Australia's visa English levels, functional to superior: the test scores since 7 August 2025

Nine tests: Cambridge C1 Advanced, CELPIP General, IELTS Academic, IELTS General Training, LanguageCert Academic, Michigan English Test (MET), OET, PTE Academic and TOEFL iBT. IELTS results with a One Skill Retake and MET results with a Single Section Retake are accepted for eligible visas.

Every test must be taken at a secure test centre. Home Affairs does not accept tests delivered completely online: IELTS Online, CELPIP Online, LanguageCert Academic Online, MET Digital taken at home, OET@Home and the TOEFL iBT Home Edition are all refused.

TOEFL iBT has one trap of its own: you must select Taking TOEFL for Australia when you register, or the result may not be accepted.

Functional English is the only level judged on an overall score rather than each skill. The minimums for a test taken since 7 August 2025:

You also have functional English if you hold a passport from Canada, New Zealand, the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom or the United States, or if you completed a degree, higher degree, diploma or trade certificate that needed at least 2 years of full-time study taught entirely in English, in Australia or elsewhere.

Schooling counts too: all of primary plus at least 3 years of secondary in English, or at least 5 years of secondary in English, or at least 1 year of full-time study in Australia towards a degree, higher degree, diploma or associate diploma, taught in English.

A functional English test result must be from the 12 months before you apply. For the other four levels the window is up to 3 years, depending on the visa.

From vocational upward, Home Affairs sets a minimum for listening, reading, writing and speaking separately. One weak skill fails the level even if the average is high. IELTS asks the same band in every skill:

The other tests ask a different score in each skill, listed here as listening / reading / writing / speaking:

Same order, listening / reading / writing / speaking. A dash means the test is not on that level's list.

Older results from Cambridge C1 Advanced, IELTS, OET, PTE Academic and TOEFL iBT can still count, but on the old scales: before 7 August 2025, functional English was PTE Academic 30 overall and TOEFL iBT 32, and the OET was graded in letters (vocational English was a B in each skill).

Home Affairs says such a result may be used until 6 August 2028 at the latest, depending on the visa. For functional English the cut-off was 6 August 2026, so a pre-August-2025 test can no longer prove functional English.

Our reading: the PTE Academic name did not change, but the test and its scores did. If a forum post, an agent's table or an old blog says competent English is PTE 50 in each skill, check the date: that was the old scale. For what the scores mean in each test, see IELTS bands, PTE Academic scores, CELPIP scores and OET scores.

Health professionals need a second set of scores. Ahpra's registration minimums were aligned with Home Affairs on 23 April 2026 but are not the same: a registered nurse, for example, needs PTE speaking 76. See English test scores for nurses and for doctors.