Certification of Competence in Italian

The CILS exam is divided into six main levels in accordance with the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR):

• A1 – Basic Italian: very simple words and phrases
• A2 – Elementary Italian: everyday situations
• B1 – Intermediate Italian: work, study, travel
• B2 – Upper-intermediate: academic and professional use
• C1 – Advanced: complex texts and fluent expression
• C2 – Mastery: near-native proficiency

The CEFR self-assessment grid defines the proficiency required for each level across all four (4) language competencies – speaking, listening, reading and writing.

For more information about CEFR, please visit CEFR – Council of Europe for further details.

For adults, children (8-11years) and adolescents (12-16 years) who need to provide a certificate for:

• official proof of Italian proficiency abroad
• applying for Italian residency (A2)
• applying for Italian citizenship (B1 Citizenship)
• students wanting to study in an Italian University (B2)
• Italian, non-Italian and foreign teachers working in Italy (C1-C2)

For more information, please visit CILS exams – Università per Stranieri di Siena for further detail and resources – including practice exams.

We recommend you complete a CILS practice exam to self-assess your Italian proficiency in all four (4) language competencies outlined in the CEFR self-assessment grid. 

You can download the available CILS practice exams from Università per Stranieri di Siena.

For those candidates who are repeating components of the CILS exam and therefore do not need to sit the full exam, a separate fee will be calculated on a case-by-case basis.

Students withdrawing from the examination or postponing the exam to a later date may incur additional financial penalties issued by the Università per Stranieri di Siena.

As requested by Università per Stranieri di Siena, copies of student exams are sent to Italy, which can take approximately 1 – 2 months.

Once the exams arrive, the Università per Stranieri di Siena is responsible for marking and evaluating exams. This can take approximately 3 – 4 months, as there are hundreds of exams from all over the world to process.

Once the exam marking process is completed for all exams, the Università per Stranieri di Siena will disclose the results to ILC for our registered students. Once received, we will get in contact with each student to advise their result and further instructions.

Students must use the unique identification # (received on exam day) to access the CILS portal, where they can retrieve a digital copy of their certificate or request a physical copy to be posted by the Università per Stranieri di Siena.