Source: Adapted from publicly available pages on https://ielts.idp.com/ (the official IELTS test provider). This is an original, condensed summary — not a copy of their site.
Everything on the rest of this site is about how to perform on the exam. This page is different — it's the administrative stuff. Booking, what happens on the day, how scoring works, and what to do if something goes wrong with your results. None of this will raise your band score, but getting it wrong can cost you a test date or a fee.
Rules vary a little by country and test centre, so treat the numbers below as "typically" rather than gospel — always confirm specifics with your local centre before you rely on them.
Which Test Do You Need?
| Test | Who it's for |
|---|---|
| IELTS Academic | University admission (undergrad or postgrad) and professional registration (medicine, nursing, law, teaching) |
| IELTS General Training | Migration, work, or study below degree level |
| IELTS for UKVI | Same content as Academic/General Training, but formatted to satisfy UK Home Office visa requirements specifically |
| IELTS Life Skills | Speaking and Listening only — used for UK family/spouse visas and citizenship, not for university or most work applications |
Listening and Speaking are identical across Academic and General Training. Reading and Writing differ: Academic uses passages and tasks aimed at an academic audience; General Training uses everyday and workplace material.
Typical band requirements (always confirm the exact figure with the specific institution or visa body — these vary and this site does not set them): - University admission: commonly 6.0–6.5 overall for undergraduate programs, 6.5–7.0 for postgraduate, often with a minimum per-skill band (frequently 6.0) alongside the overall score — competitive or specialized programs (medicine, law) sometimes ask for 7.0+. - Skilled migration / work visas: commonly 6.0–7.0 overall depending on the visa category and country, sometimes as "Competent" or "Proficient" User bands under a points-based system. - Professional registration (nursing, medicine, teaching): often 7.0+ overall with a high per-skill minimum, set by the licensing body, not by IELTS itself.
Treat these as rough planning ranges, not guarantees — the number that matters is whatever your specific university, employer, or visa application actually states.
IELTS on paper has been phased out at IDP test centres — the option now is IELTS on computer (at a test centre) or IELTS Online (at home), with the Writing component still available on paper at some centres if you prefer handwriting.
Test Format at a Glance
The whole test is about 2 hours 45 minutes, split into four sections. Listening and Speaking are the same regardless of which version you sit.
| Section | Length | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Listening | 30 minutes | 40 questions across 4 recordings. Parts 1–2 are everyday/social situations; Parts 3–4 are educational/training contexts. |
| Reading | 60 minutes | 40 questions, 3 passages. Academic: passages from books, journals, magazines aimed at a non-specialist university audience. General Training: everyday/workplace material. |
| Writing | 60 minutes | Two tasks. Task 1: describe a chart/graph/diagram (Academic) or write a letter (General Training). Task 2: a formal essay. |
| Speaking | 11–14 minutes | Face-to-face with an examiner, recorded. Part 1: general questions about you. Part 2: a 2-minute talk on a topic card (1 minute to prepare, with pen and paper provided). Part 3: a discussion related to Part 2. |
The Speaking test may happen on the same day as the others, or up to about a week before/after — this depends on the test centre's schedule, not on you.
As of May 2025, test centres provide black ballpoint pens for paper answer sheets (a change from pencil); this is purely a materials change and has no effect on how your test is marked.
IELTS Life Skills (Speaking/Listening only, assessed with a second test taker present) runs 16–22 minutes depending on level (A1, A2, or B1). The other test taker's performance does not affect your score.
Booking
To book, you need a valid form of identification — a passport is the standard option — and you'll upload a clear copy of it during booking. Bring the same document to the test centre on test day; a mismatch between the ID you booked with and the ID you bring can cause problems. If you're under 18, you'll also need written parental or guardian consent to register.
If you have a medical condition, visual impairment, or other circumstance requiring special arrangements, contact your test centre before booking — accommodations can affect which test dates are available to you, so build in extra lead time.
General planning advice: book your test date at least 2–3 months before your application deadline, to leave room for results processing and, if needed, a retake.
Changing or Cancelling Your Booking
Transfer and cancellation policies are tiered by how close you are to your test date, and the exact cutoffs and fee percentages differ by country — but the shape is consistent:
- The earlier you act, the less it costs you. Transferring or cancelling well ahead of the test date (commonly framed as several weeks out) gets some or all of your fee back, minus an administrative charge.
- Close to the test date, you lose more. Within roughly the last two weeks, a transfer may carry a larger fee, and a cancellation may become non-refundable.
- Very close to the test date, transfers stop being possible and any change is treated as a straight cancellation.
- A medical certificate can override the deadline. If you can't attend for a genuine medical reason and provide documentation within a few days of the test, you may still get a refund minus a smaller administrative cost.
Special Consideration
If illness, bereavement, a traumatic event, civil unrest, or another serious circumstance beyond your control affects your ability to attend or perform, you can apply for special consideration at your test centre — up to two calendar days after the test date, but never after results have already been released. Important: special consideration does not adjust your band score after the fact. It's about accommodating the circumstance (e.g., a rescheduled sitting), not about bumping a score you're unhappy with.
If the test centre itself has to cancel (extreme weather, natural disaster, technical failure, force majeure), you're entitled to a full refund or a transfer to a future date, at your choice.
IELTS One Skill Retake (OSR)
IDP's distinguishing feature versus other providers: if you took a full computer-delivered IELTS test and are only unhappy with one of the four skills, you can retake just that skill instead of sitting the entire exam again.
Key mechanics:
- You must have already taken a full test and received your results before you're eligible.
- You have 60 days from your original test date to book and sit the OSR.
- Only one skill can be retaken per original test, and only once — you can't OSR the same test twice.
- Your retaken skill score can go up, down, or stay the same — there's no guarantee it improves things.
- Your overall band score gets recalculated using the new skill score, and that overall figure can also move in either direction.
- OSR results apply only to the specific original full test you booked it against — you can't apply an OSR to a different sitting.
- Cancelling 72+ hours before your OSR session gets a full refund; inside 48 hours, you need to contact the test centre directly. No-shows aren't refunded.
- Not every organization that accepts standard IELTS results necessarily accepts an OSR result — always confirm with the specific university, employer, or visa body you're applying to before relying on OSR.
OSR is a separate mechanism from a remark (see Enquiry on Results below) — a remark re-checks the same performance you already gave; OSR has you sit that one skill again as a new performance.
How Scoring Works
Each of the four skills gets its own band score on a 0–9 scale, in whole or half bands (e.g., 6.0, 6.5, 7.0). Your overall band score is the mean of the four skill scores, rounded as follows: a mean ending in .25 rounds up to the next half band, a mean ending in .75 rounds up to the next whole band, and anything else rounds to the nearest half or whole band as written (so 6.0 and 6.5 already stand as they are — this only changes the quarter-band means that pure averaging can produce). Listening and Reading are machine/answer-key scored (number of correct answers converted to a band); Writing and Speaking are scored by certified examiners against published band descriptors.
Becoming a Writing/Speaking examiner requires a relevant undergraduate degree, a recognized English-teaching certification (TESOL/TESL/TEFL or equivalent), and at least three years of English-teaching experience, followed by standardized training and a certification exam where the candidate examiner must mark a set of tests consistently and accurately. Examiners are re-certified every two years through further training and marking checks — this is part of why IELTS scoring is considered comparable across countries and test centres.
Getting Your Results
| Test type | Typical results timeline |
|---|---|
| IELTS on computer | 1–5 days |
| IELTS for UKVI | up to 13 days |
| IELTS Life Skills | around 7 days |
Results are viewable online (via your IDP account, using the same passport/ID number you registered with) for about 28 days, but the online view is provisional — it's not an official document.
Your official Test Report Form (TRF) is the actual certificate. You normally get one copy; if you're applying through UK or Canadian immigration channels, you may be able to get a second copy with proof of application. IDP can also electronically send up to five copies of your TRF directly to institutions you list on your application, at no extra charge — further copies may carry an administrative fee. Test centres cannot email, phone, or fax your results to you; picking up a physical TRF requires the same ID you registered with. Many centres now also offer an e-TRF — a digital PDF version of the same document, downloadable from your online profile.
A TRF is valid for two years from the test date for most purposes.
Why a Result Might Be Delayed or Withheld
Beyond the standard release window, IELTS may hold a result back for additional checks — reasons include performance validation, random quality-assurance sampling, suspected irregularities, or technical issues. This isn't a routine thing, but it does happen. If it happens to you: contact your test centre for status, monitor your account/email, and know that if the delay follows a formal investigation, you have the right to request reconsideration from Cambridge English, for a fee, within 21 days of being notified.
You're allowed to just sit the test again if you don't want to wait — and if you do end up with two sets of results, you choose which one to submit.
Requesting a Remark (Enquiry on Results / EOR)
If you disagree with your score, you can request a re-mark within 6 weeks of your test date, for the whole test or for specific sections. Re-marking is done by senior examiners who don't see the original scores. Turnaround is typically 2 hours to 21 days depending on how many sections are involved and the type of test. There's a fee to request it — but if your band score changes as a result, that fee is refunded and a new TRF is issued. If it doesn't change, the original score and fee stand.
The Bottom Line
None of this is exam skill — it's paperwork and deadlines. But a missed cancellation window, an ID mismatch on test day, or not knowing OSR exists can cost you as much as a bad essay can. Bookmark your test centre's specific policy page once you've picked a date, since exact fees and cutoffs are set locally.