What is the pass mark for the Canadian citizenship test?

Fifteen out of twenty, and nothing else

The rule is simpler than most tests. Each question is worth the same, there are no compulsory questions, and no topic has to be passed on its own. Score 15 or more and the knowledge requirement is met, subject to an officer confirming the result and your identity. Score 14 or fewer and that attempt is a fail. Every practice site quotes the same figure, and IRCC's results page confirms it in the context of the hearing: 20 questions, need 15.

The 75% is higher than it used to be. The pass mark was 60%, twelve out of twenty, before the 2010 revision that came with the current guide, and the first version of the revised test failed around 30% of applicants before IRCC adjusted it; Wikipedia's account of that period cites the reporting of the time. The current test is meant to be passable by anyone who has read the guide properly, and the reported first-attempt pass rate, 86% in IRCC's 2020 evaluation of the programme as vendor sites cite it, says that most people do.

What five wrong answers buys you

Five. That is the buffer, and it is worth treating as a budget. Twenty questions across ten chapters means roughly two per chapter, so a chapter you have skipped entirely costs about two of your five before you have made a careless mistake anywhere else. Two skipped chapters and a single misread question and you are at 15 exactly. The buffer covers the questions you could not have known. It does not stretch to chapters you did not read.

The thresholds at a hearing

If all three attempts within the 30-day window fail, IRCC invites you to a hearing with a citizenship official lasting 30 to 90 minutes. The official may assess three things, and IRCC gives numbers for two of them: knowledge of Canada, with 20 questions and 15 needed, the same bar as the written test; and language, with up to nine questions of which six must be answered adequately. Residence can be examined too. The knowledge questions are asked and answered aloud, which suits some people better than a screen and others worse.

A pass at the hearing meets the requirement and the application continues to the ceremony. A fail is a refusal, and IRCC's page says the next step plainly: reapply and pay the fees again.

What score means you are ready

Not 15. A mock that scrapes 15 is telling you that the real test is a coin toss, because the real questions will be different ones and the sitting will be less comfortable. The applicants who pass first time typically report practice scores in the high teens, and a sensible target is three timed mocks in a row at 17 or better with no chapter left untouched. The app reports each mock against the 15 line and keeps the topic breakdown underneath it, so a 17 with two wrong in history reads differently from a 17 with two wrong in symbols; the first is a chapter to reread, the second is probably carelessness.

The language requirement is separate, but it is checked

Passing the test does not by itself prove language. For applicants aged 18 to 54 IRCC wants evidence of level 4 of the Canadian Language Benchmarks in speaking and listening, usually documents with the application, and an official can assess speaking and listening at an interview or hearing. In practice a well-read applicant who follows the test's English or French comfortably is at or above the benchmark, but the two requirements sit in different parts of the file.