CILS results take about three months, and a partial pass lasts eighteen

The Centro CILS publishes the wait in one line, and adds a refusal to it: I risultati degli esami saranno disponibili dopo circa 3 mesi. Non si eseguono valutazioni anticipate. About three months, and no early marking, whatever the reason.

That second sentence is worth more than the first. Most bodies leave early requests unmentioned and let candidates find out by asking; Siena puts the answer on the results page, so there is nothing to negotiate. If a visa appointment, a nationality file or an enrolment deadline is driving you, the CILS is an exam to sit early rather than to chase afterwards.

The three months are counted from the exam date, not from the written papers, which is a small difference from the DELE and works in the candidate's favour, because CILS orals normally happen the same day as everything else.

For context across bodies: about three months is at the slow end of everything we have read. Our exam-timelines comparison puts the CILS beside thirteen other certificates on exactly this question, with each body's own wording.

The CILS is scored skill by skill. The total runs to 60 points at A1 and A2 and to 100 at B1, B2, C1 and C2, and ogni abilità ottiene un punteggio autonomo. To be certified you must reach the pass threshold in every skill the exam contains, so a strong total that hides one weak skill is not a pass.

What happens next is the part worth knowing before you book. Candidates who miss the threshold in some skills but not others do not simply fail. They receive an attestato di capitalizzazione, which states which skills they passed and which they did not.

In the body's own words: Entro 18 mesi, infatti, il candidato può presentarsi allo stesso esame e sostenere solo le abilità che non ha superato. Eighteen months to come back and sit only the failed skills, at the same level. The re-sit does not have to be at the same centre, either, which matters for anyone who moves between the first attempt and the second.

Compare that with the DELE, where the Instituto Cervantes is explicit that a group of papers passed at one convocatoria does not exempt you at the next: there, one weak skill means sitting the whole exam again. Sweden's Swedex has a restprov and Norway's norskprøven is sat one delprøve at a time, so the CILS is not unique, but among the big national certificates it is unusually forgiving. That comparison is ours, drawn from the bodies' own pages; none of them makes it.

Which skill will it be? No rule answers that, and one teacher who runs B1 mock exams says no single answer exists. Natalia Sezen, in her own words: «У студентов, которые давно живут в Италии и хорошо говорят, слабым местом иногда оказываются письмо и задания, требующие более точного владения грамматикой. У тех, кто изучает язык вне языковой среды и имеет меньше опыта его реального использования, трудности чаще возникают с аудированием. Но универсального “слабого места” нет: у каждого кандидата свои пробелы, и именно пробный экзамен позволяет их увидеть». In our translation: "Students who have lived in Italy for a long time and speak well sometimes find that their weak spot is writing, or tasks that need more precise grammar. Those who learn the language outside the country, with less experience of using it for real, more often struggle with listening. But there is no universal weak spot: every candidate has their own gaps, and a mock exam is exactly what shows them." Under a skill-by-skill pass rule, that is the case for sitting a full mock before you book.

Nothing is marked at the centre where you sit. Tutte le prove di esame sono valutate centralmente presso il Centro CILS, including the spoken papers, which are recorded at the exam centre and uploaded for central marking.

The body states the reasoning rather than leaving it implied, and states it unusually bluntly for an examining institution. Marking orals locally against a grid, it says, non sembra garantire l'utilizzo di criteri di valutazione e punteggi simili da parte di tutti — in other words, handing markers a rubric does not by itself make them agree. Central marking by continuously trained assessors is offered as una garanzia di imparzialità per i candidati.

For a candidate this has two practical consequences. Your examiner on the day is an administrator, not the person deciding your grade, so there is nothing to be gained by playing to them. And the three-month wait stops looking like slowness: every spoken paper in the world is travelling to one building in Siena to be marked there.

This is the CILS's quietest advantage and it has a short fuse. You may ask to see your own exam papers, but only entro 30 giorni dalla data di pubblicazione dei risultati sul sito — thirty days from the day the results are published, not from the day you happen to look.

The request goes to trasparenzacertificazioni@unistrasi.it and must carry your name, place and date of birth, your matricola number and an email address, with a copy of a valid identity document attached and the access fee paid under Italy's freedom-of-information law, Legge 241/90. The size of that fee is not published.

Set that against the DELE, where the Instituto Cervantes states flatly that requests to access, return or reproduce exam documentation will not be entertained, and where a review instead costs 60% of the exam fee and can come back lower than the grade you appealed. Two neighbouring Mediterranean certificates, opposite answers to the same question. The comparison is ours; each body publishes only its own half.

A formal appeal is a separate route and the FAQ makes it sound simple: Posso fare ricorso? Certo, è sufficiente scrivere un'email a trasparenzacertificazioni@unistrasi.it. No fee and no deadline are stated for the appeal itself, which is not the same as there being none, so treat the thirty-day window on seeing your papers as the clock that matters.

The 2026 calendar has six dates: 19 February, 14 April, 16 June, 22 July, 21 October and 3 December. Almost nobody gets all six.

A1, B1 standard and C2 run twice a year, in June and December. B2 and the B1 A line run three times, A2 standard four. The two levels that run at all six sittings are A2 Integrazione and B1 Cittadinanza — precisely the two that exist for legal paperwork rather than for study, and precisely the two where a missed sitting costs somebody a permit or a passport application.

So the exam runs three times as often for a citizenship candidate as for a C2 candidate. If you need C2, the calendar gives you June or December and nothing else, and missing December costs six months.

One oddity worth flagging: the April C1 sitting is marked solo per specializzandi di Medicina, reserved for medical specialty trainees. Everyone else sitting C1 has June and December.

The 2027 calendar is already published, on the same shape: 18 February, 8 April, 10 June, 22 July, 21 October and 2 December.

The deadlines are printed per sitting, and they are not a constant. Four of the 2026 sittings close 30 or 31 days before the exam; the June and December ones close 40 days ahead — Per la sessione del 16 giugno, iscriviti entro il 7 maggio, and 3 December closes on 24 October. Those are the body's own dates subtracted, not an estimate, and the two long ones are exactly the sittings every level is offered at.

Dates are national; enrolment is not. You register with the exam centre you intend to sit at, in Italy or abroad, and follow that centre's instructions. Which is why there is no single answer to what the CILS costs.

We looked for one in the places it would be. The FAQ has no price question. The registration page has none. The Siena centre's own instructions page has a section headed tassa di esame, which gives the PagoPA link, the bank account and the IBAN, tells you the enrolment form must be completed before you pay, and never names an amount. There is a discount for students enrolled on the university's own courses, also unpriced. So the honest statement is narrow: on the pages where the fee would live, Siena publishes how to pay and not what to pay.

One condition on that page is unambiguous and expensive: La tassa d'esame non potrà essere rimborsata per alcun motivo. The fee is never refunded. In documented exceptional cases — health, or unavoidable study or work commitments — it can be transferred to a later sitting, within eighteen months of the original registration. The same eighteen months as the capitalizzazione, which is presumably not a coincidence.

Siena states the mapping itself, which saves a lot of guessing. For Italian citizenship the level is B1 C. For the long-term EU residence permit it is A2 Integrazione. Those are specific lines of the exam, not merely the B1 and A2 levels, and booking the wrong one is a wasted sitting and a non-refundable fee.

Anyone may sit the CILS: foreign citizens and Italian citizens resident abroad, with no age limit, no prior qualification required, and no need to have passed a lower CILS first. The certificate, for now, does not expire — Attualmente non ha una scadenza, which is the body's own hedged phrasing and worth reading as written.

One procedural note for the A2 Integrazione route in Italy. Since 1 January 2024 the CLIQ association's institutions have run specific procedures for candidates found to be unable to read or write, and the Centro CILS says those procedures can only be explained in person at an authorised centre in Italy, before enrolment: requests by email or telephone cannot be answered. If that applies to someone you are helping, the visit has to happen before the registration deadline, not after.

Choosing between Italy's two state certificates is the other half of the decision, and the differences are bigger than they look: CILS or CELI for citizenship sets the two calendars, the two second chances and the two fee rules side by side, from both bodies' own pages. The CELI's own structure is in its three candidate lines.

All the written skills are sat in one morning, in a fixed order. Candidates are identified against an identity document and seated to prevent copying, then the exam opens with listening, played through PCs with audio equipment, before moving to reading, then to the analysis of communication structures, then to written production.

Answers go on a separate foglio delle risposte and must be written in black pen only. Pencil and other colours are not valid, which is an easy way to lose a paper you passed.

The oral is normally the same afternoon, or starts that afternoon where there are many candidates, and it is two tasks rather than one: an interview with the administrator and a monologue. Both are recorded and uploaded to the marking platform. If you only prepare conversation, half of the speaking exam is unrehearsed.

Preparing for a specific sitting is easier with someone who has taken candidates through it before. Our Italian teachers set their own lesson lengths and rates, so a short weekly slot until the December sitting is as bookable as an intensive block.