Most people who sit the Sproochentest pass it. Between December 2008 and July 2022, 21,437 candidates sat Luxembourg's citizenship language exam and 14,725 passed: 69 percent of those who sat. The figure comes from the statistics report that the Institut national des langues Luxembourg (INLL), the institute that runs the exam, published in December 2022.
Before this table, the number in circulation was a rounded press estimate with no methodology or date range attached. This page gives you the institute's own table, the year-by-year trend, and what the numbers include, so you know exactly what you are walking into.
Official INLL figures: 21,437 people sat the Sproochentest between December 2008 and July 2022, and 14,725 passed. That is 69 percent of those who sat.
The headline numbers
The source is a statistics report the institute published in December 2022, under its older short name INL. Page 23 carries a table with the exam's full official title, "Examen d'évaluation de la langue luxembourgeoise pour l'acquisition de la nationalité luxembourgeoise « Sproochentest »". These are the headline figures.
| Dec 2008 to Jul 2022 | 2021/22 | |
|---|---|---|
| Registered | 22,545 | 3,295 |
| Sat the exam | 21,437 | 3,096 |
| Passed | 14,725 | 2,068 |
| Pass rate, of those who sat | 69 percent | 67 percent |
| Source: INL statistics report, December 2022, p. 23. |
There are two honest readings of the INLL's published table, so be precise when you quote it. Measured against everyone who sat, the pass rate is 69 percent. Measured against everyone who registered, it drops to 65 percent, because a slice of registrations never became a sitting at all. More on that gap below.
The 2021/22 column also gives you a sense of scale. In the most recent year the INL statistics report covers, September 2021 to July 2022, 3,096 people sat the exam and 2,068 passed: 67 percent of those who sat. Around three thousand sittings in a single exam year. You are not taking an obscure test; you are joining a long, well-documented queue.
The trend, year by year
The report breaks the rate down by exam year. Every rate below is measured against those who sat.
| Period | Pass rate of those who sat |
|---|---|
| Dec 2008 to Apr 2017 | 68 percent |
| May to Jul 2017 (transitional, article 15) | 81 percent |
| 2017/18 | 74 percent |
| 2018/19 | 72 percent |
| 2019/20 | 71 percent |
| 2020/21 | 63 percent |
| 2021/22 | 67 percent |
| Source: INL statistics report, December 2022, p. 23. |
Read as a curve, it is steadier than most people expect. Set aside the short transitional round in mid-2017, which the INL's 2022 report labels article 15, and the rate has stayed inside a band from 63 to 74 percent across fourteen years of sessions. The low point is 2020/21, at 63 percent of those who sat; the next year it recovered to 67. The table offers no explanation for the dip, so we will not invent one.
What the band tells you is more useful than any single year. The rate is not quietly sliding downward, and it is not creeping up toward a formality either. Year after year, about two candidates in three of those who sit walk out with a pass, and roughly one in three does not. Your preparation decides which group you join, not the year you happen to sit.
What the 69 percent includes
Numbers travel further than their footnotes. Here is what this one carries with it.
It counts sittings, not people. The table adds up every session since December 2008, so candidates who came back for another attempt are in the numbers once per sitting. The report gives no first-attempt split. That means no honest first-try pass rate can come out of these numbers, and a page quoting one is quoting something the report does not contain.
The denominator is people who sat. The INL statistics report's percentage is calculated against candidates present on the day, not against registrations. Say "69 percent of those who sat" and you are carrying the table's own denominator with you.
It replaces a weaker number. For years the figure in circulation was about 70 percent, a press-reported estimate from outlets like Delano and Paperjam. The official table lands right next to it, at 69 percent of those who sat. The difference is not the value. It is that one number now has a source, a denominator, and a date range attached, and the other never did.
About one in twenty never sit
The quiet detail in the table: 22,545 people registered and 21,437 sat, which leaves 1,108 registrations, about 5 percent, that never turned into a sitting. The table does not say why.
The practical lesson does not depend on the reason. The registration fee is 75 euros per attempt, and paying it is not the same as being ready. If you register, plan the weeks between the payment and the exam day with the same care you gave the paperwork. That gap in the table is where more than a thousand plans quietly ended.
What it means for your preparation
A pass rate of 69 percent of those who sat, per the INLL's published totals, means the typical candidate who sits walks out with a pass. It also means roughly three sittings in ten ended without one, so walking in cold is a real way to spend another 75 euros.
The structure of the exam is on your side. You pass outright with at least 50 percent on the speaking test, and a weaker speaking score still passes when your speaking and listening average reaches 50 percent. How that arithmetic works, and why speaking is the section to train first, is broken down in how the Sproochentest is scored.
What separates the passes from the rest is rarely grammar. It is freezing: reaching for the true, detailed answer instead of the simple one you already have the words for. The patterns are covered in why people fail the Sproochentest, and the honest difficulty picture lives in is the Sproochentest hard. And if a first attempt did not go your way, the table above is your evidence that coming back is normal. Repeat sittings are inside these numbers, and the retake path is simple.
Do this next
Seats go early, so check the current dates and the next registration window before you plan anything else. Then find out which side of the table you would be on today, while it costs nothing: a free mock exam will show you where your speaking stands.