Short answer: LanguageCert Academic is accepted for UK visas (as a SELT), for every Australian visa since 7 August 2025 (test centre only) and for Irish study visas, but not for Canadian PR or New Zealand residence visas, where IELTS is. It plays Listening twice and runs Speaking as a separate 14-minute live interview.
Most confusion about LanguageCert comes from one fact: it is not one test. There is LanguageCert Academic, LanguageCert General, SELT versions of both for UK visas, an Online version and the older International ESOL suite, and each country accepts a different subset.
Every acceptance rule below was checked against the government page that sets it in October 2026; those pages change, so they remain the final word.
LanguageCert vs IELTS at a glance
| Dimension | LanguageCert Academic | IELTS Academic |
|---|---|---|
| Total time | About 2 hours 34 minutes | About 2 hours 45 minutes |
| Listening | About 40 minutes, 30 questions, every part played twice | About 30 minutes, 40 questions, audio played once |
| Reading | 50 minutes, 30 questions | 60 minutes, 40 questions |
| Writing | 50 minutes, two tasks (150–200 words, then 250 words) | 60 minutes, two tasks (at least 150, then at least 250 words) |
| Speaking | About 14 minutes, live and one-to-one with an interlocutor, recorded | 11–14 minutes, live and face to face with an examiner |
| Score scale | 0–100 per skill and overall, with a CEFR level | Bands 0–9 per skill and overall, in half bands |
| Results | Within 5 working days | 1–5 days on computer |
| Delivery | Test centre, or online with a live proctor | Computer at a test centre (paper-based IELTS ended in 2026) |
Two rows explain most of what candidates notice on the day. LanguageCert’s Listening plays each recording twice and asks 30 questions, where IELTS plays once and asks 40.
And LanguageCert’s Speaking component is booked separately — the same day, or within 14 days of the written papers — whereas the IELTS Speaking test is normally on the same day as the others or within about a week of it, depending on the centre.
Where each test is accepted, destination by destination
This is the question that should decide everything else. A test you perform brilliantly on is worthless if the body judging your application does not list it.
| Destination | LanguageCert | IELTS | Check before booking |
|---|---|---|---|
| UK visa (any route needing a SELT) | Yes — Academic SELT, General SELT, or International ESOL SELT for two-skill routes | Yes — IELTS for UKVI or IELTS Life Skills | Must be the SELT version, at an approved SELT centre |
| UK university, degree level | Often — LanguageCert Academic, at a centre or online | Yes — IELTS Academic | The university sets its own list and scores |
| Australia, all visas | Yes — LanguageCert Academic, tests on or after 7 August 2025 | Yes — Academic or General Training, including One Skill Retake for eligible visas | Test centre only; LanguageCert General is not listed |
| Canada PR, PGWP, citizenship | No | Yes — General Training only | IRCC’s other options are CELPIP-General and PTE Core |
| Canadian college or university | Check — some recognise it | Yes, widely | The institution decides |
| Ireland, study visa | Yes — 60 for degree courses, 40 for foundation and preparatory | Yes — Academic 5.0 and 4.0 | Certificate issued within 2 years of your course start |
| New Zealand, admission | Yes — recognised by NZQA, at an approved centre | Yes | Your institution can ask for more |
| New Zealand, residence visas | No — not on Immigration New Zealand’s list | Yes — General or Academic, including One Skill Retake | At-home tests are rejected |
| US universities | Check — some recognise it | Yes, widely | Each university decides; there is no federal list |
Two patterns stand out. LanguageCert is absent from the two immigration systems that run on a short, fixed list: Canada and New Zealand’s residence visas.
And online versions are excluded almost everywhere a visa is involved: the UK needs a SELT centre, Australia names LanguageCert Academic Online as not accepted, and New Zealand rejects at-home tests outright.
The UK: book the SELT version, and know the numbers
A Secure English Language Test (SELT) is a test the Home Office has approved for UK visa and immigration applications, taken at an approved SELT centre and issued with a unique reference number.
GOV.UK lists three LanguageCert SELTs: LanguageCert Academic SELT, LanguageCert General SELT and LanguageCert International ESOL SELT. From 6 July 2025 the four-skill ESOL SELT was replaced by the Academic and General SELTs, and a four-skill ESOL SELT result you already held stays valid for two years.
On the IELTS side the equivalents are IELTS for UKVI and, for the two-skill Speaking and Listening routes, IELTS Life Skills — covered in our Life Skills guide.
| CEFR level | IELTS for UKVI | LanguageCert Academic SELT | LanguageCert General SELT |
|---|---|---|---|
| B1 | 4.0 | 40 | 40 |
| B2 | 5.5 | 60 | 60 |
| C1 | 7.0 | 75 | 75 |
| C2 | 8.5 | 90 | Not listed |
Every figure is a per-skill minimum: the Home Office checks each of Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking, and a strong average does not rescue a weak skill. The level you need depends on the route.
A Student visa needs B1 below degree level and B2 at degree level or above. The Skilled Worker visa has needed B2 since 8 January 2026, with B1 still enough if you held the visa before that date and are extending it.
Route-by-route detail is on our IELTS for UK visa page and in the Skilled Worker guide.
One exception catches people the other way round. If you are going to a UK university for a degree, the university can assess your English itself, so it may accept the ordinary LanguageCert Academic — at a centre or online — or standard IELTS Academic.
That is the university’s choice rather than the Home Office’s, and it is published on the course page. If you are studying below degree level, or somewhere that is not a higher education institution, you need the SELT.
Australia: accepted since August 2025, but not online
On 7 August 2025 the Department of Home Affairs changed its list of approved English tests. LanguageCert Academic is on it for tests taken on or after that date at a secure test centre.
The department names LanguageCert Academic Online among the remote tests it does not accept, alongside IELTS Online. LanguageCert General is not on the Australian list at all, so anyone heading to Australia through LanguageCert takes the Academic test, whatever the visa.
IELTS is accepted in both its Academic and General Training forms, including One Skill Retake for eligible visas.
| English level | IELTS (each skill) | LanguageCert Listening | LanguageCert Reading | LanguageCert Writing | LanguageCert Speaking |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vocational | 5 | 41 | 44 | 45 | 54 |
| Competent | 6 | 57 | 60 | 64 | 70 |
| Proficient | 7 | 67 | 71 | 78 | 82 |
| Superior | 8 | 80 | 83 | 89 | 89 |
Notice the shape. IELTS asks for the same band in every skill; LanguageCert asks for markedly more in Speaking and Writing than in Listening. Proficient English, which carries points for skilled migration, is 67 in Listening but 82 in Speaking.
We come back to why in the scoring section, because it changes the "which is easier" answer. Results count if achieved in the three years before your visa application. For what each level is worth on the points test, see IELTS scores for Australian PR.
Canada: LanguageCert is not on IRCC’s list
For Express Entry, IRCC accepts five tests: CELPIP-General, IELTS General Training and PTE Core in English, and TEF Canada and TCF Canada in French.
The same five are used to read your language level for the post-graduation work permit, and citizenship accepts CELPIP, IELTS General Training and PTE Core for English.
LanguageCert is not among them in any version, so a LanguageCert certificate cannot be used for Canadian permanent residence, a PGWP or citizenship.
Two details matter even if you choose IELTS. It must be General Training — IELTS Academic is not accepted for Express Entry — and IRCC states that it does not accept an IELTS One Skill Retake for Express Entry.
If you are choosing between Canada’s English options, the comparisons you want are PTE Core versus IELTS General Training and CELPIP versus IELTS. Canadian universities are a separate matter: LanguageCert says some colleges and universities there recognise LanguageCert Academic for admission, so check the institution’s own list.
Ireland, New Zealand and the United States
Ireland. The Immigration Service Delivery table for study visas lists LanguageCert Academic at 60 for degree and other courses, and 40 for second-level, foundation and preparatory English courses — against IELTS Academic at 5.0 and 4.0.
Those are visa floors, the certificate must have been issued within two years of your course start date, and your college will normally ask for more. The full student route is in IELTS for an Irish student visa.
New Zealand splits in two.
For admission, NZQA’s English proficiency table recognises LanguageCert Academic taken at an approved centre: for a bachelor’s-level (NZQF level 7) programme it lists 65 overall with no skill below 60, beside IELTS 6.0 with no band below 5.5; for postgraduate study it lists 70 with no skill below 65, beside IELTS 6.5 with no band below 6.0.
For residence, though, Immigration New Zealand’s list names IELTS (General or Academic, including One Skill Retake), TOEFL iBT, PTE Academic, B2 First and OET — not LanguageCert. If New Zealand residence is the long-term plan, a LanguageCert score from your student years will not carry over.
More in IELTS for a New Zealand student visa.
The United States has no government list for study. Each university sets its own; LanguageCert says some recognise it, and IELTS is accepted far more widely. Search the admissions page for the exact test name.
Format, section by section
| Section | LanguageCert Academic | IELTS Academic |
|---|---|---|
| Listening | Four parts: unfinished dialogues, short academic conversations, a lecture with seven note gaps, and a group discussion. Mostly three-option multiple choice. Each part heard twice. | Four parts moving from everyday to academic, with form, note, table, map and multiple-choice tasks. Heard once. |
| Reading | Word replacement, gapped texts, a text with six sentences removed, four short texts on one theme, and a longer argument with multiple-choice questions. | Three long passages, with question types such as True/False/Not Given, matching headings, matching information and completion tasks. |
| Writing | A 150–200-word report or article responding to an infographic, then a 250-word discursive piece. | Task 1: describe a graph, chart, process or map in at least 150 words. Task 2: an essay of at least 250 words. |
| Speaking | Personal questions, two academic role plays, reading a short text aloud with follow-up questions, and a two-minute presentation after one minute of preparation. | Questions about you, a two-minute talk from a cue card after one minute of preparation, then a discussion of more abstract issues. |
Two differences deserve more attention than the rest.
Speaking is live in both; the delivery differs. Some guides describe LanguageCert Speaking as "computer-recorded", as though you talk to a machine.
LanguageCert’s own test guide describes an interactive, one-to-one session with a Marking Interlocutor, a trained person who runs the interview; you are connected to them and talk through a headset and microphone, and the session is recorded.
The interlocutor awards one criterion, Task Fulfilment and Communicative Effect, in real time, and an examiner scores the other four from the recording — five criteria in all. IELTS Speaking is a face-to-face conversation with a certified examiner who marks four criteria.
If you freeze across a desk but are comfortable talking through a headset to someone who is not in the room, that difference is real. If you need a face in front of you to keep talking, it cuts the other way.
The Reading task types barely overlap. IELTS Reading is built around long passages and its signature question types; LanguageCert Reading leans on gapped texts, sentence insertion and multiple choice. The skill transfers but the strategy does not, so allow time for format practice if you switch.
LanguageCert score to IELTS: what the concordance says, and who wrote it
A concordance is a statistical table that links scores on one test to scores on another, built from people who sat both.
LanguageCert ran one with the Centre for Research in English Language Learning and Assessment (CRELLA) at the University of Bedfordshire between 2022 and 2024: 1,008 people took LanguageCert Academic and IELTS Academic within three months of each other, and their official IELTS Test Report Forms were collected.
It reports an overall correlation of 0.87 between the two tests.
| IELTS Academic band | LanguageCert Academic overall | People in the study at this band |
|---|---|---|
| 5.0 | 46–53 | 74 |
| 5.5 | 54–60 | 185 |
| 6.0 | 61–66 | 225 |
| 6.5 | 67–72 | 189 |
| 7.0 | 73–80 | 148 |
| 7.5 | 81–87 | 104 |
| 8.0 | 88–94 | 42 |
Read it with the caution we apply to every cross-test table in our score equivalence guide: this is the other test maker concording its scale to IELTS, and IELTS does not publish or endorse it.
LanguageCert itself calls the pairs indicative and advises institutions not to rely on them alone. Above 8.0 the sample is too thin to mean much — three people in the study scored 8.5 and none scored 9.0.
There is one place where the concordance stops being merely indicative. Put the Home Affairs thresholds beside LanguageCert’s per-skill tables and every Australian requirement sits exactly at the bottom of the matching IELTS band. Proficient English is IELTS 7 in each skill.
LanguageCert’s study puts IELTS 7.0 at 67–72 in Listening, 71–76 in Reading, 78–83 in Writing and 82–86 in Speaking — and Home Affairs asks for 67, 71, 78 and 82. The same holds at Vocational, Competent and Superior.
In effect, Australia’s LanguageCert thresholds are the floor of each band in LanguageCert’s own per-skill study.
Is LanguageCert easier than IELTS?
This is the question people actually type, and the honest answer depends on which government is reading your score.
Start with the visible advantages: Listening played twice, 30 questions instead of 40, no True/False/Not Given. They are real, and they are exactly why a raw comparison misleads.
A concordance matches people who rank at the same point on both tests, so whatever makes LanguageCert Listening feel easier is already priced into its number: you need more LanguageCert points in Listening to count as the same IELTS band.
That is why Australia asks for 67 in Listening but 82 in Speaking for the same IELTS 7. For an Australian visa, then, neither test gives a structural advantage on average.
The UK is different, and more interesting, because its thresholds are flat: 60 in every skill for B2 and 75 for C1, set against CEFR levels rather than against IELTS. Read those flat numbers through LanguageCert’s own per-skill concordance and they do not land evenly:
| Skill | B2: LanguageCert 60 ≈ IELTS | IELTS for UKVI asks (B2) | C1: LanguageCert 75 ≈ IELTS | IELTS for UKVI asks (C1) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Listening | 6.0 | 5.5 | 7.5 | 7.0 |
| Reading | 6.0 | 5.5 | 7.0 | 7.0 |
| Writing | 5.5 | 5.5 | 6.5 | 7.0 |
| Speaking | 5.0 | 5.5 | 6.0 | 7.0 |
By LanguageCert’s own data, the LanguageCert SELT is the more demanding route in Listening (and in Reading at B2) and the more forgiving one in Writing and, above all, Speaking. That runs against the folk wisdom that LanguageCert is the test for weak listeners.
A practical rule for a UK visa: if Speaking or Writing is what keeps failing you, a LanguageCert SELT may suit you; if Listening is your weak skill, the flat 5.5 on IELTS for UKVI is the kinder bar. The concordance is indicative and individuals vary, so test the theory with a timed practice paper before you pay for either.
Format still matters beyond the bar. If you lose marks to the pace of a single play, LanguageCert removes that pressure; if you rely on a conversation partner’s cues, IELTS’s face-to-face interview gives you more of them. Both are better reasons to choose than a rumour about generous marking.
Fees in 2026: India, the UK, Nigeria and Pakistan
| Market | IELTS Academic or General Training | IELTS for UKVI | LanguageCert Academic or SELT |
|---|---|---|---|
| India | ₹19,000 | ₹19,250 | ₹16,430 including GST, as listed by LanguageCert’s authorised Indian partners |
| UK | £215–250, by centre | From £257 | Shown at booking; SELT pages quote from US$270 |
| Nigeria | ₦299,000 | ₦315,500 | Shown at booking |
| Pakistan | ₨71,320–71,920 | ₨72,000 | Shown at booking |
LanguageCert shows its price by country inside the booking flow rather than in a public table; its SELT pages quote "from US$270" before you pick a centre. In India the ₹16,430 figure, which authorised partners list as the official price, makes LanguageCert about ₹2,600–2,800 cheaper than IELTS.
Some resellers advertise discounted vouchers, so buy only through partners LanguageCert lists on its own site. IELTS fees, each with its official source, are on our IELTS fees pages.
How long results count
LanguageCert says its certificates have no expiry date, and IELTS results are generally accepted for two years. In practice neither test’s own rule decides anything — the receiving body’s rule does:
- UK visas: a SELT result is valid for two years from the date it is awarded.
- Australian visas: the score must have been achieved in the three years before your application.
- Irish study visas: the certificate must have been issued within two years of your course start date.
- New Zealand residence: IELTS results no more than two years old when you apply; LanguageCert is not on the list.
- Canada: IELTS General Training results under two years old both when you create your Express Entry profile and when you apply for PR.
- Universities: most apply a two-year rule; check the admissions page.
The longer Australian window matters if you are planning a student visa now and a skilled visa later. The general rules for IELTS are in how long IELTS results are valid.
Which should you take? A decision flow
- Canada PR, PGWP or citizenship? Take IELTS General Training, CELPIP-General or PTE Core. LanguageCert is not an option.
- New Zealand residence, now or later? Take IELTS or another test Immigration New Zealand lists. A LanguageCert score will not count for the visa.
- A UK visa? Either works. Book IELTS for UKVI or a LanguageCert SELT at an approved centre, then use the skill table above: weak Speaking or Writing leans LanguageCert, weak Listening leans IELTS.
- An Australian visa? Either works at a test centre. LanguageCert means the Academic test and never the Online version; IELTS lets you choose General Training, and its One Skill Retake is accepted for eligible visas.
- University admission only? Find the exact test name and score on the course page. If LanguageCert Academic is listed and the online version is allowed, it can be the quickest booking available to you.
- More than one destination, or not sure yet? IELTS keeps more doors open: it is accepted in every row of the destination table above, and LanguageCert is missing from two.
- Still undecided? Sit one timed paper in each format and compare where you lose marks, not how the test felt.
Measure yourself before you pick
The decision above turns on one thing you can find out cheaply: which skill is your weakest, and by how much.
Sit a timed IELTS paper free on our IELTS online test page — Listening with one-play audio, Reading scored against the official band tables — and see where the marks go.
The Writing Checker marks the four Writing criteria separately, computes the overall band in code and quotes your own sentence for every correction.
For Speaking, a live Speaking mock is a 15-minute Part 1–3 interview with a member of the IELTSbiz team over Google Meet or Zoom, marked against the public band descriptors, with written feedback on all four criteria within 24 hours — from $3 a session, and an estimate rather than an official band.
If the measurement says Listening, the UK arithmetic above points one way; if it says Speaking, the other.