Australian Citizenship Test Pass Rate 2026: How Hard Is It?

About two in three sittings of the Australian citizenship test end in a pass. Home Affairs figures given to a Senate committee put the rate at 63.7 per cent in 2022 and 65.4 per cent in 2023. Counted per person, the rate is much higher: 95.8 per cent of applicants passed in 2023 once re-sits are included.

So the test fails a lot of people on the day, and very few people for good. The gap between those two numbers is worth understanding before your appointment, because most of it comes from one scoring rule.

What percentage of people pass the Australian citizenship test?

There are two honest answers, and they measure different things.

The per-sitting pass rate counts every test taken. If one person sits the test twice, that counts as two sittings. This is the number that fell after 2020, and it is the one most news stories quote.

The per-applicant rate counts people. It asks how many applicants pass in the end, however many attempts it takes. Home Affairs told AAP FactCheck that this was 95.8 per cent in 2023, and that it has been around 95 per cent for six years.

The yearly per-sitting figures come from the department's answer to Senate question on notice OSE23-278, from the October 2023 estimates hearings. The answer gives tests sat and tests passed for each year. We worked out the percentages ourselves.

Year	Tests sat	Tests passed	Pass rate per sitting
2017	97,445	77,993	80.0%
2018	107,063	90,857	84.9%
2019	193,750	169,378	87.4%
2020	104,349	80,985	77.6%
2021	181,601	123,435	68.0%
2022	223,445	142,294	63.7%
2023 (to 31 August)	164,787	107,762	65.4%

We could not find official yearly figures after August 2023. A newspaper report about 2024 described the same pattern, with roughly one sitting in three ending in a fail. We could not check it against departmental data, so it is not in the table.

Why is the per-person pass rate so much higher?

Because one fail does not end an application. Your application covers three test appointments. If you do not pass, Home Affairs books the next appointment for you at no extra cost, and the department says failing "will not affect your visa".

Most people who fail a sitting pass at a later one. That is how roughly a third of sittings can end in a fail while only about one applicant in twenty does not pass in the end. If you are reading this after a bad result, our guide to what happens when you fail the citizenship test covers the next steps.

Is the Australian citizenship test harder than it used to be?

If you count sittings, yes. From 2017 to 2019, between 80 and 87 per cent of tests were passed. Since 2021 the rate has stayed in the mid-60s.

The fall lines up with one date. On 15 November 2020 the test gained five questions on Australian values, and a new rule came with them: you must get all five right to pass. AAP FactCheck reported a pass rate of 80.5 per cent in the twelve months before that change and 68.8 per cent in the twelve months after it. The 2020 figure in our table mixes the old and new formats, because the rule started in mid-November.

The test still draws on the testable section of the official booklet, Australian Citizenship: Our Common Bond. Parts 1 to 4 run from page 7 to page 39. That is not a lot of reading. The hard part is that the scoring now has no room for a slip in one particular section.

What score do you need to pass the citizenship test?

You need two things. At least 15 of the 20 questions must be correct, which is 75 per cent. And all five Australian values questions must be correct. You have 45 minutes.

The second rule overrides the first, and that is what catches people out.

Your score	Values questions correct	Result
20 / 20	5 / 5	Pass
15 / 20	5 / 5	Pass
19 / 20	4 / 5	Fail
14 / 20	5 / 5	Fail

Look at the 19 out of 20 row. Under the old rules that was a comfortable pass. Today it is a fail if the one mistake was a values question.

Why do people fail the citizenship test?

Home Affairs does not publish a breakdown of reasons, so nobody outside the department can give you exact percentages. But the scoring rules and the timing of the fall both point the same way.

One wrong values answer is enough

Five questions in every test come from Part 4 of the booklet, the section on Australian values, and you cannot miss any of them. Part 4 is only about seven pages long. In our own question bank it accounts for 48 of 499 questions, fewer than one in ten. Yet it supplies a quarter of every real test, and it is the only part where a single mistake decides the result.

It is natural to give each part of the booklet time in proportion to its size. For this test, that is the wrong way round. Our guide to the five values questions goes through what Part 4 says and how its questions are phrased.

Options that are almost right

Most questions are not difficult once you know the booklet. The trouble is wording. Here is a real Part 4 question from our bank.

The second option sounds responsible. It mentions the authorities, and it is easy to pick in a hurry. But it waits until after the crime has happened, and the booklet says to report your concern as soon as possible. Both options are about telling the authorities. Only the timing is different, and that is enough to lose the mark.

How hard will the test be for you?

You do not choose your test date. Home Affairs sends you a letter with the date, time and place of your appointment. So the national figure includes everyone who sat the test, however much or little they had studied. It cannot tell you your own chances. A practice score can.

Sit one of our free mock tests before you do any more study. It has 20 questions and is scored like the real one, values rule included. Then use your score as a guide. These bands are our own rule of thumb, not official guidance:

First mock score	What it tells you	Suggested next step
Below 12 / 20	The booklet has not stuck yet	Three to four weeks: read Parts 1 to 4, then a chapter test for each part
12 to 15 / 20	Most of it is there, with gaps	Two to three weeks on your weakest parts
16 to 18 / 20	The facts are solid, and values are the risk	One to two weeks of drilling Part 4
19 or 20, with 5 / 5 values, three tests in a row	You are ready	Keep it fresh until test day

Twenty to thirty minutes a day is a sensible pace. Work on one part of the booklet at a time instead of rereading the whole thing. Our free chapter tests follow the four testable parts, so you can see which one is costing you marks.

After that, drill Part 4 until five out of five feels routine. The section is short and its ideas come up again and again, so this is study that pays off quickly. Use practice by topic to repeat the values questions on their own, and aim for five out of five on every mock test you sit.

What does the 65 per cent pass rate mean for you?

It is an average across hundreds of thousands of sittings, including people who arrived with very little preparation. It is not a forecast for someone who scores 18 or more, with five out of five on values, across several practice tests.

If that describes you, the main risk left is one misread values question. Slow down on those five questions and read every option to the end before you choose.

This article is a study aid and general information only, not immigration advice. The pass rates quoted are historical figures from the sources linked above. Rules, fees and processing times change, so always confirm current requirements with the Department of Home Affairs.