How the overall band works
Your overall IELTS band is the average of your Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking scores, rounded to the nearest half band. Set your scores below and see the result instantly, with the exact rounding IELTS uses.
Move the sliders or use the plus and minus buttons to enter your Listening and Reading raw scores out of 40. Set your Writing and Speaking bands directly. The calculator applies the official rounding rule and shows your overall band in real time. Switch between Academic and General Training at the top, because the Reading conversion is different for each test type.
Set your Listening and Reading scores out of 40, add your Writing and Speaking bands, and see your overall band with the exact official rounding.
Raw score to band conversion
How many correct answers you need in Listening and Reading. Writing and Speaking are scored directly by examiners against the band descriptors, so there is no raw-score table for them.
How the overall IELTS band score is calculated
Your overall band is the simple average of your four section bands - Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking - with all four weighted equally. That average is then rounded to the nearest half band using one fixed rule.
If the average ends in .25, it rounds up to the next half band. If it ends in .75, it rounds up to the next whole band. Anything below those points rounds down. Here are three real examples that show how it works.
| Listening | Reading | Writing | Speaking | Average | Overall |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6.5 | 6.5 | 5.0 | 7.0 | 6.25 | 6.5 (rounds up) |
| 4.0 | 4.5 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 4.125 | 4.0 (rounds down) |
| 6.5 | 6.5 | 5.5 | 6.0 | 6.125 | 6.0 (rounds down) |
The second and third rows catch people out. An average of 4.125 or 6.125 feels like it should round up, but it sits below the .25 trigger, so it rounds down. This single rule is why a weak section can quietly cost you half a band, and it is the strongest argument for not leaving any one skill far behind the others.
Why Academic and General Training are scored differently
Listening is identical for both tests, so the Listening conversion is the same whether you sit Academic or General Training. Reading is where they split. The General Training reading passages are more everyday and less dense than the Academic ones, so the marking is adjusted to keep the test fair. You need more correct answers in General Training Reading to reach the same band.
A clear example: 30 correct answers out of 40 gives a band 7 in Academic Reading, but the same 30 correct in General Training Reading gives a band 6. That is a full band of difference for the identical raw score, purely because of the test type. If you are preparing for migration or work, you are almost certainly taking General Training, and you should aim for a higher raw score than the Academic tables suggest. The calculator above handles this automatically once you pick your test type.
Writing and Speaking work the same way in both tests. There is no raw score to convert. A certified examiner scores your performance directly on the 0 to 9 scale against four published criteria per skill, so your band for those two sections is whatever the examiner awards.
What each section is scored on
Listening and Reading are objective. Each correct answer is worth one mark, you cannot lose marks for a wrong answer, and your total out of 40 maps to a band. For a full breakdown of the bands and what each one demands, see our Listening band scores and Reading band scores guides.
Writing is judged on Task Achievement or Task Response, Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, and Grammatical Range and Accuracy. Speaking is judged on Fluency and Coherence, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy, and Pronunciation. Each criterion is weighted equally inside its skill. Our Writing band scores and Speaking band scores pages explain exactly what examiners reward at each level. For the full picture of the nine-band scale, start with our IELTS band scores guide.
From estimate to real band
A calculator can only work with numbers you give it. The Listening and Reading bands are reliable because they come from a raw score you can actually count after a practice test. The Writing and Speaking figures are your own estimate, and that is the gap most candidates underestimate. After years of coaching IELTS candidates, the pattern is consistent: people guess their Writing and Speaking a half band to a full band too high.
The fix is simple. Sit a full scored mock test, get a real band for every section, then come back to this calculator and plan your target with numbers you trust. You can take a complete Academic or General Training test free on our practice tests page.
Is your target band realistic?
There is no single passing score in IELTS. The band you need depends entirely on where you are going. Many undergraduate and postgraduate courses ask for an overall 6.5 with no section below 6.0. Professional registration and many migration routes ask for 7.0 or higher, sometimes with a minimum in each skill. Always confirm the exact requirement, including any per-section minimum, with the university, employer or immigration authority you are applying to, because the overall band alone is often not enough.