Is there an official PTE to IELTS conversion?

Pearson publishes a concordance study that statistically aligns PTE Academic scores with IELTS bands, and that is what a converter uses. It is a statistical equivalence, not an official exchange rate — institutions and visa authorities set their own equivalencies, and many do.

Will a university accept a converted score?

No. Converting tells you what to aim for; you still have to sit the test the institution accepts and reach the score it publishes. Always check which tests your specific programme recognises before you book.

Scoring

PTE to IELTS Conversion, Explained

How PTE Academic scores convert to IELTS bands, why one band covers a range of PTE scores, and how to read the concordance without over-trusting it.

Updated July 20, 2026 · 3 min read

Updated for the July 2025 concordance. "What is my PTE score in IELTS?" is one of the most common questions in test prep, and the honest answer has more nuance than a single lookup. This post explains what the conversion actually is, how to read it, and where it stops being reliable.

What a concordance measures

A concordance is a statistical alignment between two different tests. Pearson tested a population of candidates on both examinations and identified the scores at which performance corresponded, then published the resulting bands. That is a description of how the two score scales line up across many people — not a claim that the tests measure the same things in the same way.

The formats differ, the response conditions differ, and each test weights speaking and writing differently. So the conversion tells you which PTE score sits in the same part of the ability distribution as a given IELTS band. It does not promise you would personally have scored that band on the other test, and it does not make one result substitutable for the other.

Here is the full published mapping:

Full concordance table
PTE Academic	IELTS
90–90	9
86–89	8.5
79–85	8
71–78	7.5
63–70	7
55–62	6.5
47–54	6
39–46	5.5
31–38	5
24–30	4.5

Why one IELTS band covers a range of PTE scores

Notice that each IELTS band lines up with a span of PTE scores rather than a single one. That is because IELTS reports in half-band steps while PTE uses a much finer point scale. Several PTE scores therefore fall inside one IELTS band.

This matters most when you convert in the IELTS-to-PTE direction. Going from PTE to IELTS loses detail and gives you one band. Going the other way recovers no detail, so the honest answer is an interval, not a number. Any tool that hands you a single PTE figure for an IELTS requirement has quietly picked one end of that range for you.

Try it yourself — set a PTE score and watch which IELTS band it lands in:

PTE score65

IELTS band

CEFR

Upper intermediate

How to read the number you get

Treat the output as an estimate with a band around it, not a precise translation. A score near the edge of a band is only just inside it, and small performance differences between sittings are normal. If you are near a boundary, plan as though you might land on the other side of it.

Two practical rules follow from this:

Aim high inside the range. When you are converting an IELTS requirement into a PTE target, aim for the upper part of the range rather than its floor. The bottom of the range is a boundary, and a result sitting on a boundary can slip below it on the day.
Convert overall, apply per skill with care. The published alignment was established on overall performance. Applying it separately to each skill gives a rough picture, but per-skill conversions carry more uncertainty. Where a per-skill requirement is legally binding — Australian migration, for example — you must use the authority's own table, not a concordance conversion.

The institution is always the authority

Converting a score tells you what to aim for. It does not tell you what will be accepted. An institution that lists an IELTS requirement will also publish the PTE score it wants, and that figure may differ from what a concordance predicts. Universities set their own equivalencies, and departments within one university sometimes set different ones. Regulated fields such as teaching and nursing may apply requirements set by a professional body that are stricter again.

So use the conversion to understand the relationship between the two scales, then confirm the actual requirement on the page for your specific course, intake or visa stream. First check that PTE is accepted at all, and that the version you intend to sit is the one they take.

Where to go next

If you need to work backwards from an IELTS band your visa or university asks for, the IELTS to PTE converter shows the PTE range that matches it. To convert a PTE result the other way, the PTE to IELTS converter gives the band and CEFR level. And for a single reference that lines up PTE, IELTS and CEFR side by side, see the PTE band score chart.