How many times can you take the LSAT?

There are hard caps, they are set by LSAC rather than by any school, and they are lower than most people assume.

There is also a limit almost nobody plans for: LSAC states you become ineligible to test again if you score a 180 within the current reporting period. A perfect score ends your eligibility, which is the rare case of a rule you would be delighted to hit.

Retakes are common. Unplanned retakes are expensive.

Taking the test more than once is normal and schools are used to seeing it. What the caps mean in practice is that attempts are a finite resource, so the useful question is not whether retaking is allowed but whether this particular retake is likely to move anything.

The honest test is whether something has actually changed since the last attempt. A retake three weeks later with the same preparation tends to produce a similar score — score movement follows changed method, not repeated exposure. If nothing about how you study has changed, the attempt is being spent to buy a different day rather than a different result.

Before you book another one

• Know why the first score happened. A pacing collapse, a bad section, and a genuine ceiling all produce the same number and need completely different responses.
• Have a specific fix, and check it. "Study more" is not a fix. "I take the extreme answer on Strengthen questions, and here is a set from last week showing I no longer do" is.
• Count the attempts you have left, not the ones you have used. The caps are a budget.
• Leave room in the application cycle. A retake is only useful if the score arrives before the schools you want have filled their class.