The JLPT publishes its pass marks, and they are not secret. What trips people up is everything around them: the scale is not a percentage, the score you get is not the number of questions you answered correctly, and there is a second rule that can fail you even when your total is comfortably above the line.
Here is how it actually works.
Every level is scored out of 180
Whatever level you sit, the total is 0–180. What changes is how those 180 points are divided and what you need to reach.
| Level | Scoring sections | Pass mark | Sectional minimum |
|---|---|---|---|
| N5 | Language Knowledge · Reading (0–120), Listening (0–60) | 80 / 180 | 38/120 and 19/60 |
| N4 | Language Knowledge · Reading (0–120), Listening (0–60) | 90 / 180 | 38/120 and 19/60 |
| N3 | Language Knowledge (0–60), Reading (0–60), Listening (0–60) | 95 / 180 | 19/60 in each |
| N2 | Language Knowledge (0–60), Reading (0–60), Listening (0–60) | 90 / 180 | 19/60 in each |
| N1 | Language Knowledge (0–60), Reading (0–60), Listening (0–60) | 100 / 180 | 19/60 in each |
Two things jump out.
N5 and N4 have two scoring sections, not three. Language Knowledge and Reading are combined into a single 0–120 band. From N3 upwards they separate into three bands of 60 each. This matters for your revision: at N4 a weak reading performance can be partly carried by strong vocabulary and grammar, because they share a score band. At N3 it cannot.
N3 has a higher pass mark than N2. 95 versus 90. This is not a mistake, and it does not mean N3 is harder — N2 content is substantially more difficult. The pass marks are set independently for each level and are not designed to be read as a difficulty ranking.
The sectional minimum is what fails people
This is the rule to internalise.
Reaching the overall pass mark is necessary but not sufficient. You must also reach the minimum in every scoring section. Miss one, and you fail — no matter how high your total.
A worked example at N2:
| Your score | Minimum | |
|---|---|---|
| Language Knowledge | 42 / 60 | 19 ✅ |
| Reading | 38 / 60 | 19 ✅ |
| Listening | 17 / 60 | 19 ❌ |
| Total | 97 / 180 | 90 ✅ |
That candidate scored seven points above the N2 pass mark and failed, on two points of listening.
It is almost always listening. Vocabulary and grammar reward the kind of study people naturally do — flashcards, drills, textbook exercises. Listening rewards hours of input, which is harder to schedule and much easier to postpone. The result is a predictable shape of failure.
If your practice scores show one section trailing the others, that section is your exam, whatever the total says. Our mock tests break your result down by section for exactly this reason — try one and look at the table, not the percentage.
Scaled scoring: why you cannot count your marks
The JLPT does not report raw scores. It uses scaled scoring, based on Item Response Theory.
The reason is fairness across sittings. Two versions of an exam are never precisely equal in difficulty, and papers vary between July and December and from year to year. If scores were raw, a candidate who happened to sit an easier paper would be advantaged. Equating converts raw performance onto a common scale so that a scaled 95 in one sitting means the same ability as a scaled 95 in another.
Three practical consequences:
- You cannot calculate your score in advance. Counting the questions you think you got right tells you nothing precise about your scaled score.
- Not every question contributes equally. The relationship between raw marks and scaled score is not linear, and questions carry different statistical weight.
- Near the boundary, small differences move a long way. Around the pass mark the scale is most sensitive, which is why a handful of questions can decide the result.
None of this means practice percentages are useless. They are an excellent diagnostic — they tell you which sections are weak and whether you are broadly in range. They just are not a prediction.
What the score report actually shows
Your result comes as an online score and, for those who pass, a certificate. The report gives you:
- Your score in each scoring section
- Your total score
- Pass or fail
- Reference information on your performance in vocabulary and grammar, shown as A, B or C rather than numbers
That reference grade is genuinely useful and widely ignored. A means you answered 67% or more of that question type correctly, B means 34–66%, and C means under 34%. If you failed and see a C, you have been handed the precise diagnosis for free.
Results arrive roughly two months after the exam — typically late August or early September for the July sitting, and late January or early February for December. Overseas timing varies.
Planning your revision around the scoring
The scoring structure suggests a strategy.
Protect every section above its minimum first. Since a sub-minimum section fails you outright, the first job is making sure no section is near the floor. Nineteen out of sixty is not a demanding bar — but it is not free either, and a section you have genuinely never practised can land under it.
Then push the sections with the most headroom. Once everything clears its minimum, extra points are extra points wherever they come from. For most candidates the cheapest marks are in vocabulary and grammar, because they respond quickly to systematic study.
Treat listening as a daily habit, not a topic. You cannot cram it. Twenty minutes a day of Japanese audio at your level will do more for your listening score across three months than any amount of concentrated revision in the final fortnight.
Do not neglect reading speed. The tighter time pressure at N2 and N1 means people run out of time rather than out of understanding. If you can answer the questions but not within the time, practise reading at speed rather than reading more.
Quick reference
- Every level: 0–180 total
- Pass marks: N5 80 · N4 90 · N3 95 · N2 90 · N1 100
- Sectional minimum: 19/60 per section, or 38/120 for the combined band at N4 and N5
- Scoring is scaled, not raw — you cannot compute it yourself
- Results arrive roughly two months after the sitting
Next steps
- Take a free JLPT practice test and read your per-section breakdown
- Compare the JLPT levels to check you are registering for the right one
- JFT-Basic scoring if you are looking at the other exam
The figures above come from the official JLPT guidelines. They are stable, but they are not ours to change — confirm them at jlpt.jp before making a decision that depends on them.