10 min read

The UK Visa Test You Can Book Depends on Where You Are

Two Home Office lists, two provider sets. Trinity can only be sat inside the UK and PSI only outside it, and the wrong choice buys a useless certificate.

The Home Office publishes its approved English tests as two spreadsheets. They look interchangeable. They have the same number of rows, the same columns and mostly the same numbers.

They are not interchangeable. Two of the five providers only appear on one list each, and which one you may use depends on which side of the border you are standing on.

SpeakShark is free wherever you are sitting, three AI conversation sessions a day with no card.

In this guide: two lists · who is where · PSI · Trinity · what stays the same · planning · limits · method · FAQ

Key takeaways

  • The Home Office maintains two approved test lists, in-UK and outside-UK.
  • Trinity College London: in-UK only. PSI Services: outside-UK only.
  • IELTS, LanguageCert and Pearson appear on both.
  • The required scores do not change between the lists for shared providers.
  • A test from the wrong list is a real qualification and an invalid one.

Two lists, not one

The guidance page states it plainly before either spreadsheet is opened.

If you are in the UK, you can only take a SELT with: Trinity College London, the IELTS SELT Consortium, LANGUAGECERT, or Pearson.

If you are outside the UK, you can only take a SELT with: PSI Services (UK) Ltd, the IELTS SELT Consortium, LANGUAGECERT, or Pearson.

Four providers each, three shared, one different on each side.

That sentence is easy to skim because it reads like an administrative formality. It is the single most expensive line on the page for anybody about to pay a test fee.

Which provider appears where

Provider In the UK Outside the UK
IELTS SELT Consortium Yes Yes
LanguageCert Yes Yes
Pearson Yes Yes
Trinity College London Yes No
PSI Services (UK) Ltd No Yes

The three that appear on both lists are the ones that keep your options open. The two that do not are the ones that decide themselves based on where you happen to be.

PSI Skills for English, the outside-only option

PSI's approved test is called Skills for English UKVI, and it appears in two shapes.

CEFR level PSI test Type Minimum grade
A1 Skills for English UKVI A1 (2 component) 2-facet Pass
A2 Skills for English UKVI A2 (2 component) 2-facet Pass
B1 Skills for English UKVI B1 (2 component) 2-facet Pass
B1 Skills for English UKVI B1 (4 component) 4-facet Pass in all four
B2 Skills for English UKVI B2 (4 component) 4-facet Pass in all four
C1 Skills for English UKVI C1 (4 component) 4-facet Pass in all four
C2 Skills for English UKVI C2 (4 component) 4-facet Pass in all four

All PSI entries carry an effective date of 1 October 2020, and all are graded Pass rather than by a numeric score.

That naming is the clearest on either list. Where other providers give a product name and leave you to work out the level, PSI puts the CEFR level and the number of components in the title of the test itself. Skills for English UKVI B1 (2 component) tells you both things before you read a single column.

Trinity, the inside-only option

Trinity is the mirror image, with two products approved for tests taken in the UK.

GESE, Graded Examinations in Spoken English, at A1, A2 and B1 as a two skill test, covered in Trinity GESE as a visa test.

ISE, Integrated Skills in English, at B1 through C2 as a four skill test, covered in Trinity ISE I to IV.

Both are graded Pass, which puts Trinity and PSI in the same structural family: two Pass-based providers, one available on each side of the border, and three numeric providers available on both.

That symmetry is neat enough to be worth noticing. Whichever side you are on, you have the choice between a judgement and a measurement.

What does not change between the lists

For the three providers on both lists, the numbers match.

IELTS for UKVI asks 4.0 at B1, 5.5 at B2, 7.0 at C1 and 8.5 at C2 in both files. Pearson asks 43, 59, 76 and 85 in both. LanguageCert Academic and General SELT ask 40, 60 and 75 in both, with only Academic reaching C2 in either, as we set out in LanguageCert Academic against General SELT.

The three conditions on any result are also the same wherever it was sat. It must be on the approved list, sat at an approved test location, and awarded in the two years before the date of your application.

So the geography rule is narrow and specific. Where you sit the test changes who may test you, and nothing else.

What this changes about planning

  • Decide where you will be on the test date before choosing a provider.
  • If your timing is uncertain, use one of the three that appear on both lists.
  • If you want a Pass-based exam, that is Trinity inside the UK and PSI outside it.
  • Do not assume a friend's advice transfers. Their test may have been sat on the other side of the border.
  • Check the current lists on the day you book. They change: LanguageCert's products were replaced on 6 July 2025.

Whichever provider you end up with, every four skill test on both lists sets a floor in speaking, and every two skill test is half speaking by construction. Role play scenarios and a daily speaking partner are the practical routes, testing your speaking level free tells you where you stand, and CEFR levels for speaking explains the labels.

For the wider picture, the UK routes that only test speaking and listening sets out which applications need two skills rather than four, and IELTS for UKVI by CEFR level gives the band table. For a professional regulator with much stricter rules than immigration, the GMC requirement for doctors is the contrast. For how examiners mark speaking in detail, Cambridge speaking criteria by level and Interactive Communication use real scored candidates, and what C2 actually means covers the top of the scale. Linguaskill and Aptis are the closest non-visa comparisons we have written.

What we could not verify

We did not check the approved test centre lists. The Home Office publishes separate spreadsheets of approved centres for each side of the border, dated July 2026, which we have not opened. Being in the right country is necessary and not sufficient; the centre must also be approved.

We did not read PSI's or Trinity's own materials. Everything here comes from the Home Office lists, which state thresholds rather than describing exams.

We did not check which CEFR level each immigration route requires. That comes from route guidance.

We are not claiming Pass-based and band-based tests are equally hard. They report differently, which is all the lists tell us.

Rules change. Check the current lists on the day you book.

This is not immigration advice. It is a reading of two published spreadsheets and the guidance page they sit on, all linked below.

How we researched this guide

We downloaded both approved test spreadsheets, parsed them by rows and cells, and compared them against each other rather than reading either one on its own.

That comparison is the entire method. Each file holds 36 rows and six columns, and read separately they tell the same story. Read against each other, one provider is present in each that is absent from the other, and that is the finding.

We then checked whether the shared providers differ in any other way between the files, because a difference in providers could easily come with a difference in thresholds. It does not. The IELTS, Pearson and LanguageCert figures are identical in both, which is what lets us say the geography rule affects who may test you and nothing else.

We also read the guidance page rather than working only from the tables, because the provider restriction is stated there in prose and the spreadsheets alone would leave it to inference.

Practise speaking, from SpeakShark

SpeakShark is an AI English speaking practice app, and it is the one part of this that does not care where you are. Approved test centres do. Provider lists do. Practice does not.

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. We are not an approved test provider and nothing here counts toward an application.

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 want to be ready before the booking decision is made for you.

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.

Sources

FAQ

Are the UK approved English tests the same everywhere?
No. The Home Office publishes two separate lists, one for tests taken in the UK and one for tests taken outside it, and the provider sets differ. Three providers appear on both, the IELTS SELT Consortium, LanguageCert and Pearson. Trinity College London appears only on the in-UK list and PSI Services only on the outside-UK list.
Can I take a Trinity test abroad for a UK visa?
Not for that purpose. Trinity College London is not on the Home Office list of approved providers for tests taken outside the UK, so a Trinity GESE or ISE sat abroad does not satisfy the English requirement for a UK immigration application, however good the result is.
What is Skills for English UKVI?
It is PSI Services' approved Secure English Language Test, available only for tests taken outside the UK. It appears in two forms: a 2 component version at A1, A2 and B1 covering speaking and listening, and a 4 component version at B1 through C2. Both are graded Pass rather than by a numeric score.
Which providers can I use on either side of the border?
Three of the five. The IELTS SELT Consortium, offering IELTS for UKVI and IELTS Life Skills; LanguageCert, offering its Academic, General and International ESOL SELT range; and Pearson, offering PTE Academic UKVI and PTE Home. All three appear on the in-UK list and the outside-UK list with the same required scores, so if your travel timing is uncertain, booking with one of them keeps the decision open until you know where you will be.
Does the score change depending on where I sit the test?
For the providers that appear on both lists, no. IELTS for UKVI asks for the same bands in both files, at 4.0 for B1 through 8.5 for C2, and the Pearson and LanguageCert figures match across the two files as well. What changes between the lists is which providers you are allowed to use, not what any of them require of you once you are sitting the test.
What happens if I book with the wrong provider?
You end up with a genuine qualification that the Home Office will not accept for that application. The rules are that the test must be on the approved list, sat at an approved test location, and awarded within two years of the application date. A Trinity certificate earned abroad fails the first two conditions for a UK application.

Curious how it works? Explore SpeakShark's features or see plans and pricing.

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