IELTS Band Scores Explained: How They Are Calculated and What They Mean

The IELTS scale, in one paragraph

You get one band score (0 to 9, half-point increments) for each of the four skills — Listening, Reading, Writing, Speaking — plus an Overall Band Score that is the average of the four, rounded to the nearest half band. That's it. No percentages, no letter grades, no pass/fail. Universities and immigration schemes set their own minimum bands, often with a separate minimum on each skill.

The rest of this post is the unglamorous detail that determines whether you walk out with a 6.5 or a 7.

What the bands actually mean

The official IELTS descriptors are public and unambiguous. Here is the practical translation, with what each band signals to a university or visa office.

Band	Label	What it means in practice
9	Expert user	Native-equivalent. Almost no one scores this; you don't need it.
8.5	Very good user	Polished, controlled English. Typical for top-tier postgraduate offers.
8	Very good user	Fluent and accurate; minor errors in unfamiliar contexts.
7.5	Good user	The realistic target for most ambitious candidates.
7	Good user	Operational fluency. Required by most UK Russell Group programmes.
6.5	Competent user	Most undergraduate offers. Fine for general migration in many schemes.
6	Competent user	Common minimum for a foundation programme or pathway.
5.5	Modest user	Below most university minimums; often blocks visa pathways.
5	Modest user	Visible language gaps; fluency under pressure breaks down.
4 and below	Limited / non-user	Not generally accepted by tertiary admissions.

The line that matters most is the 6.5 / 7 boundary. Almost every "I need IELTS for…" conversation ends in needing one or the other. Everything in your prep should be calibrated against that line.

Listening and Reading: the raw conversion

Listening and Reading are scored objectively. Forty questions, one mark each. Your raw score (correct answers out of 40) is converted to a band using a fixed table. The exact table varies slightly per test, but the public approximation looks like this for Academic Reading:

Raw score	Band
39-40	9
37-38	8.5
35-36	8
33-34	7.5
30-32	7
27-29	6.5
23-26	6
19-22	5.5
15-18	5

For Listening and General Training Reading, the bands tend to be slightly more generous (you can typically get one or two more wrong for the same band).

Two practical implications:

1. Three wrong answers is the difference between Band 7 and Band 6.5 in Reading. That's the cost of a single careless True/False/Not Given misread, or a missed transition word in a Matching Headings question. Pacing isn't theoretical; it's worth a half-band.
2. Your raw score is fixed. No examiner reads your Reading paper and decides whether your interpretation was reasonable. There is one correct answer; your sheet either has it or it doesn't.

Writing and Speaking: how the four criteria combine

Writing and Speaking are scored subjectively by trained examiners against four band descriptors. Examiners give you a 0-9 score on each criterion, and your section band is the average of the four (rounded to the nearest half band).

For Writing, the four are:

• Task Achievement / Task Response — did you address the prompt fully?
• Coherence and Cohesion — does the writing flow? Are paragraphs well-ordered?
• Lexical Resource — vocabulary range and precision
• Grammatical Range and Accuracy — sentence structures and grammar control

For Speaking, the four are:

• Fluency and Coherence — natural pace, logical flow
• Lexical Resource — vocabulary range and appropriacy
• Grammatical Range and Accuracy — same as Writing
• Pronunciation — clear, intelligible speech with appropriate features

Crucially, the two Writing tasks are weighted differently. Task 2 is worth roughly two-thirds of your Writing band, and Task 1 worth one-third. Don't burn 35 minutes on Task 1 and rush Task 2 — that's a Band 7.5 candidate's mistake that costs them a Band 7. We have a separate post on Writing Task 2 essay structures if you want to drill that down.

The four Speaking criteria are weighted equally.

How the Overall Band Score is calculated

The Overall Band is the arithmetic average of the four section bands, rounded to the nearest half band. The IELTS rounding rule has one critical wrinkle:

• If the average ends in .25, it rounds up to the next half band.
• If the average ends in .75, it rounds up to the next whole band.

So if you scored 7 / 7 / 6.5 / 6.5, your average is 6.75, which rounds to 7. That single extra mark on either the Reading or Listening — three-and-a-half versus four — is the difference between an Overall Band 6.5 and an Overall Band 7.

Worked examples:

L	R	W	S	Average	Overall
7.0	7.0	6.5	7.0	6.875	7.0
7.0	6.5	6.5	7.0	6.75	7.0
6.5	6.5	6.5	7.0	6.625	6.5
7.5	7.5	6.0	7.0	7.0	7.0
8.0	7.5	7.0	7.0	7.375	7.5

Notice the third row: a single half-band lower in either Listening or Reading drops the Overall from 7 to 6.5. Receptive skills are the easiest place to claw back marks — they have no subjective examiner. If you're stuck around 6.5 overall and you're at 6 on Reading, fixing your Reading is almost always the highest-leverage thing you can do.

Section-minimum requirements: the real trap

Here's what catches people out. Universities and visa schemes don't only set a minimum Overall band — they almost always set a minimum on each of the four skills.

A typical UK Russell Group entry requirement looks like:

Overall IELTS Academic Band 7.0, with no skill below 6.5.

So you can score 8 / 8 / 8 / 6 and still be rejected, because Speaking is below 6.5. That overall 7.5 means nothing if a single skill is under the minimum.

Postgraduate medicine, law and PR programmes often demand 7.0 in every skill. Some demand 7.5 in Writing. Read your offer letter carefully — the Overall is rarely the binding constraint.

What about the half bands — are they really half bands?

Yes. IELTS uses a 0–9 scale with half-band increments for both section bands and the Overall Band. So you can score 6.5, 7, 7.5 — but never 7.25 or 6.75 as a reported score. Internally, the Writing/Speaking averages can be on quarter-points, but they round before they're printed.

Test Report Form: what you actually receive

Your Test Report Form (TRF) shows:

• Your name, photo, date of birth, country
• Your test date, version (Academic or General Training), and centre
• The four section bands and the Overall Band Score
• Your Speaking interviewer's notes summary

Universities and visa offices verify the TRF directly with the British Council or IDP — they don't trust scanned copies. Make sure your name, date of birth and passport number on your TRF match the documents you'll submit.

How long the score is valid for

Two years from the test date. No extensions, no exceptions. If you sat in March 2024 and you're applying in April 2026, your TRF is no longer valid for visa purposes — most universities accept this strictly. You'll need to retake.

This is part of why we tell candidates to take IELTS only when they're close to applying, not "to have it on hand". A 7.0 from three years ago is worth nothing now.

Realistic targets, by candidate type

Some quick anchors before you set your goal:

• Undergraduate UK / Australia / NZ admission: target Overall 6.5, with no skill below 6.0 or 6.5 depending on the university.
• Postgraduate at a competitive UK / US university: target Overall 7.0, no skill below 6.5.
• Highly competitive programmes (LLM at top UK law schools, MBA at top business schools, medicine top-up): target 7.5 with possibly 7.5 in Writing.
• UK Health and Care Worker visa (nurse / doctor): typically Overall 7.0, with 7.0 in each skill (this is strict; OET is an alternative).
• Skilled migration (Australia / Canada / NZ / UK): depends on the points scheme, but most candidates target Overall 7.0 with 7.0 in each skill to maximise points.

What's next

If this is all new, read What is IELTS for the Academic vs General Training breakdown. If you're closer to booking, see How to register for IELTS.

To see where you stand right now, take a free reading or listening test from our practice tests. The score you get is calibrated to the IELTS band scale, so you'll know within an hour whether you're at 6, 6.5, or 7.