How to write your language level on a CV with the CEFR

Start with one line per language

Take each language you plan to list and put three things on a single line: the language, the CEFR level, and the evidence for that level. Evidence is either a test result with its month and year, or the words 'self-assessed' if you placed yourself on the CEFR grid. Your first language needs no evidence at all.

• English: C1 (TOEFL iBT 5.0, May 2026)
• English: B2 (Cambridge B2 First, grade B, 2025)
• German: B1, self-assessed against the CEFR grid
• Spanish: B2 reading, B1 speaking (self-assessed)
• Turkish: native

Why the evidence sits on the same line

A level by itself is a claim the reader cannot check. A test name and a date can be checked, and they show the claim is recent. If the job or programme names a test, the reader will look for that test first, so put its name where the eye lands: next to the language.

The six CEFR levels in plain words

Europass, the EU's CV and skills service, publishes the CEFR self-assessment grid in every EU language and in Turkish. The levels run A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2. The table paraphrases what the grid says a person can do in conversation and in writing at each one.

A level belongs to a skill, not to a person

The grid rates five skills separately: listening, reading, spoken interaction, spoken production and writing. Reading at C1 while speaking at B2 is common for people who learned a language from documents. If two of your skills are a full level apart, name both instead of averaging them into one letter.

What B2 says to an employer

B2 is the fourth of six levels. In the grid's terms it means you can hold your own in a discussion on familiar ground and write a report that argues a point. It is not the everyday sense of 'intermediate', which many people use for B1 or lower.

How to place yourself on the grid without a test

1. Open the Europass self-assessment grid in a language you read well.
2. For each of the five skills, find the highest row you can say 'I can' to on an ordinary day, not your best one.
3. Try the claim on a real task: a two-page work document, a 200-word email, a 20-minute call.
4. Write the result with 'self-assessed' after it. If two skills differ, name both.
5. If a posting names a test, book it. A self-assessment does not replace a score the employer asked for.

Self-assessed or certified

Both are honest if labelled. A certified level is stronger evidence; a self-assessed level is fine for a language that is not central to the job. What hurts is a level with no label at all, because the reader cannot tell which one it is.

Test score to CEFR level: the test owners' own tables

Every row below comes from the organisation that runs the test, read on 12 October 2026. Charts on third-party sites disagree with each other; these are the published positions of ETS, IELTS, Cambridge English and ÖSYM.

TOEFL iBT: the 1 to 6 scale and section scores

ETS moved TOEFL iBT to a 1 to 6 scale in half-band steps from 21 January 2026. Each section score maps to a CEFR level on its own: a 5 in any section aligns with C1 for that skill. The total is the average of the four sections, rounded to the nearest half band, so write the total and add a section only if it is a whole level lower.

An older TOEFL score on the 0 to 120 scale

ETS publishes a second table linking each 1 to 6 band to an estimated 0 to 120 total. Read together with the CEFR table, it gives this conversion. ETS says the estimated totals are sums of section scores and can come from different combinations, so treat it as a guide.

Cambridge: the exam name is not the result

Cambridge's results table shows why you should copy the level from your Statement of Results and not from the exam's name. B2 First reports C1 for a score of 180 to 190 (grade A) and B1 for 140 to 159. A score of 122 to 139 on B2 First is reported but earns no certificate.

IELTS: a threshold, not a band for each level

IELTS says its bands have never lined up exactly with the CEFR, because IELTS is older than the framework, and that the CEFR was not designed for precise equating. Its research puts the C1 threshold between 6.5 and 7. On a CV, write the band itself: 'English: IELTS Academic 6.5 (2026)' is accurate, while adding 'C1' to a 6.5 overstates what IELTS says.

Sources for each row and the date they were read

Turkish national exams: YDS and YÖKDİL

ÖSYM publishes CEFR levels for e-TEP, its electronic English test, but its equivalence page gives no CEFR level for a YDS or YÖKDİL score. Its document of 11 March 2025 works the other way, converting foreign certificates into YDS points: Cambridge C1 Advanced grade A counts as 80, for example. Write a YDS result as a score, such as 'YDS 82 (2025)', and leave the letter out.

Tests that are not in the table

German, French and Spanish certificates usually carry a level in their name (ÖSYM's document lists DELF B2, DALF C1 and DELE Nivel C1, for instance). Because Cambridge shows that a named exam can report a different level, copy the level printed on your result. Score tables are revised from time to time; check the linked page before you quote a number.

Native, fluent, business level: what the words leave out

The word 'fluent' appears in three different rows of the Europass grid: B2 speaks of a degree of fluency, C1 of speaking fluently and spontaneously, C2 of expressing yourself fluently with finer shades of meaning. A reader who sees 'fluent' therefore learns a range, not a level. 'Business level' and 'working proficiency' appear in none of the tables above as a defined level.

Should a native speaker write C2

Our view, not a rule from the framework: write 'native' for a first language. The grid describes what you can do, not where you grew up, so C2 is not wrong, but a reader seeing C2 will expect a test behind it.

Where a CEFR level is not enough

• An employer or university sets its own minimum and may name one test and score. IELTS itself suggests an institution wanting confidence in C1 may ask for 7 rather than 6.5.
• Visa and immigration routes keep their own lists of accepted tests; the visa CV guide covers what each checklist asks for.
• Results age. For YDS equivalence, ÖSYM accepts a foreign certificate with no validity date on it for five years from the test date; other bodies set their own periods.
• A self-assessed level will be checked in the interview. Claim only what you could show on a call that day.
• For Germany, which language to write the CV in is its own decision, covered on the German language-choice page.

Next steps

If you are filling in a Europass CV, its language section uses the same grid; the Europass guide walks through it. For the rest of your skills section, the skills guide shows how to back each skill with evidence.

CitedCV writes CVs in English, Turkish and German from the facts you give it. A language line keeps your CEFR letter unchanged in every output language and translates a word level such as 'native' into the CV's language ('ana dil' in Turkish, 'Muttersprache' in German). Its free ATS checker also points out a skills section drawn as bars with no level in words, since a parser cannot read a bar.

Questions people ask

Sources

1. ETS, Compare TOEFL iBT scores (1 to 6 scale, CEFR and 0 to 120)www.ets.org/toefl/score-users/ibt/compare-scores.html
2. IELTS, IELTS and the CEFRielts.org/organisations/ielts-for-organisations/compare-ielts/ielts-and-the-cefr
3. Cambridge English, Results for Cambridge English Qualificationswww.cambridgeenglish.org/exams-and-tests/qualifications/results/
4. ÖSYM, e-TEP and YDS equivalence framework (21 August 2025)dokuman.osym.gov.tr/pdfdokuman/2025/e-TEP/esdegerlik_21082025.pdf
5. ÖSYM, International foreign language exam equivalences (11 March 2025)dokuman.osym.gov.tr/pdfdokuman/2025/GENEL/esdegerlikdokuman_14032025.pdf
6. Europass, Common European Framework of Reference for language skillseuropass.europa.eu/en/common-european-framework-reference-language-skills