Before anyone can plan a CCL sitting, prepare for it, or claim 5 points from it, there is a question this site — and almost every other CCL guide — quietly assumes the answer to: is your language even tested? This page answers it properly. It is the full list of languages NAATI currently offers the Credentialed Community Language test in, grouped by region, with a date stamp and a source — and, for the genuinely underserved question, what to do if your language isn't there at all.
- NAATI tested the CCL in 55 languages as documented on naati.com.au on 14 September 2026 — a list that changes, so verify before you rely on it.
- Every CCL language earns exactly the same 5 points under item 6D91. There is no "better" language for points.
- The fee ($814), the format (2 dialogues, ~300 words each) and the marking are identical whichever language you sit.
- If your language genuinely isn't tested, the CCL specifically isn't available to you — but that isn't the end of the road, and this page says exactly what is.
Why this list matters more than it should
Most NAATI CCL content is written assuming you already know your language is tested — usually because it's Punjabi, Hindi, Mandarin or one of the other high-volume languages that dominate the search results. Nobody writes the page for the person who speaks Assyrian, or Samoan, or Tigrinya, and has no idea whether the whole premise of “sit the CCL for 5points” even applies to them. It should have been the first question, not an afterthought.
We are independent of NAATI — we prepare candidates for the test, we don't run it — so nothing below is us deciding what counts. Every language name is transcribed from NAATI's own published CCL pages, and naati.com.au is the authority if anything here has moved since.
South Asian languages
The busiest region on the list, and the one this site is built around. Note the exact names NAATI uses — booking under the wrong name for your language is a real, avoidable mistake. Punjabi sits among the higher-volume languages in this group, which is worth knowing but doesn't make it an easier or harder sitting than any of its neighbours here — see how Punjabi actually compares to the other CCL languages if that's the language you're weighing up.
| Language | Sometimes searched as |
|---|---|
| Bangla | Bengali |
| Gujarati | — |
| Hindi | — |
| Kannada | — |
| Malayalam | — |
| Marathi | — |
| Nepali | — |
| Odia | Oriya |
| Punjabi | Panjabi |
| Sinhalese | Sinhala |
| Tamil | — |
| Telugu | — |
| Urdu | — |
| Dzongkha | Bhutanese |
East & Southeast Asian languages
Mandarin and Cantonese are listed as separate CCL languages, not one “Chinese” entry — make sure you book the one you actually speak.
| Language | Sometimes searched as |
|---|---|
| Mandarin | Chinese |
| Cantonese | Chinese |
| Japanese | — |
| Korean | — |
| Vietnamese | — |
| Thai | — |
| Khmer | Cambodian |
| Burmese | Myanmar |
| Indonesian | — |
| Malay | — |
| Filipino | Tagalog |
Middle Eastern & Central Asian languages
| Language | Sometimes searched as |
|---|---|
| Arabic | — |
| Persian | Farsi |
| Dari | Afghan Persian |
| Pashto | — |
| Hazaragi | — |
| Turkish | — |
European languages
The largest single group by count, spanning long-established migrant communities and more recent arrivals alike.
| Language | Sometimes searched as |
|---|---|
| Bosnian | — |
| Bulgarian | — |
| Croatian | — |
| Czech | — |
| Dutch | — |
| Finnish | — |
| French | — |
| German | — |
| Greek | — |
| Hungarian | — |
| Italian | — |
| Macedonian | — |
| Polish | — |
| Portuguese | — |
| Romanian | — |
| Russian | — |
| Serbian | — |
| Spanish | — |
| Ukrainian | — |
African languages — and the Pacific gap
Five African languages currently have a CCL test. And here is the finding worth stating plainly, because it is the kind of answer nobody bothers to give: as of this page's verification date, no Pacific Islander language appears on NAATI's CCL list at all — not Samoan, not Tongan, not Fijian. If you searched for one of those, the honest answer is that the CCL specifically is not currently available to you, and the section belowcovers what that does and doesn't mean.
| Language | Sometimes searched as |
|---|---|
| Afrikaans | — |
| Igbo | — |
| Somali | — |
| Swahili | — |
| Yoruba | — |
Every CCL language earns the same 5 points
This is worth stating as plainly as the regulations state it, because rumour fills the gap whenever official information doesn't. Item 6D91 of Schedule 6D — the credentialled community language factor in Australia's general skilled migration points test — awards a flat 5 points for a CCL pass, full stop. It does not matter whether the credential is in Punjabi, Bangla, Turkish or Ukrainian.
So the practical consequence is this: choosing a language for points strategy is pointless, because there is no strategy to run. The only decision that matters is which language you can actually pass in — and how to test that for yourself is covered elsewhere on this site for anyone weighing two options.
How NAATI decides which languages to test
NAATI does not publish a formal, numbered criterion for adding or retiring a CCL language, and we are not going to invent one on NAATI's behalf. What NAATI does say, in its own resources, is that languages are added based on community demand — in practice, that means enough people need a specific language combination tested for NAATI to justify building and maintaining dialogues, marking guides and examiner training for it.
That also explains why the list moves in both directions. A language with very few candidates and little ongoing demand can, in principle, be retired, just as a language with growing demand can be added. Neither decision is announced with much fanfare — it simply changes which languages appear on the live booking page.
What to do if your language isn't on the list
This is the section almost nobody writes, because it doesn't sell a course. If you have checked carefully — the current page, not a blog post from three years ago — and your language genuinely has no CCL test, here is the honest picture.
- The CCL specifically is closed to you. There is no workaround, substitute dialect, or related-language exception. If NAATI does not run a CCL in your language, you cannot sit one.
- NAATI's other pathways may still apply. Recognised Practising Interpreter and Recognised Practising Translator exist specifically for language combinations with no NAATI test, and are granted on documented evidence of work practice and prerequisites rather than an exam. That is a genuinely different credential with different requirements, cost and timeline — our guide to the CCL versus NAATI's certifications sets out how those pathways differ from the CCL in full.
- It is worth asking NAATI directly. If community demand is genuinely part of how a language gets added, then telling NAATI a language is wanted is not a waste of time, even if it changes nothing quickly.
The fee and format never change by language
Whichever of the 55 languages above you sit, the mechanics are identical. Two dialogues of roughly 300 words each, delivered online, at home, under remote proctoring, for a fee of $814. Nothing about the language you choose makes the test cheaper, shorter, or structurally different — the dialogue content changes, the rules around it do not. The full mechanics of the test itself are covered in the complete format guide, and current fees always live at our fees page.
If you could sit more than one language
Some candidates genuinely have a choice — a heritage language spoken at home and a second community language from a partner, grandparent or years abroad. Because the points and the format are fixed, the right way to decide is never “which language sounds more useful” — it's which one you can actually produce, out loud, under time pressure, on the day. We've written that decision up in detail for readers weighing exactly this choice; see NAATI CCL Hindi vs other languages for the recording-based method that settles it in about twenty minutes, whatever your two languages are.
There is no strategic language. There is only the language you can speak fastest and most naturally when someone is waiting for you to start.
Keeping this current — and checking us
We date-stamped every language above against naati.com.au on 14 September 2026. NAATI does not promise this list is permanent, and neither do we — a language service directory summarising a public page can miss an update, and so can we. If a specific booking decision rests on whether your language is currently tested, the five minutes it takes to check naati.com.au directly is non-negotiable, not optional.
Check your own language
Quick check
Frequently asked questions
Sources
The language list above was transcribed from NAATI's published CCL pages on 14 September 2026. NAATI adds and retires CCL languages without a published change log — confirm the current list before you rely on it for a specific language.
- Credentialed Community Language (CCL) test — NAATI
- Language policy for CCL tests — NAATI
- NAATI fee schedule — NAATI