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If you are building an Express Entry profile, your language score is almost certainly the single lever with the biggest effect on your Comprehensive Ranking System score. Age is fixed, education is fixed, and work experience grows slowly. Language is the one factor you can realistically move in a test-prep cycle, and moving up a single benchmark can add dozens of CRS points across several categories.
IRCC does not work with raw IELTS or CELPIP numbers. It converts every result to a Canadian benchmark. The Canadian Language Benchmarks (CLB) scale measures English on a 1 to 12 range, and the Niveaux de compétence linguistique canadiens (NCLC) scale does the same for French. The two scales are numerically identical and parallel, so "CLB 7" and "NCLC 7" describe the same level of proficiency. The rest of this post refers to them together as CLB/NCLC.
Every accepted test carries equal weight once it is converted to CLB/NCLC. IRCC does not accept TOEFL in any form for economic immigration.
If you want the raw score that produces each CLB or NCLC level, the companion post has the full tables for all five tests: Converting language test scores to CLB and NCLC.
Every test reports four separate scores: listening, reading, writing, and speaking. IRCC records a CLB or NCLC level per ability, not one combined score. Two rules follow from that:
Pushing one ability just over the next benchmark line is often the cheapest way to gain CRS points.
For Express Entry, results are valid for two years from the test date. They must be valid when you submit your profile and when you accept an Invitation to Apply. If your results expire while you are in the pool, update your profile with new scores or you risk losing eligibility at the invitation stage.
You never type a benchmark number into our questionnaire. It asks which test you sat and the four ability scores exactly as they are printed on your certificate, plus the month and year you sat it, and the engine converts them to CLB or NCLC itself, using the same conversion code the free calculators on this site run. Every Canadian language requirement is then checked the way IRCC states it: all four abilities at the required level in one language, English or French, never a strong reading score in one language propping up a weak speaking score in the other. The test date drives a second check. Where your result is more than two years old, or would be by the time you apply, the route drops to potentially eligible and the report hands you the step, "Make sure your language test result is less than 2 years old", with the note that this reflects the age of the paperwork rather than your ability. If you did not give a date, the report says it assumed the result is current instead of showing you a plain green tick.
What it does not do: it does not book, sit or score a test for you, it cannot predict what you would score, and the conversion it applies is IRCC's published equivalency rather than a promise about how an officer will read your certificate.
Next stops: the CRS score explainer, the NOC and TEER explainer, the Provincial Nominee Program explainer, and the conversion tables. For the full official rules, see the IRCC language test page. When you are ready to see where a given CLB/NCLC level lands you, try the free CRS calculator or the free Express Entry eligibility checker: both take your raw test scores and do the conversion for you.
When you want that same language claim checked against every Canadian route at once, answer the free questionnaire. The questions are free, the eligibility summary at the end is free, and payment unlocks the full report with the checklist behind each route.
Answer our free questionnaire and see your eligibility summary instantly. You only pay to unlock your full personalized immigration report.