Disclosed is a system and method for providing program verify adaptation for flash memory. The method includes performing an adjustment iteration, which includes accessing error counts for respective N states of a plurality of memory cells, applying a weighting to the error counts based on a binary data coding for the N states, determining a state Smin of the N states having a minimum error count Emin from the error counts, determining a state Smax of the N states having a maximum error count Emax from the error counts, determining a difference between the Emax and the Emin satisfies an error count threshold, and adjusting, by a predefined value, a respective program verify offset of a lowest state from Smin and Smax, and of each state between Smin and Smax in the N states, wherein the adjusting is a decrement when Smin is less than Smax and an increment otherwise.