Home / Articles

IQ score chart: what every IQ range means

By Free IQ Test Lab Team · Published 14 October 2026 · 5 min read

Every modern IQ test speaks the same numerical language, so one chart covers them all. If you just got a score and want to place it, start with the table. If you want to understand what the number means — and what it doesn't — keep reading past it.

The IQ scale chart

This uses the scale on most modern tests: average 100, standard deviation 15. The shares come straight from the mathematics of that scale.

IQ score	Description	Share of people
130 and above	Very high	2.3%
120 to 129	High	6.9%
110 to 119	Above average	16.1%
90 to 109	Average	49.5%
80 to 89	Below average	16.1%
70 to 79	Low	6.9%
Below 70	Very low	2.3%

These are the same bands our free IQ test uses on its results page. Professional tests group scores in very similar ranges, though each publisher picks its own wording — and the wording has shifted between editions. Treat the numbers as the truth and the labels as convention.

Read your score as a percentile

Percentiles are often more useful than the raw number: a percentile tells you what share of people scored below you.

IQ	Percentile	About 1 person in… scores this high or higher
85	16th	1.2
90	25th	1.3
100	50th	2
110	75th	4
115	84th	6
120	91st	11
125	95th	21
130	98th	44
135	99th	102
140	99.6th	261
145	99.9th	741

Notice how the rarity accelerates. Moving from 100 to 115 passes a third of the population. Moving from 130 to 145 passes fewer than 2 people in 100. That compression at the top is why small differences up there matter more than they look.

The same scale, as 100 people

Bell curves are hard to read, so here is the distribution another way. Line up 100 people by score:

Range	Out of 100 people
Very high (130 and above)	2
High (120 to 129)	7
Above average (110 to 119)	16
Average (90 to 109)	50
Below average (80 to 89)	16
Low (below 80)	9

Half the room sits in the average band; two people in the whole room reach 130. Three rules of thumb fall out of the shape: about 68% of people land within 15 points of 100 (85–115), about 95% within 30 points (70–130), and about 99.7% within 45 points (55–145).

What counts as a good, high, or low score

Good. Anything from 90 upward is at or above the typical level for your age — a perfectly good result. If you want one number to aim at, 110 beats about three in four people; 120 beats about nine in ten. But "good" depends on the use: no score decides whether you will do well in a career or a course. Effort, knowledge, interest, and practical skill count at least as much.

High. 120 and above is generally treated as high; 130 and above as very high. At 130 you are two standard deviations above average — the line many schools use for giftedness programs, though cut-offs vary. It also roughly matches Mensa's entry level; see our guide to the Mensa IQ requirement.

Low. 80 to 89 is below average; 70 to 79 is low. Neither is a diagnosis of anything, and many people in these ranges live and work independently. Around 70 or below on a full clinical assessment, combined with significant limits in everyday adaptive skills assessed separately, is part of how intellectual disability is evaluated — the American Psychiatric Association notes that no strict IQ cut-off is used on its own (APA). An online test cannot speak to any of this. If you have concerns about yourself or a child, talk to a doctor or psychologist.

A note on the top end: above about 145, tests stop measuring reliably. So few people in a reference group score that high that there is almost nothing to compare against, and short tests — ours included — are not built to separate scores up there.

Is my IQ score good?

Most people would call an IQ of 90 to 109 a good score, because that average band holds about half of everyone. Scores from 110 up are above average, and 120 or more is usually called high. But "good" is not a fixed line: it depends on what you want the number for.

Is 110 a good IQ?

Yes. 110 opens the above-average band and sits at about the 75th percentile, higher than roughly three in four people — a good score, just not an uncommon one. See where 110 sits among all scores in the calculator.

Is 115 a good IQ?

Yes, clearly. 115 is the middle of the above-average band, at about the 84th percentile, and only about 1 person in 6 scores this high or higher. It is also the top edge of the 85 to 115 range that holds about two in three people. Check the exact percentile for 115 if you want the precise figure.

Is 120 a good IQ?

Yes — 120 starts the high band and sits at about the 91st percentile, in the top 9% or so; roughly 1 person in 11 scores this high or higher. It is a strong score, though by itself it says nothing about how someone will do at work or in a course. See where 120 sits next to the scores around it.

Is 130 a good IQ?

Yes, very. 130 opens the very high band at about the 98th percentile — only about 1 person in 44 scores this high or higher. It is two standard deviations above the average, around the cut-off many gifted programs use. The calculator shows the exact percentile for 130, and how rare it is.

Is 140 a good IQ?

Yes — 140 is deep in the very high band, at about the 99.6th percentile; only about 1 person in 261 scores this high or higher. Treat the exact number gently, though: tests separate scores less reliably this far from the average, so 138 and 142 are much the same result. Compare the exact percentile for 140 with the scores around it to see how thin the differences get.

Careful: not every test uses this scale

Most current tests, including the Wechsler scales and the modern Stanford-Binet, use a standard deviation of 15. Older or specialist tests differ — the Cattell scale uses 24, which inflates the numbers for the same performance:

Percentile	SD 15 scale	SD 16 scale	SD 24 scale
84th	115	116	124
98th	131	133	149
99.9th	146	149	174

So when someone mentions an IQ of 150, the first question is always: on which scale? On a 24-SD test it is roughly the 98th percentile; on a 15-SD test it is closer to 1 in 2,300.

Every score is really a range

No test measures perfectly. Take the same kind of test twice and tiredness, focus, and the luck of particular questions will move the number a little. Professional reports give a confidence interval — "112, likely between 107 and 117" — rather than a single figure, and honest tests do the same.

Ours shows a likely range next to your estimate: 12 points either side on the 15-question Quick test, 8 on the 40-question Full test. More questions narrow the range; both bands are wider than a clinical test's, because ours is shorter and taken at home. The methodology page shows the exact working.

You also get a breakdown across five areas — patterns, numbers, logic, shapes, analogies — with every answer explained. Two people can share an overall score with completely different strengths, and that breakdown is often more useful than the headline number. If you are mainly wondering what an ordinary score looks like, our guide to the average IQ covers that ground.