What is a good TOEFL score in 2026? (And how to get one)

The short answer

On the legacy 0-120 scale, 90 or higher is broadly considered a good TOEFL score and is accepted at most universities. 100+ is competitive at top US universities (Stanford, MIT, NYU, Carnegie Mellon). 110+ is competitive at the highest tier (Ivy League, top UK Russell Group, top Australian Group of Eight).

From January 2026, ETS also reports your score on a new 1-6 band scale aligned to CEFR levels. Here is the conversion you will see on every score report this year:

Both formats appear on every score report through 2026. Universities accept either until they explicitly publish a band-scale minimum.

What counts as good — by goal

There is no single "good" score because no two destinations want the same thing. Use the table below to find your actual target. If you are not sure which goal applies to you, look up the specific university on our TOEFL scores by university directory — the per-school minimum is always more accurate than a tier-level rule of thumb.

The average TOEFL score in 2026

The global average TOEFL iBT score sits at around 88 out of 120 according to the most recent ETS test-taker performance summary. That maps to band 4.5 on the new scale, or upper-intermediate (B2+) on CEFR. It is enough to clear the floor at many universities but well below where competitive applicants land.

Country averages vary widely. Test-takers from the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Singapore and Denmark all average above 100. Averages in some other markets sit in the low 80s. None of this matters for your application — universities compare you to their own minimum, not to your country's average — but it is useful context. If you score 95 and feel that is unimpressive, you are actually above average. If you score 105 from a high-average country, you are landing at par.

Why your sub-section scores matter as much as the total

This is the part most students underweight. A TOEFL 100 made of R 28, L 28, S 22, W 22 is accepted everywhere that lists "minimum 100." A TOEFL 100 made of R 30, L 30, S 18, W 22 is rejected by Cornell, Columbia, NYU Stern, and dozens of other programs that set Speaking minimums of 22 or higher. The same overall score can be admissible at one school and not at another, purely because of the sub-section distribution.

Before you choose a target score, check whether your destination university publishes section minimums. Many do. Common patterns:

• Cornell, NYU, Columbia: overall 100 with Speaking 22, Writing 22.
• Macquarie Doctor of Medicine: overall 98 with Reading 24, Listening 24, Writing 27, Speaking 23.
• UIUC International Teaching Assistantships: Speaking 24 minimum regardless of overall.

If the school you want sets a Speaking floor of 24 and you score 22, the rest of the score does not matter. Diagnose your weakest section with a full mock test before you start prep.

How to get 100 — the realistic playbook

Hitting TOEFL 100 means averaging roughly 25 per section on the 0-30 scale, or band 5 across the board. This is achievable from almost any starting point, but the path is different depending on where you are. The single biggest predictor of success at this level is whether you correctly diagnose your weakest section.

For most TOEFL takers, the score breakdown looks like one of these three patterns:

• Reading-Listening strong, Speaking-Writing weak. Most non-native test-takers from non-English-medium school systems fall here. Reading and Listening are at 28-30 already, but Speaking and Writing are in the high teens or low twenties. Sixty percent of prep time should go to Speaking and Writing, twenty percent to maintaining Reading and Listening, twenty percent to test rhythm and pacing.
• Speaking strong, Writing weak. Conversational English speakers from countries where school instruction is in English but writing is under-practised. The fix is templated structure for the Academic Discussion task (state position, give one reason with one specific example, address counter-argument, tie back to question). See our sample essays for worked band-5 and band-6 responses.
• All four below 25. The most common pattern at 80-85 overall. The fastest path is to pick the section that is closest to 25 and push it to 27 — that single section lift often raises the overall by 3-5 points and is easier than pushing all four simultaneously.

Once your weakest section is identified, the rest of the playbook is straightforward but requires discipline:

1. Take a timed full mock test in week 1. Record the per-section score and the per-task task score within each section.
2. For the weakest section, work through a focused 30-minute daily drill for four weeks. Reading and Listening drills: one timed practice test per week plus daily 15-minute timed-question sets. Speaking drills: 20 minutes of Listen-and-Repeat shadowing daily, plus six interview responses against a three-line skeleton. Writing drills: one Email and one Academic Discussion response timed daily, then read the AI feedback.
3. Vocabulary investment: the Academic Word List covers about 10 percent of every TOEFL Reading passage. Five hours over four weeks against AWL Sublists 1 and 2 is the single highest leverage vocabulary activity you can do.
4. Mock test in week 5 and again in week 10. The week-5 test is diagnostic. The week-10 test is your reality check.
5. Test-day rhythm: one full timed mock in the same time-of-day as your real test, on the same day-of-week. Most students underestimate how much fatigue affects their fourth-section performance.

Realistic ETA from a starting band: from band 4.0 (TOEFL 80) to band 5.0 (TOEFL 100) typically takes six to ten weeks of the routine above. From band 4.5 to band 5.0 takes three to six weeks. From below band 4 the path is longer because the foundational vocabulary work has not been done.

How to get 110 — what changes near the top of the curve

Going from 100 to 110 is harder per point than going from 80 to 100. The bottom of the curve responds quickly to vocabulary and template work; the top responds only to register, fluency, and the absence of small errors. Three things change.

Reading and Listening become saturated. If you are at 28 in Reading and Listening, the move to 30 takes work, not a few practice tests. The skill that distinguishes 28 from 30 is correctly handling the highest-frequency distractor patterns — the paraphrase distortions, the partial-truth options on factual questions, the scaled-up inference traps. Our Reading sample walkthroughs dissect each distractor family on a 400-word passage.

Speaking is decided by fluency, not content. At band 5.0 your responses are clear and structured; at band 5.5 they sound natural. The differences are in pause patterns, vocabulary variety, and the elimination of filler words. Most students who plateau at 22-23 in Speaking are spending too much energy on what to say and not enough on how to say it. Practise reading your written Academic Discussion response aloud daily — it builds the bridge between writing register and speaking register.

Writing is decided by the rubric’s less-obvious criteria. At band 5 your response is on-task and well-organised. At band 5.5 it has lexical precision (the right word, not a near-synonym), syntactic variety (not all simple sentences), and engagement with classmates by name on Academic Discussion. The single fastest band 5 to band 5.5 move on Writing is forcing yourself to use three specific Academic Word List terms per response. See our Academic Discussion guide for the band-6 framework.

Realistic ETA: band 5.0 (100) to band 5.5 (110) is typically four to eight weeks of focused work on top of an already-stable 100. Going beyond 115 to 117+ requires near-flawless fluency and is rare even among heavily-prepared test-takers.

How long it actually takes

Below is a calibration table from the patterns we see in TOEFLMock student data. Times assume around 60 to 90 minutes of focused daily practice and weekly mock tests. Less practice extends each timeline proportionally.

If your test is closer than the timeline suggests, the right strategy is usually to lower the target to whatever is achievable in your window rather than spread thin across every section. A solid 95 is more useful than an ambitious 110 that you do not actually hit.

The five mistakes that keep students stuck below 90

From thousands of practice submissions on TOEFLMock, the same patterns appear over and over in scores that plateau in the 70s and 80s. Catching even one moves your band noticeably.

1. Practising the strong section instead of the weak one. Reading-strong students often spend their time on more Reading tests because Reading feels productive and Speaking feels uncomfortable. The opposite is the correct allocation: the band you raise is the band you ignore.
2. Skipping the Listen-and-Repeat drill. The first seven Speaking tasks each pay one band point and add up to almost half your Speaking score. Most students treat them as warm-up; band 5 students treat them as a deliberate pronunciation/intonation drill done daily for four weeks.
3. Memorising templates instead of patterns. "There are many reasons why" and similar templates are flagged by ETS calibrators as formulaic and pull your Writing band down. Learn structural patterns (state position, support, qualify, close) not whole-sentence templates.
4. Treating the new 1-6 band scale as just a relabelling. It is not. The scale changes how raters score borderline responses and rewards a slightly different mix of skills. Read our band scale guide to internalise what each band actually requires.
5. Not running a full timed mock before test day. Two and a half hours of timed concentration is its own skill. Students who only do section practice underperform their section averages by 5-10 points on a real test because the fourth section is mentally exhausted. One full timed mock per week in the last fortnight of prep is non-negotiable.

Frequently asked questions

Related reading

• TOEFL band scores and CEFR levels: full conversion guide
• TOEFL score requirements: what universities actually want
• Ivy League TOEFL requirements (all 8 schools)
• TOEFL study plan 2026: 30, 60 and 90-day templates
• Academic Word List for TOEFL 2026
• TOEFL score requirements by university — full directory