English Certificates That Expire, and One That Does Not

Everybody asks what score they need. Almost nobody asks how long the score lasts, and the answer is not the same from one reader to the next.

Two years is the common answer. It is not the only one, and the date it counts to moves.

SpeakShark is free for the skill that fades fastest between certificates, three AI conversation sessions a day with no card.

In this guide: the comparison · which date · permanent · superseded tests · why · planning · limits · method · FAQ

Key takeaways

• UK immigration: two years, measured to the application date.
• GMC: two years, measured to PLAB part 1 or to approval, not submission.
• Irish nursing: two years, measured to the application submission date.
• Oxford Test of English: valid for life.
• A replaced test can stay valid, as LanguageCert's did for two years.
• Only the GDC publishes why two years, and an exception to it.

What different bodies actually say

Four of those six are two years. The other two are forever. That is a large enough gap that it should influence which exam you sit, and almost nobody treats it as a selection criterion.

The four that agree on the number do not agree on much else, because each measures it to a different event, and only one of them says where the number came from.

The date it counts to is not fixed

This is the part that costs people applications, and it is invisible if you only compare the number of years.

The Home Office requires the result to have been awarded in the two years before the date of your application. You control that date. You submit when your certificate is fresh, and the question is settled.

The General Medical Council is different. An IELTS certificate must be valid on the day you sit PLAB part 1 if you are taking PLAB, or valid when the GMC approves your application if you are applying for registration with a licence to practise.

Read that second one again. Approval is not submission. A doctor can submit with fourteen months left on a certificate and have it expire while the file is being processed, and there is nothing they can do from their side to make the approval come sooner. We covered the rest of that regulator's rules in the GMC requirement for doctors, including the harsher one about only your most recent sitting counting.

Ireland's nursing board measures to the application submission date on its paper route, and states that applications submitted online after 28 September 2020 are handled differently. That is covered in Irish nursing English.

Three bodies, three anchors: submission, approval, and the day you sit a separate clinical exam.

The certificates that do not expire

The Oxford Test of English publishes plainly that results are valid for life. It is modular, so speaking can be sat on its own, and it is adaptive and marked by people, with the whole thing taking two hours.

That is not the only permanent design. Spain defines its state language school certificates through an equivalence table written into law, so a certificate issued under a 1988 study plan still has a defined current value rather than lapsing. We worked through that table in what the old Avanzado certificate is worth today. France's DCL state diploma also never expires, covered in the DCL, and so does the CLES university certification in CLES.

Notice the pattern in who chooses permanence. The permanent certificates are educational awards: a state saying you reached a level, a university certifying a graduate. The two year certificates are gatekeeping instruments: an immigration service or a professional regulator deciding whether to let you do something next month.

What happens when a test is replaced

Exams get retired, and the certificates in circulation do not vanish with them.

On 6 July 2025 the LanguageCert ESOL SELT 4-skills test was replaced by LanguageCert Academic SELT and LanguageCert General SELT. The Home Office states that anyone already holding an ESOL SELT 4-skills result keeps it valid for two years.

So two generations of LanguageCert certificate are acceptable at the same time, on different scales: the old one graded out of 50 per component and the new ones out of 100. We set that out in LanguageCert Academic against General SELT.

The lesson generalises. When a provider announces a new product, the question to ask is not whether your certificate is obsolete but whether the body reading it has published a transition window.

Why expiry exists at all

One regulator does explain it. The General Dental Council's guidance states that by recent it means evidence less than two years old at the point of submitting the application, and that two years is considered the accepted period for an individual to remain proficient in English if the language is used regularly.

The condition at the end is the interesting half. The claim is not that English decays on a two year timer. It is that a demonstration of competence stays informative for about two years of regular use, which says nothing about somebody who stopped using the language the week after the exam. We work through that sentence and the exception it leads to in why English certificates last two years.

Everything below this line is our own reading rather than any body's stated policy, since no other source we read gives a reason.

Language ability is not a permanent property. A nurse who scored 7.0 in speaking four years ago and has not used English since is not the same candidate as one who scored 7.0 last month. A body deciding whether somebody can safely work next month has a real interest in recent evidence.

An educational award is answering a different question. It records that on a particular day, assessed against a published standard, a person demonstrated a level. That is a historical fact, and historical facts do not decay.

Both designs are coherent. What is not coherent is a candidate assuming one body's rule applies at another, which is the same trap we found on at-home test versions, where the GMC accepts OET@Home and CGFNS refuses at-home versions outright.

What this changes about planning

• Ask what date the reader measures to, not just how many years.
• If it is approval rather than submission, build in months of margin.
• If you may need the certificate more than once, check the second reader's window before booking.
• Check for transition windows when a test is replaced rather than assuming your result died.
• A permanent certificate is worth something if your timeline is uncertain.

The practical consequence of a two year window is that speaking has to be rebuilt rather than remembered, because it is the skill that fades fastest when unused. Role play scenarios and a daily speaking partner keep it live between certificates, and testing your speaking level free tells you whether the gap has opened.

For the underlying score requirements, IELTS for UKVI by CEFR level gives the band table and the UK routes that only test speaking and listening sets out which applications need two skills. For other regulators, CELBAN speaking and MET for US nurse licensure show two more designs. CEFR levels for speaking explains the scale most of these report against, and Cambridge speaking criteria by level shows how examiners mark it.

What we could not verify

We did not check every body's rule. This compares six readers we have read directly. Others will differ again.

We did not verify the Oxford Test of English claim against a recognising institution. The provider states results are valid for life; whether a given university or employer accepts an old one is that institution's decision.

We did not read the Irish online route timing in detail, only that NMBI says it differs from the paper route after 28 September 2020.

Only one body gives a reason. The GDC states two years is the accepted period to remain proficient with regular use, and does not say accepted by whom or cite the research. Our own reasoning beyond that sentence is inference, marked as such.

One body publishes an exception. The GDC may accept scores over two years old where non-deterioration can be evidenced. We have not found an equivalent at the other bodies here, which is not proof that no discretion exists.

Rules change. Every date and window here should be checked on the day it matters.

This is not immigration, registration or admissions advice. It is a comparison of published rules, all linked below.

How we researched this guide

Every figure here was read from a primary source in earlier work in this series, and this guide is the comparison rather than new fieldwork.

The comparison is the point. Read any one of these rules on its own and "two years" looks like a universal convention. Put four of them side by side and the number turns out to be the least interesting part, because the anchor date moves: submission for one body, approval for another, and a separate clinical exam day for a third.

The permanence column came from noticing an absence rather than a statement. Nothing on the Oxford Test of English page discusses expiry, which is easy to read as an omission. It says results are valid for life, which is a different thing entirely and worth checking for on every provider page.

We have marked the reasoning section as our own inference rather than dressing it as policy, because none of these bodies publishes why it chose the window it chose.

Practise speaking, from SpeakShark

SpeakShark is an AI English speaking practice app, and a two year window is the argument for using something regularly rather than intensively.

A certificate expiring is not really the problem. The problem is that the ability behind it drifts, and speaking drifts fastest because it is the skill you cannot maintain by reading.

You talk, the AI answers what you actually said, and you get speaking feedback while the conversation is still running. The free tier gives basic feedback; the detailed pronunciation and grammar breakdown is on Premium.

Being straight about the limits: a free session runs five minutes with four turns, and we issue no certificates. Nothing here extends anybody's validity window.

Start free with three sessions a day and no card. Paid sessions run ten minutes with unlimited turns. Limits are on the pricing page, and how it works walks through a session. Sign up here if you would rather not start from scratch next time.

We are a speaking improvement tool. We are not an exam preparation provider, and we are not affiliated with Cambridge English, the IELTS partners, Pearson or any exam board. For test format, booking and official practice material, go to the exam body directly. Use SpeakShark to make your spoken English stronger, and use official material to learn the test.

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Sources

• GOV.UK, prove your English language abilities with a secure English language test: the two year window measured to the application date, the approved list and approved location conditions, and the 6 July 2025 LanguageCert replacement with its two year transition
• General Medical Council, using your IELTS certificate: the two year validity and the requirement that the certificate be valid on PLAB part 1 day or when the GMC approves the application
• NMBI, English language requirements for applicants qualified outside the EU: the two year window measured to the application submission date on the paper route and the 28 September 2020 online route date
• Oxford Test of English: the statement that results are valid for life, the modular structure and the two hour length
• GDC, guidance on English language controls: the definition of recent as less than two years old at the point of submission, the statement that two years is considered the accepted period for an individual to remain proficient in English if the language is used regularly, and the provision allowing older scores where non-deterioration can be evidenced
• Boletín Oficial del Estado, Real Decreto 1041/2017: the Spanish equivalence table that gives older certificates a defined current value rather than an expiry

FAQ