IELTS band score calculator

Overall band calculator

Convert a Listening or Reading raw score to a band — indicative

Enter your number of correct answers out of 40. The figures below come only from what ielts.org and IDP IELTS publish, and ielts.org states that the precise number of marks needed varies slightly from test version to test version. Indicative — not an official band. Writing and Speaking have no raw score.

Listening — IDP IELTS’s published table (indicative)

Published by IDP IELTS, one of the three IELTS partners, and agreeing with all four of ielts.org’s Listening anchors. Nothing is published below 11 marks.

Reading — ielts.org’s published anchor points (indicative)

The marks ielts.org publishes as needed for each whole band. The half bands between anchors are not published, and no fuller official Reading table exists.

How is the IELTS overall band score calculated?

The IELTS overall band score is the average of the four section band scores — Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking — rounded to the nearest half band. Add the four bands, divide by four, then round: an average ending in .25 rounds up to the next half band, and an average ending in .75 rounds up to the next whole band. For example, Listening 6.5, Reading 6.5, Writing 5.0 and Speaking 7.0 add up to 25.0, average 6.25, and give an overall band of 6.5. This is the rule ielts.org publishes, and it is the only calculation on this page that is exact.

How does IELTS round the overall band score?

IELTS rounds the average of the four section bands to the nearest half band, and the two quarter cases round upwards: an average ending in .25 rounds up to the next half band and one ending in .75 rounds up to the next whole band. An average of 6.125 is nearer to 6.0 than to 6.5, so the overall band is 6.0; 6.25 becomes 6.5; 6.375 becomes 6.5; 6.625 becomes 6.5; 6.75 becomes 7.0; and 6.875 becomes 7.0. The rounding is applied once, to the average of the four — each section band is already reported in half bands, so the average is always a multiple of 0.125.

Rows marked “ielts.org example” are the worked examples ielts.org itself publishes; the others are ours, chosen to land on every eighth between 6.0 and 7.0. Every row is computed by this calculator.

What happens when the IELTS average ends in .25 or .75?

An IELTS average ending in .25 is rounded up to the next half band, and an average ending in .75 is rounded up to the next whole band — both go up, never down. So an average of 6.25 becomes an overall band of 6.5, and an average of 6.75 becomes 7.0. These are the only two cases where the average sits exactly halfway between two reportable bands, which is why ielts.org states them explicitly.

Are the four IELTS skills weighted equally in the overall band?

Yes — the IELTS overall band score is the plain average of the four section band scores, so Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking each count for exactly one quarter. Within a section the weighting differs: ielts.org states that Writing Task 2 carries more weight than Task 1, and that each Writing task and the Speaking test are scored as the average of four equally weighted criteria. None of that changes the overall calculation, which uses only the four section bands.

How many marks do you need for band 7 in IELTS Listening and Reading?

Indicatively, 30 correct answers out of 40 for band 7 in Listening and in Academic Reading, and 35 out of 40 for band 7 in General Training Reading — these are the anchor points ielts.org publishes, and they are indicative, not fixed. ielts.org's other published anchors are: Listening band 5 at 16 marks, band 6 at 23 and band 8 at 35; Academic Reading band 5 at 15, band 6 at 23 and band 8 at 35; General Training Reading band 4 at 15, band 5 at 23 and band 6 at 30. ielts.org states that the precise number of marks needed for these bands varies slightly from test version to test version, and that a conversion table is produced for each Listening test — the tables themselves are not published on ielts.org.

Can a calculator convert an IELTS Listening or Reading raw score to a band?

Only indicatively — there is no officially published table that converts an IELTS raw score out of 40 into a band. ielts.org publishes four anchor points per paper (bands 5, 6, 7 and 8 for Listening and Academic Reading; bands 4, 5, 6 and 7 for General Training Reading), and IDP IELTS, one of the three IELTS partners, publishes a fuller banded table for Listening covering 11 to 40 marks. This calculator shows only those published figures and, between two Reading anchors, the two half bands they imply; it does not interpolate a single figure, because any such figure would be an estimate presented as a fact.

What can this IELTS band calculator not tell you?

This calculator cannot tell you your official IELTS result, cannot convert a Reading raw score to a single half band, and cannot score your Writing or Speaking. The overall band it computes is exact for the four section bands you enter; the raw-score figures are indicative, drawn only from what ielts.org and IDP publish. Writing and Speaking have no raw score at all — an examiner rates each against four equally weighted criteria, and in Writing, Task 2 carries more weight than Task 1. Only the Test Report Form issued by the IELTS partners is an official result.