DELF and DALF: six diplomas for life, and a C2 that stops testing four skills

The DELF tout public is four diplomas — DELF A1, A2, B1 and B2 — and FEI describes them as 4 diplômes indépendants les uns des autres. The DALF is two more, C1 and C2, described the same way.

That independence is the practical fact. You are not entered for "the DELF" and then placed; you register for one diploma, and you either earn that diploma or you do not. There is no falling to the level below and no promotion to the one above.

It is the opposite of the arrangement this site documents for Korea, where one TOPIK sitting can return any of several levels, and of Finland's YKI, where you register for a band of two and your grade decides which one you leave with. It matches the DELE, the JLPT and the Goethe-Zertifikat, all of which ask you to name a level before you sit anything.

And the diploma does not expire. FEI states it twice, on the DELF and DALF pages alike: Ce diplôme est reconnu dans le monde entier, et il est valable à vie. On validity that puts French with Spanish's DELE, Japan's JLPT and the Goethe-Zertifikat, against the TOPIK's two years and against Brazil's Inep, which declines to say anything at all.

From A1 through C1 the arithmetic never changes, and FEI writes it out in the first person on every level page:

Chaque épreuve est sur 25 points. Pour obtenir le diplôme, je dois avoir au minimum 50 points sur 100. Je dois avoir au minimum 5 points sur 25 par épreuve. Une note en dessous de 5 points sur 25 dans une épreuve est éliminatoire !

So there is an aggregate pass mark of 50% and a per-skill floor of 5/25 — 20%.

That floor is low, and it is worth seeing what it permits. A candidate who scores 5/25 in speaking needs 45 of the remaining 75 to reach 50, which is 60% across reading, listening and writing. That profile earns the diploma. Someone who can barely speak French can hold a DELF B2 on the strength of the other three.

The comparison is ours, and it is narrow on purpose. Only two exams documented on this site combine an aggregate pass mark with a per-section floor: the JLPT, whose floor is 19/60 in each section — about 32% — and the DELF/DALF at 20%. Of those two, the DELF's floor is the lower, so it tolerates a weaker single skill than the JLPT does.

The rest of the table answers a different question entirely. The TOPIK has no sectional minimum and reads the total only. The NT2 and the YKI never form a total, so there is nothing for a floor to sit under. Brazil's Celpe-Bras goes the other way and certifies you at the level of your weaker half, which is the strictest rule here.

Every DELF level and the DALF C1 are built the same way: three collective papers — compréhension de l'oral, compréhension des écrits, production écrite — and one individual oral, each out of 25.

The DALF C2 is not built that way. FEI's own page for it lists Les 2 épreuves de l'examen, and they are:

Compréhension et production des écrits — one collective paper of 3 hours 30 minutes, producing a structured text (article, editorial, report, speech) from a dossier of around 2,000 words.

Compréhension et production orales — one individual test of 30 minutes with one hour of preparation: a report on the content of a recorded document heard twice, a personal development of the problem it raises, and a debate with the jury.

Each is out of 50. The pass mark is still 50/100, and the floor is 10/50 — une note en dessous de 10 points sur 50 dans une épreuve est éliminatoire.

Two things follow, and both are ours rather than FEI's.

One: the percentage floor is unchanged while the granularity halves. 5/25 and 10/50 are both 20%. The rule did not get harder or softer at C2; it got coarser. Below C2 you have four chances to fall under the floor and four separate marks to be judged on. At C2 you have two.

Two: at C2 you can no longer fail reading while passing writing, because reading and writing are no longer separate marks. Comprehension is not scored on its own anywhere in the C2; it is scored through what you produce from what you understood. A candidate who reads a dossier well and writes a poor synthesis of it has one mark, not a good one and a bad one.

That is a real change in what the exam claims to measure, and it happens inside a single family without a change of name. Anyone reasoning from "the DELF tests four skills" onto the C2 is reasoning about a paper that does not exist.

And France is not alone in doing it — which is the part that turns a quirk into a rule. Italy's CELI, documented in its own guide, fuses listening comprehension with oral production into un'unica prova at A1 in its migrant line, and splits them apart again at A2. Two families, two fusions, opposite ends of the ladder. The DALF fuses at the top because separating what you understood from what you did with it is artificial at mastery level; the CELI fuses at the bottom because a candidate arriving from a literacy course cannot be handed a listening paper to fill in without the paper becoming the test. Fusion happens wherever splitting the skills would measure the wrong thing — which is a more useful account of what a "skill" is on a language exam than either body offers alone.

There is no national price. FEI's practical-information page puts the whole fee question in one sentence: Pour m'inscrire à un diplôme, je dois contacter un centre d'examen. Le centre d'examen me renseigne sur les coûts d'inscription, les dates, les lieux d'examen etc.

So the DELF and DALF join the group this site records as publishing no global figure — JLPT, HSK, telc, CAPLE, Norskprøven, Norskprøven C1, IELTS, Cambridge English and Swedex — where the exam body prints nothing a candidate can rely on before contacting somebody. FEI's version is the most helpful of them in tone: it does not merely omit the price, it names the party who has it. Its own DELF-DALF FAQ, re-read on 11 September 2026, has no price question at all; the nearest is Est-ce que France Éducation international organise directement des sessions du DELF-DALF ? — Non. France Éducation international n'est pas un centre de passation des épreuves. Les candidats doivent contacter un centre agréé.

That still leaves the DELF and DALF unquotable in advance, which is worth saying plainly on a page about cost. The only reliable figure is the one your chosen centre gives you, and it will differ between countries and between centres in the same country.

One French-resident exception is documented on the same page: the CPF, France's personal training account, may be used for these certifications, which is a funding route rather than a price.

FEI states this without hedging: Les décisions des jurys sont sans appel : les candidats ne peuvent pas contester leurs notes. To see your own paper you contact your exam centre directly.

This is the firmest position on challenging a result anywhere in this dataset, and it is worth setting beside the nearest one. Finland's OPH lets a YKI candidate request a reassessment within 30 days and then says the reassessment decision may not be appealed — one review, then final. FEI offers no review at all: the jury's decision is the end of it, and consultation of your script is a matter of looking, not of asking for a different mark.

Two more things sit in the same paragraph of FEI's page and are worth knowing before you register.

Failing produces a document. Un diplôme valable à vie est délivré en cas d'admissibilité. En cas de non-admissibilité, un relevé de notes peut être fourni au candidat par son centre d'examen. A transcript of marks, from the centre, on request — not a diploma, and not nothing. Brazil's Celpe-Bras, by contrast, issues Sem Certificação and stops.

Cheating is a criminal matter, not an administrative one. FEI states that fraud and attempted fraud at an official French government exam are délits — offences — carrying disciplinary sanctions and criminal proceedings. No other body documented here frames it in those terms.

FEI names two uses directly. The DELF B2 permits application for French nationality. And the DELF B2 — et de plus en plus le DALF C1 — opens French, European and francophone universities, and some grandes écoles.

That phrase is the one to take seriously if you are choosing a level for university entry. FEI is telling you, on its own page, that the bar has been drifting upward in practice: B2 is the stated route and C1 is increasingly what is wanted. It is not a rule, and this site will not turn it into one — but it is the exam body's own description of where the ground is moving.

The versions are the same diplomas with different subject matter. Beside tout public there are Prim and junior / scolaire for younger candidates, and a pro variant. FEI is explicit that the difference is the material rather than the standard: the exams assess compétences à communiquer, and a younger candidate placed in a context they can react to will show what they can actually do. A1.1 exists only in the DELF Prim.

So a DELF B1 junior and a DELF B1 tout public certify the same level. If you are an adult, the tout public version is the one where every theme of society — public, personal, professional, educational — is fair game.

Two levels are set out here in full, because they are the ones most often booked and because the C1 is where the writing load jumps.

DELF B1. Compréhension de l'oral 25 minutes, three exercises. Compréhension des écrits 45 minutes, two exercises. Production écrite 45 minutes, one text of 160 words minimum. Production orale 15 minutes in three parts — guided interview, expression of a point of view, interactive exercise — with 10 minutes of preparation.

DALF C1. Compréhension de l'oral 40 minutes. Compréhension des écrits 50 minutes, one exercise. Production écrite 2 hours 30 minutes for two pieces — a synthesis of 220–240 words and a text of 250 words minimum. Production orale 30 minutes, monologue then interaction, with one hour of preparation.

The C1 written paper is the step that surprises people: from 45 minutes and one text at B1 to two and a half hours and two pieces, one of which is a synthesis of somebody else's documents rather than an essay of your own. The oral preparation goes from 10 minutes to a full hour for the same reason — at C1 you are working from source material, not from a prompt.