What happens if you fail the citizenship test?

• Follow what Home Affairs tells you. The information you receive at or after your appointment is the reliable source for your next steps.
• Contact Home Affairs if you are unsure. Don’t rely on forums or third-party sites for rules about re-sitting, including this one. We don’t publish a number of attempts because we could not confirm it on the official test pages.
• Start preparing again straight away, while you remember which questions felt hard.

There are only two ways to fail, and they are worth separating:

The values rule is the one that catches people off guard: 19 out of 20 is still a fail if the wrong answer was a values question. See worked examples of the pass mark.

Think back over the test, then check it with practice:

1. Take a mock test. It reports your overall mark and your values mark separately, plus a breakdown by topic.
2. If your values mark is below 5/5, that is your first priority.
3. If your overall mark is low, look at the topic breakdown to see which part of Our Common Bond to re-read.

1. Re-read the part you struggled with in Our Common Bond, using the study hub.
2. Drill that topic with topic practice until you score consistently well.
3. Master values: read the Australian values hub and practise until you get every values question right.
4. Clear your mistakes on the review page.
5. Finish with timed mock tests until you pass several in a row with 5/5 on values.

For a fuller plan, see how to prepare for the citizenship test.