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English Test Points Converter
Pick your test, enter the lowest of your four component scores, and see which English tier you reach — competent, proficient or superior — and what that is worth on the points test. The full table for all five tests Home Affairs accepts sits underneath, with your result highlighted.
Which test did you sit?
Your lowest score across the four skills
Not your average and not your overall band — the lowest of listening, reading, writing and speaking, because that is the one Home Affairs actually checks against the minimum.
That clears the proficient threshold in every one of the four skills, worth 10 points on the GSM points test.
+ the NAATI CCL, separately
The CCL is not an English test and is never a substitute for one — you need competent English regardless of whether you hold a CCL pass. A CCL credential adds a flat 5 points on top of whatever your English scores, taking a proficient english result of 10 to 15 points from these two factors alone.
All five tests, side by side
Each cell is the minimum required in every one of the four components — your row is highlighted.
| Test | Competent 0 pts | Proficient 10 pts | Superior 20 pts |
|---|---|---|---|
| PTE Academic← you | 50 | 65 | 79 |
| IELTS (Academic or General Training) | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| TOEFL iBT | L12 R13 S18 W21 | L24 R24 S23 W27 | L28 R29 S26 W30 |
| OET | B | — | A |
| C1 Advanced (CAE) | 169 | 185 | 200 |
OET has no proficient row: B in each sub-test is competent, A in each is superior, and nothing in between is recognised on this table.
How your total is built
These two factors alone will not reach the 65-point pool mark — age, employment and qualifications still have to do most of the work. Score the whole test on the full points calculator.
The CCL is added to this, not swapped for it.
Whatever tier your English test reaches, a CCL pass adds five more on top — and unlike an English retake, you are not trying to raise a ceiling you have already hit.
Free, no account needed. We sell NAATI CCL Punjabi preparation — the practice above is free either way.
Why “minimum in each component” is the whole game
Every one of the five tests reports four separate skill scores, and Home Affairs reads all four independently against the same bar. There is no blending, no rounding up, and no partial credit for being close in three skills if the fourth falls short. This is exactly why the calculator above only ever asks for your lowest score rather than an overall band: the overall band is not what gets checked, and quoting it back to someone would quietly overstate their tier.
It also means the fastest way to move up a tier is rarely to chase a higher ceiling in your strongest skill. It is to find the one skill holding the result down and prepare specifically for that — often speaking or writing, for candidates who read and listen in English all day at work but rarely have to produce long-form English under time pressure.
The CCL is a second, additive factor — not a substitute
This is the one place on this page where getting the relationship backwards would be a real factual error, so it is worth restating outside the FAQ. The credentialled community language points, item 6D91, reward a completely different skill: switching accurately between English and another language, under time pressure, in a single listen. A CCL pass says nothing about your English band and a strong English band says nothing about whether you could pass the CCL. Both are checked, and both pay points, independently.
If you already speak a community language fluently, the CCL versus a harder English retest is usually the more useful comparison than English tier versus English tier, because the two routes have very different odds of success for the same person. What NAATI actually charges for that route is set out on the CCL fees page.
A worked example
Someone with IELTS 8.5 in listening and reading, 7.5 in writing and 6.5 in speaking has an overall band of about 7.9 — a number that sounds like superior English. It is not. The 6.5 in speaking sits below the band 7 needed even for proficient, so the honest result is competent English, 0 points, and the fix is a speaking-specific retest, not a general one. This is the scenario the calculator above is built to catch before someone assumes a score they do not have.
What this tool will not tell you
It will not tell you whether a particular test centre’s result will be accepted in time for your EOI, how long your test result stays valid (results generally expire after three years — check the testing body’s own rules), or whether retaking is worth the money for your specific gap. It also cannot predict your score on a future attempt. It only converts a result you already have — or are confident of achieving — into the points it is worth today.
Frequently asked questions
Is the English threshold an average of my four scores?+
No — this is the single most common misreading of the table. Home Affairs requires the minimum score in every one of the four components: listening, reading, writing and speaking. An IELTS 8.5/8.5/8.5/6.5 does not average to superior; the 6.5 caps the whole result at competent, because one component fell short of proficient's band 7.
How many points does proficient or superior English add?+
Proficient English adds 10 points and superior adds 20, under items 6D22 and 6D21 of Schedule 6D. Competent English is the entry requirement to apply at all and is worth 0 points on its own — it is the floor, not a scoring tier.
Does the NAATI CCL replace the English test requirement?+
No, and this is worth stating plainly because people get it backwards. The CCL tests interpreting between English and a second language — it is not an English proficiency test and NAATI does not certify English ability through it. You need to separately meet at least competent English to apply for a skilled visa, and the CCL's 5 points are added on top of your English score, not instead of it.
Why does OET only offer two options here?+
Because that is what the points table actually recognises. OET grades each of the four sub-tests from A to E, but Home Affairs only maps two of those grades onto this table: a B in every sub-test is competent English, and an A in every sub-test is superior. There is no OET result that counts as proficient — offering one would be inventing a row that does not exist.
Which test is easiest to reach superior English on?+
There is no honest single answer — the tests are not perfectly interchangeable, and a score that is comfortable for one person in one skill can be the hardest skill for someone else. What is true for everyone is that superior English (an 8 in every IELTS band, a 79 in every PTE skill, an A in every OET sub-test) is a high bar that a meaningful share of fluent, professional English speakers do not clear on a given attempt, and retakes cost money with no guarantee of a different result.
Where does Home Affairs publish these thresholds?+
On its English language requirements page, which this tool transcribes exactly. The points values themselves come from Schedule 6D of the Migration Regulations 1994. Both are cited below with the date they were last checked — always confirm against the primary source before relying on a result here.
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Read the detail
- English Points for Australian PR: Competent, Proficient, Superior
Competent, proficient, superior — three tiers, and only two of them score points. The thresholds are a minimum in every component, not an average, which is the mistake that costs people the most.
- NAATI CCL vs PTE for PR Points: 5 Points vs 0, 10 or 20
CCL is 5 points, pass/fail, one-off. PTE is 0, 10 or 20 points by band — and a separate visa requirement. Here is the honest comparison, and why most applicants do both.
- The Australia PR Points Table, Factor by Factor
Every factor in the skilled migration points test, with the exact tier values and the item number each one comes from in Schedule 6D — so you can check every figure against the regulations yourself.
Every tool on this site is free and ungated — see all of them.