Guide · IQ scores

What is a good IQ score?

An IQ of 100 is average by definition. A score of 110 or above is above average and higher than about 75% of people. A score of 120 or above is higher than about 91% of people, and 130 or above puts you in the top 2–3%.

Whether a score is "good" depends on what you compare it with. This guide shows what each score range means, how rare it is, and how much a single test score can tell you.

The average IQ is 100

Modern IQ tests are scaled so the average adult in the reference population scores 100 and the standard deviation is 15. Scores follow a bell curve. About 68% of people score between 85 and 115, and about 95% score between 70 and 130.

Because of this scaling, 100 is the average for whichever population the test was normed on. It isn't a fixed amount of intelligence. When a test is re-normed, the new average is set to 100 again.

IQ percentile chart

The percentile is the share of people who score lower than you. It is calculated from the normal distribution with mean 100 and standard deviation 15.

IQ score	Percentile	Wechsler classification
70	2.3%	Borderline
80	9.1%	Low average
85	15.9%	Low average
90	25.2%	Average
100	50%	Average
110	74.8%	High average
115	84.1%	High average
120	90.9%	Superior
125	95.2%	Superior
130	97.7%	Very superior
135	99.0%	Very superior
140	99.6%	Very superior
145	99.9%	Very superior

IQ score ranges and what they mean

130 and above (very superior). Top 2.2%. Roughly 1 in 44 people score 130 or higher, and 1 in 740 score 145 or higher.
120–129 (superior). Above about 91% of people.
110–119 (high average). Above about 75% of people.
90–109 (average). Half of all people score in this range.
80–89 (low average). About 16% of people.
70–79 (borderline). About 7% of people.
69 and below (extremely low). About 2% of people. A low score on its own doesn't establish an intellectual disability; that diagnosis also requires assessment of everyday adaptive functioning.

What IQ do you need for Mensa?

Mensa accepts people who score at or above the 98th percentile on an approved, supervised test. On a scale with a standard deviation of 15, that is about 130. On older scales with a standard deviation of 16, the same percentile is about 132.

How much does one score tell you?

Every IQ score carries measurement error. Even professional tests report a confidence interval, typically around ±5 points for a full-scale score. Short online tests have wider intervals, so treat a single result as a range, not an exact number.

IQ predicts school and job performance better than most single measures, but it leaves out a lot: knowledge, motivation, creativity, social skills and many practical abilities.

Find out where you fall. Take the free 38-question IQ test and get your score, percentile and confidence interval.

Start the free IQ test