Australian citizenship test pass rates, 2017 to 2023
The pass rate for the citizenship test fell from 87.4% in 2019 to 68.0% in 2021, the first full year after the five values questions were added. This is the only pass-rate data that has ever been published, and it is not published on any statistics page.
The drop, and where it sits
On 15 November 2020, five Australian values questions were added to the test. You must answer all five correctly. Get one wrong and you fail, however well you did on the other fifteen.
In 2019, the last full year before that rule, 169,378 of 193,750 tests were passed, a rate of 87.4%. In 2021, the first full year after it, 123,435 of 181,601 tests were passed, a rate of 68.0%. That is a fall of 19.5 percentage points.
Why 2020 is hatched on the chart. The rule changed on 15 November 2020, part-way through 2020. That year is roughly ten and a half months of the old test and six weeks of the new one, so its 77.6% is a blend of two different tests and is not a data point about either. Comparisons that run 2019 against 2021 are sound. Anything that treats 2020 as “the year of the change” is not.
What these numbers are, exactly
They count tests, not people. Someone who fails twice and passes on the third go contributes two failures and one pass. Retakes are free and effectively unlimited, so a falling pass rate does not mean a rising share of people are shut out of citizenship. What it shows is that fewer people are passing on the attempt in front of them.
The percentages are ours. Home Affairs published two columns, tests administered and tests passed. It did not publish a rate. Every percentage on this page is those two published counts divided, and nothing else.
The series stops on 31 August 2023. Not because we stopped looking. That is where the published data ends. Any figure you see quoted for 2024, 2025 or 2026 is not coming from a published source.
What Home Affairs does not publish
It is worth being plain about the size of the hole here, because the absence is the story as much as the numbers are.
- No pass rates on any statistics page. The Home Affairs citizenship statistics page publishes conferrals by former nationality and nothing about the test.
- Nothing on data.gov.au. The Department of Home Affairs is not a publisher on the national open-data portal at all.
- No breakdown by anything. Not by country of birth, not by age, not by state, not by which attempt it was. The data exists as national totals only.
- No count of people who fail three times, and no count of people refused citizenship for failing. The department was asked both questions directly and answered that the information is not readily available in its reporting systems.
- No history of processing times. The table below is overwritten each month and no archive is kept.
The two Senate answers below exist because a senator asked. They are the whole public record.
Monthly, where it exists
There is one monthly series, 16 months from May 2022 to August 2023. It begins eighteen months after the values questions took effect, so it cannot show the change. It is included here because it is the finest-grained citizenship test data in existence, and because the monthly pass rate moving between 62.1% and 68.5% within a single stable rule set is a useful reminder of how much these rates wobble month to month.
| Month | Tests | Passed | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 2022 | 20,897 | 13,036 | 62.4% |
| Jun 2022 | 19,936 | 12,380 | 62.1% |
| Jul 2022 | 17,199 | 11,076 | 64.4% |
| Aug 2022 | 19,068 | 12,347 | 64.8% |
| Sep 2022 | 16,408 | 10,630 | 64.8% |
| Oct 2022 | 18,024 | 11,773 | 65.3% |
| Nov 2022 | 19,848 | 13,056 | 65.8% |
| Dec 2022 | 13,333 | 8,550 | 64.1% |
| Jan 2023 | 15,053 | 9,459 | 62.8% |
| Feb 2023 | 15,502 | 9,778 | 63.1% |
| Mar 2023 | 20,594 | 12,888 | 62.6% |
| Apr 2023 | 15,457 | 10,231 | 66.2% |
| May 2023 | 22,823 | 14,838 | 65.0% |
| Jun 2023 | 23,969 | 15,852 | 66.1% |
| Jul 2023 | 26,309 | 18,009 | 68.5% |
| Aug 2023 | 25,080 | 16,707 | 66.6% |
Senate QoN OSE23-277. Counts as published; pass rate is our arithmetic. Each test is one attempt.
How long the rest of it takes
Passing the test is one step. Home Affairs publishes how long the surrounding process takes, as percentiles rather than an average. Read the 90% row as: nine in ten applications finish within this long. This is a snapshot taken on July 2026; the page it comes from says it was last updated 19 June 2026, and Home Affairs overwrites it monthly without keeping a history.
| Application | Period counted | 25% | 50% | 75% | 90% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Citizenship by conferral | Application to decision | 75 days | 86 days | 4 months | 7 months |
| Citizenship by conferral | Approval to ceremony | 80 days | 4 months | 6 months | 6 months |
| Citizenship by conferral | Application to ceremony | 8 months | 10 months | 12 months | 14 months |
| Citizenship by descent | Application to decision | 61 days | 68 days | 4 months | 5 months |
| Evidence of citizenship | Application to decision | 1 day | 2 days | 7 days | 15 days |
The rule that changed
The test is 20 multiple-choice questions in 45 minutes. You need 15 of 20 overall, which is 75%. And you need every one of the 5 values questions right. The five questions you cannot get any of wrong sets out how that rule works and what it is drawn from.
Sources
- 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.
- 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.
Figures last verified 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.