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IELTS, TOEFL and the Cambridge English Qualifications all measure English proficiency, but they are built on different logic: two report a single score across a wide range of ability, while the third asks you to sit a specific exam for the level you’re aiming at and pass or not. Picking the wrong one for your situation can mean retaking an exam you didn’t need to fail. Here is how the three actually differ in structure, scoring and what they’re for — current as of the major TOEFL redesign that took effect in January 2026.

IELTS

IELTS is jointly owned and administered by the British Council, IDP IELTS and Cambridge University Press & Assessment. It comes in two main versions: IELTS Academic, for university admission, and IELTS General Training, aimed at work and immigration applications; a separate IELTS for UKVI variant exists specifically for UK visa categories. The Listening and Speaking sections are identical across versions; Reading and Writing differ in content and task type depending on which version you sit.

The test runs to around 2 hours 45 minutes: Listening (30 minutes, 40 questions), Reading (60 minutes, 40 questions), and Writing (60 minutes, two tasks — a shorter data/letter task and a longer 250-word essay). Speaking is a live, face-to-face interview with a trained examiner, typically 11–14 minutes, and may be scheduled on the same day as the other sections or up to a week either side of them depending on the test centre. Scoring uses IELTS’s well-known 0–9 band scale in half-band increments, with a separate band for each of the four skills plus an overall band that is the average, rounded to the nearest half band. IELTS itself does not set an official expiry date on results, but most universities, employers and immigration authorities will only accept scores from within the last two years — that recency requirement comes from the receiving institution, not from IELTS.

TOEFL iBT

TOEFL iBT is owned and administered by ETS (Educational Testing Service) and is delivered entirely on a computer. It changed substantially on 21 January 2026: the test was shortened from roughly 116 minutes to about 90, Reading and Listening became multi-stage adaptive (question difficulty adjusts based on how you’re performing), and Speaking moved to include new task types such as a “Listen and Repeat” section alongside interview-style questions. Scoring changed too — each of the four sections (Reading, Listening, Speaking, Writing) is now reported on a 1.0–6.0 scale in 0.5-point increments, with the overall score calculated as the average of the four section scores rather than a sum. ETS designed the new scale to align more directly with CEFR bands than the old 0–120 scale did. Because this is a very recent change, score reports issued through 2028 will show both the legacy 0–120 score and the new 1–6 score side by side, after which only the new scale will be reported — worth checking carefully if you’re comparing a TOEFL result against an older published score requirement, since an institution’s stated cutoff may still refer to the old scale.

Cambridge English Qualifications

Cambridge English Qualifications, from Cambridge University Press & Assessment, work on fundamentally different logic from IELTS and TOEFL. Rather than one exam producing a score anywhere across a wide range, Cambridge offers a separate, fixed-level exam for each CEFR level: A2 Key, B1 Preliminary, B2 First, C1 Advanced and C2 Proficiency (plus Young Learners exams below A2). You choose the exam matching the level you’re aiming for and either meet the required standard or you don’t, though most Cambridge exams also report a grade for the CEFR level just below the target if you fall short of a full pass, rather than a flat fail with no information. Cambridge states its qualifications are recognised by more than 18,000 universities, employers and governments worldwide. A practical difference that matters for planning: Cambridge certificates do not carry an expiry date set by Cambridge itself, unlike the two-year recency window commonly requested for IELTS and TOEFL results by receiving institutions.

Choosing between them

The right exam depends on what’s actually being asked of you, not which one is “easier” — a comparison that’s close to meaningless given how differently they’re structured:

• If an institution names a specific exam and score (a university listing “IELTS 6.5” or “TOEFL 90,” for instance), sit that exam — scores are not perfectly interchangeable between systems even where crosswalk tables exist, and an admissions office may only accept the exam it named.
• If you want a permanent record of a specific level rather than a score that institutions treat as aging out after two years, a Cambridge qualification at the right level is worth considering, particularly for job applications or long-term CV use.
• If your speaking assessment style matters to you, note that IELTS Speaking is a live interview with a human examiner throughout, while TOEFL Speaking (even after the 2026 redesign) is recorded and scored later — some candidates strongly prefer one format over the other.
• If you’re mid-preparation for the old TOEFL format, check whether your target institution’s published requirement has been updated for the new 1–6 scale, since the transition period means both old and new figures are circulating in guidance documents right now.

Whichever exam you need, treat it as separate from general course progress: an exam-specific preparation course focused on that exam’s format and timing is a different product from a general-fluency class, a distinction covered in more depth on our exam preparation courses page.

Sources

• IELTS official site (ielts.org)
• ETS: TOEFL iBT test (ets.org)
• ETS: TOEFL iBT score scale update (2026) (ets.org)
• Cambridge English Qualifications overview (cambridgeenglish.org)

Almost every language course, exam and job listing that mentions language ability refers back to the same six-letter scale: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2. But the framework behind those letters is often misunderstood — it is not a test, it does not certify anything by itself, and a course provider advertising a “B2 class” is making a claim that nobody outside that school has necessarily verified. Here is what the CEFR actually is, what each level really describes, and how to use it sensibly when comparing course providers or exams.

What the CEFR actually is

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) was developed by the Council of Europe and first published in 2001, with a Companion Volume adding new descriptors published in 2020. It was designed as a common basis for describing language ability across any language, so that a course provider in Spain, an exam board in Germany and an employer in the UK can all refer to “B1” and mean roughly the same thing. Crucially, the CEFR is a descriptive framework, not an exam, a curriculum or a certifying body. It defines what a learner can typically do at each level — understanding, speaking, reading and writing — and leaves it to individual schools, exam boards and course providers to decide how to teach towards those levels and how (or whether) to verify that a student has actually reached one.

The six levels, in plain terms

The CEFR groups ability into three broad bands, each split into two levels:

• A1 and A2 (Basic User). At A1, a learner can handle very simple, predictable exchanges — introducing themselves, asking basic questions, understanding slow and clear speech about familiar topics. A2 extends this to short, routine exchanges on everyday matters: shopping, local information, simple work or travel needs.
• B1 and B2 (Independent User). B1 is the level most course providers describe as “conversational” — a learner can get by while travelling, handle familiar topics at work or school, and describe experiences and plans in connected sentences. B2 is a substantial step up: understanding complex text on abstract topics, following native-speed conversation without strain, and producing detailed, structured writing.
• C1 and C2 (Proficient User). C1 covers fluent, flexible use of the language for social, academic and professional purposes, including picking up on implied meaning. C2 is the top of the scale — near-effortless comprehension and highly precise expression, which is not the same thing as sounding exactly like a native speaker, since C2 describes command of the language rather than a specific accent or cultural background.

Where the letters come from in practice

Not every exam that reports a CEFR level was built around the framework in the same way. Several major European exams are constructed directly on CEFR levels — Cambridge English Qualifications is the clearest example, with separate exams for separate levels (B1 Preliminary, B2 First, C1 Advanced, C2 Proficiency), so a candidate sits the exam that matches the level they are aiming for and either meets the standard or doesn’t. France’s DELF/DALF and Germany’s Goethe-Zertifikat exams work the same way, each tied to one specific CEFR level.

Other major exams were not originally built around CEFR and instead publish a crosswalk table mapping their own score scale onto approximate CEFR levels. IELTS (scored 0–9) and the pre-2026 TOEFL iBT (scored 0–120) both fall into this category. That changed for TOEFL in January 2026: ETS introduced a new 1–6 TOEFL iBT score scale explicitly designed to align more directly with CEFR bands, alongside a shorter, redesigned test. Score reports show both the old 0–120 scale and the new 1–6 scale during a transition period running through 2028, after which the 1–6 scale becomes the only one reported. If you are comparing a TOEFL score to a CEFR requirement during this window, check which scale the report is showing you.

What the CEFR does not tell you

A few things get lost when “B2” is used as shorthand:

• It is not self-verifying. A course marketed as “B2 level” only means the provider has labelled it that way. Unless the course ends in a recognised, externally assessed exam, nobody outside the school has independently confirmed that finishing it actually gets a typical student to B2.
• It does not fix how many hours a level takes. Generic guided-learning-hour estimates exist (often cited in the low hundreds for A2, rising toward 700–800 for C1), but these are rough averages across languages, not a guarantee for any specific one — see our guide to why some languages take longer to learn than others for how much that figure shifts depending on which language you’re studying and how distant it is from your first language.
• Levels are not identical across skills. The CEFR assesses listening, reading, spoken interaction, spoken production and writing separately. It is entirely normal for a learner to sit comfortably at B2 for reading and closer to B1 for spontaneous speaking — a single overall label can flatten that difference.
• C2 is not “native speaker.” The framework describes the top of a language-learning scale, not an assertion that a learner is indistinguishable from someone raised speaking the language, which involves cultural and pragmatic knowledge the CEFR was never designed to measure.

Using CEFR sensibly when choosing a course

Ask a prospective course provider two direct questions: which recognised exam (if any) the course is preparing you for, and what evidence they have that past students reach the stated level. A course that leads to an externally graded, CEFR-aligned exam gives you a real check on progress; a course that only self-labels its level does not. If your reason for learning is a hard requirement — a visa, a university offer, a job application — check the CEFR level (or exam score) that institution has actually specified, since requirements vary widely by institution and cannot be assumed from the course level alone. For more on matching a course format to what you’re trying to achieve, see our guide to choosing a language course.

Sources

• Council of Europe: Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) (coe.int)
• Cambridge English Qualifications overview (cambridgeenglish.org)
• ETS: TOEFL iBT score scale update (2026) (ets.org)
• Europass: CEFR self-assessment grid (europass.europa.eu)