The TestDaF has no pass mark, because it refuses to decide

The exam covers a deliberately narrow slice of the ladder. In its own words: Die drei TestDaF-Niveaus (TDN) 3, 4 und 5 liegen auf den Niveaus B2 bis C1 des Gemeinsamen europäischen Referenzrahmens — the three TestDaF levels sit on B2 to C1.

So there is no A1, no A2, no B1 and no C2. The TestDaF is a university-admission instrument and it only measures the range a university argues about. If you need to certify A2 German for a residence requirement, this is the wrong exam and no amount of preparation makes it the right one.

A fourth result exists and is not a level: below TDN 3. It appears on the certificate the same way the others do.

The digital TestDaF runs four parts, and the published task counts and times are:

Lesen — about 55 minutes, 7 tasks, 34 items. Hören — about 40 minutes, 7 tasks, 30 items. Schreiben — about 60 minutes, 2 tasks. Sprechen — about 35 minutes, 7 tasks. That is roughly 190 minutes, a little over three hours.

Each section is scored on the same scale: Werte auf dieser Skala betragen in jedem Prüfungsteil zwischen 0 und 20 Punkte — 0 to 20 points in every section. The bands are fixed: 0–4 is below TDN 3, 5–9 is TDN 3, 10–15 is TDN 4, and 16–20 is TDN 5.

The reason given for one scale across four different-looking papers is comparability — the institute says it gewährleistet die Vergleichbarkeit zwischen den Prüfungsteilen und über verschiedene Testsätze hinweg, guaranteeing comparability both between sections and across different versions of the test. A TDN 4 in speaking is meant to be the same claim as a TDN 4 in reading, and last March's TDN 4 the same as this one.

Reading and listening multiple-choice items are machine-scored. Short listening answers, plus all of writing and speaking, are marked by trained human raters against defined criteria.

One detail the institute publishes that most bodies do not: candidates sit experimental tasks whose results bei der Ergebnisermittlung werden diese nicht berücksichtigt — they are not counted. The number of tasks and the working time can vary between sections, but alle Teilnehmenden erhalten jedoch einen gleich langen Test: everyone gets an equally long test. You are trialling next year's questions and you are not told which ones.

Ask what score you need and the honest answer is that the TestDaF does not have one. The number people mean is set on the admissions side, and it is published: Ein in allen Teilprüfungen mindestens mit dem Ergebnis TDN 4 abgelegter TestDaF gilt als Nachweis der sprachlichen Studierfähigkeit für die uneingeschränkte Zulassung.

TDN 4 in all four sections is proof of language readiness for unrestricted admission. That is the sentence everyone quotes, and it is the closest thing to a pass mark in the whole system.

The next sentence is the one nobody quotes, and it matters more: Ausgehend von den Anforderungen in einem Studiengang können für eine oder mehrere Teilkompetenzen auch TestDaF-Niveaus unterhalb TDN 4 bei der Zulassung akzeptiert werden. Depending on what a programme actually requires, levels below TDN 4 may be accepted in one or more skills.

So a TDN 3 in writing is not a failure. It is a fact about you that some departments will not care about and others will refuse. The certificate is recognised by every German university — Das TestDaF-Zertifikat wird von allen deutschen Hochschulen anerkannt — but recognition is not admission, and the exam is careful never to conflate the two.

This comparison is ours and it is the reason this page exists. Put the TestDaF next to the DELF, documented here yesterday, and they answer the same question in incompatible ways.

The DELF B2 is one number. You need 50 out of 100 overall, with a floor of 5 out of 25 — 20% — in each of four épreuves. Those rules permit a specific person: 5/25 in speaking, and 45 of the remaining 75 across the other three. Someone who can barely speak French, holding a diploma that says B2. The aggregate absorbed the weakness and the certificate reports one verdict.

The TestDaF cannot produce that outcome, and not because its floor is higher. It has no floor, because it has no total. There is nothing for a weak skill to hide inside. Four numbers go to the university, and the university decides which of them matters for the degree you applied to.

That is the substantive difference, and it is a difference about who is trusted to judge. The DELF decides centrally and hands you a verdict a reader can rely on without thinking. The TestDaF declines to decide and hands the reader four measurements plus the explicit permission to weigh them by programme.

Neither is obviously right. A single verdict is portable — an employer who knows nothing about French reads B2 and is finished. Four numbers are only useful to a reader who knows what the degree needs, which is exactly what an admissions office knows and an employer does not. The TestDaF's format is a bet that its certificate will only ever be read by someone qualified to interpret it — which is defensible for an exam that exists solely for university entry, and would be useless for an exam that has to travel.

Of the exams documented on this site, the TestDaF is the first that publishes no pass mark at all. The Goethe-Zertifikat comes closest — above B1 there is no combined pass, only four modules — but each of those modules still passes or fails on its own. The TestDaF removes the verdict entirely rather than splitting it up.

Both formats still exist, and they report the same TDN levels. The paper-based version also scores its parts separately — Die vier Prüfungsteile werden im papierbasierten TestDaF getrennt ausgewertet — so the refusal to aggregate is a property of the exam, not of the software.

What differs is the stability of the numbers underneath. The digital exam uses that fixed 0–20 scale, so the band boundaries never move. On the paper-based exam the point thresholds are re-set for each administration to account for how hard that particular paper turned out to be: the institute's own worked example is that a TDN 5 in reading requires 24 Punkte oder 25 oder 26, depending on the version you sat.

For a candidate this is mostly invisible and entirely benign — it is the mechanism that stops an unluckily hard paper costing you a level. It is worth knowing only because it makes raw-score talk between candidates meaningless on the paper exam. Compare TDN levels with other candidates; never compare points.

The certificate never expires. Das TestDaF-Zeugnis oder -Zertifikat ist unbegrenzt gültig. That puts it with the JLPT, the DELE, the DELF/DALF, the NT2 and the YKI, and against the TOPIK, whose result lapses after two years.

The exam is offered at over 500 test centres in 100 countries, and is recognised by all German universities.

A fee is published, and this guide said for ten days that none was. It is on the institute's own FAQ: In Deutschland kostet der papierbasierte TestDaF 215,- €, der digitale TestDaF 210,- €. The correction came from a TestDaF centre that read this page and wrote in, on 10 September 2026, and it is recorded here rather than quietly patched, because the mistake is more instructive than the number.

The German certificates documented on this site are not competing for the same candidate, and choosing between them on difficulty is the wrong axis.

TestDaF if the destination is a German university and you are somewhere in B2–C1. It is built for that and for nothing else, its certificate is recognised by every German university, and it never expires.

Goethe-Zertifikat if you need a level outside B2–C1, or if you want to sit skills one at a time — above B1 each module is its own certificate, repeatable as often as you like, and combinable later under stated conditions.

telc if a specific institution has named it. Its centres set their own fees, and this site has not yet verified its validity or sectional rules first-party.

They are aimed at different readers, and the right question is who has to read your certificate.