How hard is the Australian citizenship test, really?
About 69.3% of people pass on the day, and the odds have been improving. But one part of it trips up far more people than any other, and it is the part most worth drilling. Here is what the most current figures show, from data Home Affairs does not publish.
Every other pass-rate page quotes the same numbers from 2023, because that is the last batch the government released. We went further and went to Home Affairs directly. The figures it provided to Citizen Pass, every month from September 2023 to June 2026, are not on any government statistics page, and as far as we can find, not published anywhere else. They are what this page is built on.
What are your chances of passing?
Right now, about 69.3% of tests are passed on the day. Put the other way, roughly three in ten people do not pass the attempt in front of them. That is not nothing, but it is very beatable, and it is not the whole story: re-sits are free and effectively unlimited, so almost everyone passes in the end. The figures here are the per-sitting rate, the share of attempts that pass, which is the number that tells you how ready you need to be walking in.
The chart below is the long view. The test was a near-formality until the end of 2020, with pass rates in the mid-eighties. Then the rule changed, and the floor fell out.
Why people fail: the five values questions. On 15 November 2020, five Australian values questions were added. You must get all five right. One wrong and you fail, however well you did on the other fifteen. That single rule took the pass rate from 87.4% in 2019 to 68.0% in 2021, a fall of 19.5 points, and it is still the thing that catches people out. If you drill one part of this test to certainty, make it these. The five questions you cannot get any of wrong walks through them.
Is it getting easier, or harder?
Easier, slowly. From the 68.0% of 2021 the rate has climbed to 67.1% in 2024 and 69.3% in 2025, with the first half of 2026 at 70.8%. People are adapting to the values questions. But the recovery has a ceiling in sight and has not reached it: the test is still a good few points below the 87.4% it managed before 2020. Month to month it wobbles, so here is every month we have.
How many people are doing this with you
More than 200,000 tests were sat in 2025 alone (213,476, to be exact). The monthly count swings a lot: it fell to around ten thousand a month in late 2024, then climbed back past twenty thousand through 2025 and 2026. We report that movement and do not guess at what drove it. The point for you is simple: you are one of a couple of hundred thousand people a year sitting the same twenty questions, and the great majority get through.
After you pass, how long until you are a citizen?
Passing the test is one step, and not the slow one. The real wait is what comes after: the decision on your application, then the ceremony, which for a typical applicant runs about ten months all up. That has its own page, with a tool that turns the month you applied into your likely decision and ceremony dates.
What the test actually is
The Australian Citizenship Test is 20 multiple-choice questions in 45 minutes, drawn entirely from one booklet, Australian Citizenship: Our Common Bond. You pass with 15 of 20 (75%), but only if all 5 values questions are correct. That single rule is what the numbers on this page are really about, and it is the part worth over-preparing.
Practise the real questions free, with the values section drilled until it is second nature.
Questions people ask about these numbers
About 69.3% of tests are passed on the day in the most recent full year (2025), up from a low near 68.0% after the values questions were introduced. Because re-sits are free and effectively unlimited, almost everyone passes eventually.
It is the mirror of the pass rate: about 32.9% of sittings ended in a fail in 2024, and roughly 30.7% in 2025. Because re-sits are free and effectively unlimited, this is a per-sitting figure, not a share of people, and almost everyone passes on a later attempt.
The five Australian values questions, added on 15 November 2020. You must answer all five correctly or you fail, whatever else you score. That single rule took the per-sitting pass rate from 87.4% in 2019 to 68.0% in 2021.
No, if anything it is slowly getting easier to pass again: the rate has recovered from its low to about 69.3%, though it is still below the 87.4% it reached before 2020.
More than 200,000 tests were sat in 2025 (213,476). The monthly count swings between roughly 10,000 and 24,000.
The pass mark is 15 of 20 questions correct (75%), and you must also get all 5 Australian values questions right. One values question wrong is an automatic fail, whatever else you score.
For citizenship by conferral, the typical wait from lodging your application to standing at a ceremony is about 10 months, and nine in ten applicants are done within 14 months.
Yes. Annual figures to 2023 come from Australian Senate answers; the monthly figures to June 2026 were provided by the Department of Home Affairs to Citizen Pass. They are not published on any government statistics page.
How this is built
These count tests, not people. Someone who fails twice and passes on the third go contributes two failures and one pass. Because re-sits are free and effectively unlimited, a per-sitting rate below 100% does not mean people are shut out of citizenship; it means fewer are passing on the attempt in front of them.
The percentages are ours. Home Affairs published counts, two columns: tests administered and tests passed. It did not publish a rate. Every percentage here is those two counts divided, and nothing else. One wording note: the pre-2023 numerator was labelled “tests passed” and the 2024-onward figures “applicants who passed”; the two are treated as the same measure and in practice they converge.
The recent figures were provided to Citizen Pass, not published. Annual counts to August 2023 come from two Senate answers. The monthly figures from September 2023 to June 2026 were provided to Citizen Pass by Home Affairs, which publishes none of them: no pass rates on any statistics page, nothing on data.gov.au, and no breakdown by country of birth, age, state or attempt. It also does not publish how many people fail three times, or how many are refused.
We describe what the figures show, and nothing more. We do not attribute the month-to-month swings in volume to any cause, and no number on this page is a prediction of whether any particular person will pass. What is fully in your hands is the test itself, and every question is in our free practice.
Sources, data notes and caveats
Where the numbers come from
- Senate QoN OSE23-278: Citizenship Test, breakdown by year from 2013Tests administered and tests passed, by year, 2017 to 31 August 2023.The department declined to provide 2013 to 2016, and declined to provide any figures on third-time failures or refusals, stating the information is not readily available in its reporting systems.
- Senate QoN OSE23-277: Citizenship Test, breakdown by month from May 2022Tests administered and tests passed, by month, May 2022 to August 2023.
- Department of Home Affairs: citizenship test outcomes by month, Sep 2023 to Jun 2026Tests administered and applicants who passed, by month, 1 September 2023 to 30 June 2026. Data extracted 1 July 2026. Reference DA26/07/00375.Not published on any Home Affairs page or on data.gov.au. It continues the OSE23-277 monthly series (which ends August 2023). The department's own note states the figures are drawn from a dynamic system and may differ from earlier or later reporting.
- Learn about the citizenship testTest structure: 20 questions, 5 of 5 values questions, 15 of 20 overall, 45 minutes.Page states it was last updated 2 July 2026. This page is the authoritative public statement of the rules: by section 23A(7) of the Australian Citizenship Act 2007, the determination that sets the test is not a legislative instrument and is therefore never published on the Federal Register of Legislation.
- Australian Citizenship Act 2007, section 23AThe power to approve the test, and subsection 23A(7).
- Australian Citizenship: Our Common Bond (testable section)The only material the test is drawn from.
- Citizenship processing times25th, 50th, 75th and 90th percentile processing times by application type.Home Affairs overwrites this table each month and keeps no public history, so only the current snapshot exists.
What these numbers do and do not mean
- They count attempts, not people. Retakes are free, so the same person can appear more than once. The per-sitting rate is not the share of people who ever pass, which is far higher.
- The rate is our arithmetic. Home Affairs published only counts; every percentage here is tests passed divided by tests administered.
- No breakdowns exist. The figures are national totals only, with nothing by country of birth, age, state or attempt, and no pass rate on any government page.
- Processing times are a snapshot. Home Affairs overwrites that table monthly and keeps no history, so the waits are a picture of now, not a trend.
Outcomes verified September 2026; test structure and processing times July 2026. Spot an error? Tell us and we will check it against the source. Citizen Pass is an independent study tool and is not affiliated with any government agency.