.

The National Championships of the US Geography Bee for the Varsity & Junior Varsity Divisions for the 2025-26 academic year will take place online on Thursday, May 21, 2026. The four preliminary rounds take place in the morning and the two final rounds will take place in the afternoon (Eastern Daylight Time). The National Championships for the US Geography Bee is held simultaneously with the National Championships of the Middle School & Elementary Divisions for this event, which will be taking place in-person in Orlando, FL as part of the IAC Middle and Elementary School National Championships weekend.

Event Schedule (All times EDT):
9:30am – Preliminary Rounds 1-4
12:45pm – Semifinals
1:25pm – Finals

The cost to compete at the 2026 National Championships for the US Geography Bee is $135. Registration for the National Championships opens in November and runs through early May on this page.

For all questions on the Varsity and Junior Varsity US Geography Bee, please email hs-info@iacompetitions.com.