Duolingo English Test (DET)(Duolingo English Test)

About the exam

About Duolingo English Test

Duolingo's accepted identification table has a column for passports, a column for driver's licences and a column for government photo IDs. On the row for India, only the passport column carries a tick (Accepted Identification, Duolingo English Test Help Center). Onboarding still offers all three in a drop-down and asks you to pick the one you are about to photograph, and a document that does not match the type you picked leaves your identity unverified until you resubmit (ID type mismatch, help centre). The same asymmetry runs through the whole test. There is no exam date, no centre and no admit card, and the conditions that decide whether a result is certified are set out in Duolingo's help centre and its technical manual rather than anywhere a candidate meets them before paying.

The Duolingo English Test is an English proficiency test that Duolingo, Inc. delivers over the internet with no testing centre involved. Duolingo's Technical Manual describes it as available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and says the test takes approximately one hour to complete, though the exact time varies because it adapts to each test taker (Duolingo English Test Technical Manual).

Adaptive means what it says. Test Structure, Duolingo English Test Help Center tells test takers that the number of questions varies, because the test administers more or fewer items according to the grading engine's confidence in the score, and that the difficulty of some questions changes as you answer.

The current score scale is not new, but the current task set is. The Technical Manual records that the test launched in 2016 and that the scoring scale moved to the present 10 to 160 range in 2019, with the four integrated subscores first reported in 2020 and the four individual skill subscores launched in 2024 (Technical Manual). The interactive task types arrived in stages, and the most recent stage matters for anyone reading older descriptions of the format.

The Technical Manual states that the test is used by over 6,000 academic programs in more than 100 countries (Technical Manual). India is a large part of the population sitting it. Duolingo's own demographic report counts sessions by the country that issued the test taker's ID, and on that measure India accounted for 7.83% of all certified sessions worldwide between July 1, 2025 and June 30, 2026, behind mainland China on 10.19% and Canada on 8.33% (Demographic and Score Properties of Test Takers).

At a glance

Duolingo English Test highlights

Calendar

Important dates

A test that can be started at three in the morning leaves a candidate no date to write down. What it leaves instead is a purchase that begins expiring the moment it is made, and a short run of deadlines measured from that purchase and from the moment you finish.

Buying early is the expensive mistake. Duolingo states plainly that unused test credits expire after 21 days and that the expiration date cannot be extended (help centre, credit expiry). A test bought well before you feel ready is simply spent, so the date to work backwards from is the application deadline the institution has set, not the day you happen to pay.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

No qualification, age band or academic record gates this test. What gates it is identity, and for an Indian test taker the rule is narrow.

Duolingo requires a government-issued ID carrying a full date of birth, a recent photo of your face, a valid expiration date, the country of issuance and your full legal name. Its accepted identification table then sets out, country by country, which document types qualify, and the India row ticks only the passport, leaving the driver's licence and government photo ID columns blank (Accepted Identification). Duolingo also accepts official, stamped UNHCR asylum-seeker or refugee certificates that include a photo, name and date of birth. It does not accept handwritten IDs, photocopies, digital images of an ID displayed on a phone, or damaged or tampered documents, and it requires you to enter your name exactly as printed on the card, middle names and additional surnames included.

Two further conditions sit alongside the ID rule. A test taker under 13, or below the age at which parental consent is required in their country, needs a parent or guardian to give permission before registering, which the guardian does by contacting support (help centre). And the test is unavailable in Iran and for users holding Iranian IDs (help centre).

Duolingo adds a caution rather than a bar for younger candidates. Its Technical Manual says scores for test takers under 16 should be interpreted with care, since a younger test taker's ability to engage with the content, the security procedures and the timed format depends on individual factors, and it reports a median test-taker age of 22 worldwide (Technical Manual). Account rules are strict in a way that affects families sharing a device: only one account may be used to take the test, and an account may not be shared between people (Test Policies, Rules, and Requirements).

Step by step

Application process and fee

There is no application form and no registration window. You create an account, buy a test, and the credit lands in that account.

On payment, Duolingo's help centre says the test is purchased through your Duolingo English Test account, that all major credit cards are accepted and that Alipay is accepted in China. That article explains the method and the 21 day completion window, and it names no amount (help centre, paying for the test). Duolingo publishes no test price anywhere in that help centre, for India or for anywhere else, so a figure picked up from a blog or a forum is worth confirming in your own account before you budget around it.

What Duolingo does publish about money is worth knowing before you pay:

• Nothing extra to send a score, nothing extra to appeal. The Technical Manual states that the test does not charge extra fees for sharing scores with institutions or for appealing proctoring decisions (Technical Manual).
• Faster Results is a paid add-on. The FAQ Duolingo writes for its Global Partner Network quotes the option at typically USD 39, returning results in about 12 hours (Global Partner Network Benefits). That amount is quoted to partner agencies in US dollars, and Duolingo publishes no rupee equivalent. Faster results purchases are not eligible for a refund.
• A bundle discounts a second attempt. Buying two tests at once is charged at a discounted price, and the faster results service attaches only to the first credit in the bundle (help centre, test bundles).
• Vouchers and coupons reduce the price. A voucher is a discount code applied at payment, obtainable from some institutions you are applying to or bought from approved third-party sites (help centre, vouchers versus counselor invites).
• Access Program fee waivers make it free. Duolingo states that an Access Program fee waiver lets the test taker take the test for free (help centre, Access Program). Duolingo issues those waivers only to institutions and non-profit groups supporting educational pathways for students, and says so in refusing them to recruitment agencies (help centre, who can receive fee waivers); a student who accepts one has 21 days to take the test (help centre, fee waivers).
• A counselor invite is not a discount. Duolingo says explicitly that a counselor invite provides no discount on the test (help centre).

Refunds are the hard edge. Duolingo's supplemental terms state that all payments are nonrefundable, with no refunds or credits for expired, unused or partially used purchases, and none where Duolingo invalidates a test for a rules violation (Duolingo English Test Terms of Service). The narrow exception is a failure in the test itself, and a claim has to be reported in writing quickly: the help centre asks you to contact support within 24 hours of the issue occurring (help centre, refund policy).

Before the exam

Admit card and exam day

Nothing is issued in advance, because there is nothing to be admitted to. The equivalent of an admit card is a hardware and environment check that has to pass before the first question appears.

The machine comes first. Duolingo states that the test runs on a laptop or desktop computer on Windows 10 or macOS 10.15 or later, and that it will not work on a Chromebook, iPad, tablet or cellular device, nor on ChromeOS or Linux (help centre, supported devices). The Technical Manual adds that the computer needs a front-facing camera, a microphone and speakers, that headphones and earbuds are not permitted, that the test must be taken through the DET desktop app, which blocks navigation away from the test along with spelling and grammar checkers and word completion, and that a connection of at least 2 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload is recommended (Technical Manual).

A phone is required too, but only as a second camera. Onboarding walks through identity verification, secondary camera setup, a room scan and an ear scan. The room scan asks you to stand, capture the screen and keyboard, turn slowly through a full 360 degree view of the room and then pass the phone over the area behind the monitor; an incomplete scan invalidates the result as a technical error (help centre, room scan). The ear scan exists to confirm no earbuds are in use, and Duolingo asks you to remove glasses and any clip-on or magnetic earrings before it, then put the glasses back on afterwards (help centre, ear scan). A test taker in a religious head covering goes through that scan as normal, with no need to show the ears. Duolingo's separate rule permits a head covering that covers the ears provided the eyes and mouth stay uncovered and visible, and rules out substituting an ordinary garment such as a sweatshirt for it (help centre, religious head coverings).

The published rules divide into three groups, and all three are enforceable (Test Policies, Rules, and Requirements):

• During the test: do not look away from the screen except when typing; do not memorise or read answers from other sources; do not take notes or record questions; do not type or speak until instructed; take the test alone in a room and do not interact with anyone; keep your head, shoulders, screen and keyboard in the phone camera frame; do not interfere with the phone recording.
• Computer setup: no virtual machine; disable predictive text, proofreading, typing suggestions and reference functions; close every other program, browsers, calling software, streaming software and remote desktop tools included; clear paper and notes from the space; use only one keyboard, mouse and phone; stay in frame with ears, eyes and mouth visible; remove extra screens and devices; remove headphones or earbuds.
• General: up to 3 tests in any 30 day period, a credit valid for 21 days, one account per test taker and no account sharing, and a valid ID (Test Policies, Rules, and Requirements).

One detail helps candidates who prefer to read the rules in an Indian language: the Technical Manual notes that the rules are displayed in the test taker's chosen interface language, and Hindi is among the languages Duolingo lists (Technical Manual). A session terminated automatically, whether by a technical error or by the mouse moving off-screen, can be attempted again for free, up to a total of three attempts, and Duolingo tells test takers hitting recurring technical errors to contact customer support for more (Technical Manual).

Structure

Exam pattern

The task set is the same for everyone; the quantity is not. Duolingo's own administration table gives the range for each task type and the time allowed per item.

Two of Duolingo's own documents disagree slightly on the interactive counts. The administration table above puts Interactive Reading and Interactive Listening at 2 to 3 sets each (Technical Manual). The help centre's Test Structure page instead describes 2 sets of Interactive Reading questions and 2 sets of Interactive Listening questions (Test Structure). Budget for the longer of the two.

Anyone working from a description written before mid-2025 is working from a retired format. Duolingo announced that beginning July 1, 2025 it added Interactive Speaking, a simulated conversation with an animated character in which you answer 6 to 8 questions with 35 seconds to record each response, chosen on the basis of your earlier answers; Interactive Speaking replaced Listen, Then Speak, and Read Aloud was removed to hold the test length steady (Test Update: New Interactive Speaking questions). The same date expanded Interactive Listening: each conversation now opens with a scenario and 3 to 4 fill-in-the-blank Listen and Complete questions, followed by 5 to 6 Listen and Respond questions under a single timer of 6 minutes and 30 seconds, and then a summarisation task with 75 seconds (Test Update: Expanded Interactive Listening question).

The writing and speaking samples at the end do two jobs at once. Duolingo lists the Writing Sample and Speaking Sample among the open response question types its grading engine evaluates (How the Items Are Scored); Table 1 of the Technical Manual assigns the Writing Sample to the writing construct and the Speaking Sample to the speaking construct, so each feeds the subscore of its own skill (Technical Manual); and both are then passed on in full to the institutions that receive your results (Test Structure).

What to study

Syllabus

There is no syllabus document to work through, because the test is not built around a prescribed body of content. The Technical Manual defines each skill as covering CEFR levels A1 to C2, so the reading tasks run from basic informational texts to advanced expository and persuasive ones, and the speaking and writing tasks from basic to advanced discourse (Technical Manual).

What is worth studying instead is how responses are judged. For the question types with correct answers, Duolingo says grading compares your response to the correct response and awards partial credit, so an incorrect answer is never penalised more heavily than leaving the question blank, and on Listen and Type a missing word costs more than a mistyped one. For open response tasks, the grading engine evaluates content, discourse coherence, vocabulary, grammar, and for speaking also fluency and pronunciation (How the Items Are Scored). One practical note on listening: Duolingo says the audio prompts use General American English and British English accents (help centre, accents).

How to prepare

Preparation and books

Duolingo publishes its own practice test and puts no limit on it. The help centre says the practice test is free once you create an account, can be taken as many times as you like, takes about 45 minutes, carries the same question types and the same adaptive behaviour as the certified test, and ends with an estimated score range (The Practice Test). The Technical Manual adds that the practice test draws from a separate item pool, so repeated sittings keep producing new questions (Technical Manual).

Two rules limit what else is safe to use. Memorising or copying answers from any other source is a test rule violation, and Duolingo asks for responses composed in the moment and in your own words even where you have practised similar prompts (help centre, memorised answers). Separately, Duolingo's terms prohibit using the test to collect information about its testing process or to develop test preparation material without written permission (Terms of Service), which is worth weighing before paying a site that advertises real recent questions.

Where it is held

Exam centres

There are none, and that is the design rather than an omission. The Technical Manual argues the point directly: at-home testing removes the need to travel to a physical test centre, which it describes as a socioeconomic and disability-related burden given that centres cluster in large urban areas (Technical Manual).

Your room becomes the centre, and it has requirements. Duolingo asks you to take the test alone in a quiet, well-lit room, to remove every external device and material except the phone recording your computer, to disable notifications, pop-ups and add-ons, and to keep your whole face visible with your eyes on the screen while speaking (help centre, securing your test environment). Its advice for a noisy neighbourhood is to take the test late at night or early in the morning, with the doors and windows closed and everyone around you told not to come in (help centre, a private and quiet environment).

After the exam

Answer key

A candidate looking for the provisional key and the objection window has nothing to lodge an objection against, and the appeal route is not a quieter version of one. Duolingo restricts appeals to results it has declared invalid and says so flatly: a valid result may not be appealed (help centre, appeals). Scoring is not reopened on request, whatever the number turns out to be.

There is no paper to reopen either. Items are drawn adaptively from a pool large enough that the Technical Manual says repeat test takers are prevented from seeing the same item within a certain period (Technical Manual), and Duolingo's terms prohibit downloading, copying, distributing or offering for sale any information obtained from the test (Terms of Service), which closes off a key circulated by candidates as firmly as one published by Duolingo.

What Duolingo does release is its own account of the grading, question type by question type, down to the aspects the engine weighs on an open response (How the Items Are Scored). Read as a marking scheme rather than as a key, it answers the question a key would have.

Scores

Result and scorecard

Every session is reviewed before a score exists. The Technical Manual says all sessions are proctored after administration and before score reporting, that each is reviewed independently by at least one trained human proctor with AI assistance, that difficult sessions escalate to a senior proctor or operations manager, and that the process takes no more than 48 hours after upload (Technical Manual). Proctors, not the AI, make the final certification decision. Paying for a test does not guarantee a certified result, and one credit yields at most one certified result (help centre, test credits).

The certificate carries more than one number. Duolingo reports an overall score plus eight subscores, all on the 10 to 160 scale: the individual Speaking, Writing, Reading and Listening subscores, and the integrated Literacy, Conversation, Comprehension and Production subscores, each of which is the average of the two individual subscores that compose it (Technical Manual). The overall score is the average of the four individual subscores, rounded to the nearest 5 (Subscore Update).

Sending scores is your job and only yours. From the certified result you select institutions in your account, up to 40 at a time, adding more later if you need them, and Duolingo asks you to confirm you are genuinely applying to each one (help centre, sending results). Duolingo also states that sending a result to an institution is not enough on its own to be considered for admission, and that you must officially apply as well. Results are valid for two years, after which the certificate is marked expired and can no longer be shared (Terms of Service).

Results can also be taken away. Duolingo describes three categories of broken rule: a Rule Violation, where the environment may not have been secure and a retake is possible on a remaining attempt but no appeal is allowed; Possible Misconduct, where the credit expires but the result may be appealed; and Evident Misconduct, which permanently blocks the account, with an appeal still available (help centre, consequences). A pattern of violations across multiple tests in 365 days can suspend an account for a year. Certification can even be reversed after a result has been sent, in which case Duolingo informs the institutions that received it (help centre, decertification).

Scores you need

Cutoff

A cutoff has to belong to somebody, and Duolingo's terms take some trouble to say it is not them. They disclaim, in capitals, any liability for the actions or decisions of a third party, admissions, employment, immigration and visa decisions included, even where those decisions are based on the test (Terms of Service). The required score is the institution's, and so is responsibility for it.

What Duolingo does publish is the distribution a score sits in. For tests taken worldwide between July 1, 2025 and June 30, 2026, the overall score mean was 109.79 and the median 110, with the 25th percentile at 95 and the 75th at 125 (Technical Manual). Those are descriptive figures for the global test-taking population, not a standard anyone has to clear, and they say nothing about what a particular programme will ask for. The binding number is on the admissions page of the institution you are applying to.

Getting a seat

Counselling and seat allotment

The only moment this test touches an admission process is the moment you press Send, and you press it yourself. No authority pools results and none allots against them: Duolingo's part ends with a certified result sitting in your account, and the institutions that ever see it are the ones you pick out of the search box (help centre, sending results).

The one Duolingo mechanism that involves an agent is worth reading closely before you use it. Applying a counselor invite code to your account means all of your test results are automatically shared with that counsellor (help centre, counselor invites and data), and the sharing is not selective, so a low score from an earlier attempt travels with the good one. The invite carries no discount, and it does not hand the work over either: Duolingo states that a counsellor cannot share your score with schools on your behalf, and that you must send results through the test's own site (help centre).

Where it is accepted

Participating institutes

There is no Indian list to work from, because Duolingo publishes adoption as one worldwide figure and stops there: over 6,000 academic programs in more than 100 countries (Technical Manual). How many of those sit in India, it does not say.

Acceptance is therefore settled one institution at a time, inside your own account, where you search for each institution by name before sending. Duolingo's instruction for one that does not come up in that search is to approach the institution directly and ask, since an institution that wants to start accepting the test can open an account of its own (help centre, sending results). Where it does accept, nothing caps how many institutions a certified result may reach: the Technical Manual states that test takers can share their scores with an unlimited number of them (Technical Manual).

Get help

Contact

Test takers reach Duolingo through the account itself. The help centre says live chat is available by logging in and clicking the HELP button, running from 00:00 UTC on Monday until 00:00 UTC on Saturday, and that email sent to englishtest@duolingo.com is answered at any hour, seven days a week (Duolingo English Test support article).

Three requests go through their own channels. A disability accommodation is requested on a single online form in your account, with supporting documentation attached if you have it, and Duolingo says a supervisor replies within three business days (help centre, accommodations); the published options include 50% extra time per question, accessibility devices, hearing aids, headphones, a listening device and a screen magnifier or reader (Technical Manual). Parental permission for a test taker under 13 is given by a parent or guardian emailing englishtest-support@duolingo.com with the student's full name and account email. And suspected wrongdoing or test integrity concerns can be reported confidentially through Duolingo's whistleblower page (help centre, reporting wrongdoing).

Source

Official links

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Disclaimer

Disclaimer

Fees, score validity (2 years), rules/anti-cheating setup, and university-specific cutoffs are per-cycle/per-institution; test rules have been updated over time. Anything per-cycle here is stated for the cycle it names and is taken from the conducting body's own notification; confirm it on the official website before acting on it. Expertie does not conduct any exam, process applications or charge fees.

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