Which Citizenship Test Is the Hardest? All 15 Official Tests Ranked

Short answer: judged by the official rules rather than by reputation, the hardest citizenship tests are Denmark’s Indfødsretsprøven (45 questions, 80% to pass, 4 of 5 values questions required, current-affairs questions that cannot be learned from a book, in Danish) and France’s new examen civique (40 questions, 80% to pass, a five-theme syllabus, in French). The easiest, by the same measures, is Germany’s Einbürgerungstest: 17 of 33 to pass, every possible question published, and official pass rates above 90%. The US civics test has a low pass mark but is oral, which many applicants find harder than multiple choice.

How we ranked them

“Hardest” is often used to mean “hardest country to get citizenship in”, which is about residence years and paperwork, not the test. This ranking looks only at the knowledge test itself, using five published factors:

1. Pass mark as a percentage.
2. Whether the exact questions are published. A public question bank (Germany, Spain, the United States) makes a test far easier to prepare for than a handbook alone (UK, Canada, Australia).
3. Extra conditions, such as values questions that must be answered correctly (Australia, Denmark) or scoring by area (Austria).
4. Format: oral recall (United States) is harder than multiple choice; unpredictable content (Denmark’s current-affairs questions) is harder than a fixed syllabus.
5. Language: a test in the national language, on top of a separate language exam, raises the bar for most applicants.

Ranking: hardest to easiest

Why Denmark and France come first

Both require 80%, which leaves room for only 9 wrong answers in Denmark and 8 in France. Denmark adds five current-affairs questions on events of the previous months, so no study guide can cover them, and four of its five values questions must be right. France’s exam is new (from 1 January 2026), covers five themes from the Republic’s values to everyday administration, and includes 12 scenario questions that test judgement rather than recall. Both are in the national language.

Why the US test is harder than its pass mark suggests

Twelve correct out of twenty, from a published list of 128, looks easy, and most applicants do pass. But the questions are asked out loud by an officer, you must produce the answer without options to choose from, several answers change with elections, and the civics test sits inside a longer interview that also tests English speaking, reading and writing. Applicants who only recognise answers on a screen often stumble when asked to say them.

Why Germany comes last

Every one of the 310 possible questions is published by BAMF with its answer, only 17 of 33 need to be correct, and there is an hour to do it. The difficulty for most people is not the test but the B1 German requirement that goes with it.

What this means for your preparation

• For high-pass-mark tests (Denmark, France, Mexico), aim for 90% or more in mock exams before booking.
• For handbook-only tests (UK, Canada, Australia), read the whole handbook; our practice questions cover the facts the real test draws on, but any sentence in the book is fair game.
• For public-bank tests (US, Germany, Spain), work through the entire official list, then use our practice modes to find the questions you still miss.
• For the US, practise answering out loud.

See the full figures in our pass marks comparison and the side-by-side table of all 15 official tests.

Official sources

Figures are taken from each country’s official source, linked on its country page: USCIS, GOV.UK, IRCC, the Australian Department of Home Affairs, BAMF, Service-Public.fr, the Instituto Cervantes, DUO, danskogproever.dk, UDI, the Estonian Police and Border Guard Board, the Czech Ministry of the Interior, the Cyprus Ministry of Education, staatsbuergerschaft.gv.at and the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Pass rates for Germany are from BAMF’s published statistics.