What are the GCSE grade boundaries for 2025?

This article was published in April 2025.

This year's GCSE results day was on Thursday 21 August 2025, and if you're a student in England, Northern Ireland and Wales, then you'll have now received your grades. But you may be wondering how exam boards decide which marks you need to achieve each grade? This is known as grade boundaries, let us explain.

Grade boundaries are the minimum mark or score you need to achieve each GCSE grade. They are set once marking is nearly complete after students have taken the exam. Grade boundaries usually change each year to ensure fairness and consistency in the marking process, reflecting any differences in difficulty. To put it simply; the harder the paper, the lower the grade boundary. This means your grade shouldn't be worth any more or less than the same grade in previous years.

GCSEs are graded differently in England, Northern Ireland and Wales. Scotland has a different qualification system, known as SQAs – you can read our guide to SQA grade boundaries here.

GCSEs in England

All GCSE subjects in England have been graded 1-9 since 2020, replacing the old A-G system, with 9 being the highest grade and 1 being the lowest, U means "ungraded".

Pupils need to achieve a 4 for a "standard pass" and 5 or above for a "strong pass". Grades 1-3 also count as a pass, but many colleges and sixth forms ask for a minimum of five GCSEs at grades 9 to 4, and some require you get at least a grade 6 or 7 in the subject you wish to study. Requirements will vary across schools and colleges, so it's always best to check and make sure. You will have to resit next year if you get a grade 3 or below in maths or English language.

GCSEs in Northern Ireland

In Northern Ireland, grades are A* to G, with a new C* grade being introduced in 2019. However, some students may take exams set by English boards, in which case they will also get results with grades 9-1. A guide to grading in Northern Ireland can be found here.

GCSEs in Wales

Welsh GCSEs are graded A* to G. Some GCSEs are modular, which means you have assessments throughout the year, whilst other GCSEs are linear, which means you take all exams at the end of the course.

Grade boundaries are set using a process that is standardised across all exam boards. A group of senior examiners set the boundaries based on the difficulty of the paper, the performance of the students, and the quality of their answers, amongst other things.

Grade boundaries are set once students have taken their exams and their papers are marked. Grade boundaries for 2025 have now been released, you can find out more information from each exam board about their grade boundaries here. But regardless of what the boundaries are, it's important to perform to the best of your ability in your assessments. You can't change grade boundaries, but you have the potential to improve your grade by studying, revising, and putting some of our exam essentials into practise.

Boundaries usually change each year, but the process is in place to ensure fairness for all students across different year groups, providing a consistent way to measure your achievements so that grades accurately reflect your knowledge, regardless of what year group you were in.

Students won't see how far off the next grade they were on results slips, but they will see marks for individual exam papers as well as their grades – here is a sample results slip.

Grade boundaries are published on the exam board website on results day, so students can see how close their mark is to the next grade boundary.

Rounding up marks is not common but, in some qualification components, exam boards scale marks to make sure that weighting is correct. In these cases, marks are rounded to the nearest whole number – so it could be rounded up or down.

GCSE Modern Foreign Languages are an example in which each component – listening, reading, speaking and writing - have an equal weighting, but the maximum marks are not the same. For the foundation tier, the listening component has a maximum of 40 marks, while the reading component is 60 marks. In this case, exam boards multiply the listening component by 1.5 to make sure that each component has the same weight.

So for example, if a candidate got a score of 119.5 then this would be rounded to a mark of 120. If a candidate got a score of 119.1 then this would be rounded to 119.

If the grade 8 boundary was at a mark of 120 (for example), then the first candidate would achieve a grade 8 but the second one would achieve a grade 7.

Grade boundaries can vary depending on exam board and subject. For information on each exam board click the links below.

• AQA grade boundaries
• Edexcel grade boundaries
• OCR grade boundaries
• Cambridge International grade boundaries
• CCEA grade boundaries
• WJEC grade boundaries

Here is a list of GCSE exam dates for 2025.

If you need support

You should always tell someone about the things you’re worried about. You can tell a friend, parent, guardian, teacher, or another trusted adult. If you're struggling with your mental health, going to your GP can be a good place to start to find help. Your GP can let you know what support is available to you, suggest different types of treatment and offer regular check-ups to see how you’re doing.

If you’re in need of in-the-moment support you can contact Childline, where you can speak to a counsellor. Their lines are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

There are more links to helpful organisations on the BBC Bitesize Action Line page for young people.