IQ Percentile Chart: What Percentage of People Score Above You?

How IQ percentiles are calculated

Every modern IQ test reports a deviation IQ: your raw score is compared with a norm group of people your age and placed on a normal distribution with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation (SD) of 15. The percentile is then simply the area under that curve to the left of your score, so it says what share of the population scores lower than you.

Because the distribution is symmetric, the numbers mirror each other around 100. Whatever share of people sits above 130 sits below 70 as well. That is also why the tails thin out so fast: each 15-point step away from the mean cuts the group roughly in half at first, and then by far more than half.

Two things the chart cannot tell you. First, no test measures you perfectly, so a score of 118 on a given day could be 113 or 123 on another; publishers quote a confidence interval for exactly this reason. Second, percentiles depend on the norm group. A score normed in 1995 and one normed in 2020 are not interchangeable because average performance drifts over time (the Flynn effect).

The IQ percentile chart (SD 15)

Percentiles are rounded; rarity is “1 in N people” scoring at or above that IQ.

IQ	Percentile	Rarity (at or above)	Classification
160	99.997	1 in 31,560	Exceptionally gifted
155	99.99	1 in 8,137	Exceptionally gifted
150	99.96	1 in 2,330	Highly gifted
145	99.87	1 in 741	Highly gifted
140	99.62	1 in 261	Gifted
135	99.02	1 in 102	Gifted
132	98.36	1 in 61	Mensa threshold (top 2%)
130	97.72	1 in 44	Very superior
125	95.22	1 in 21	Superior
120	90.88	1 in 11	Superior
115	84.13	1 in 6.3	High average
110	74.75	1 in 4	High average
105	63.06	1 in 2.7	Average
100	50.00	1 in 2	Average
95	36.94	—	Average
90	25.25	—	Low average
85	15.87	—	Low average
80	9.12	—	Borderline
75	4.78	—	Borderline
70	2.28	—	Extremely low
65	0.98	—	Extremely low
60	0.38	—	Extremely low
55	0.13	—	Extremely low

The classification labels follow the Wechsler convention (average 90–109, high average 110–119, superior 120–129, very superior 130+); other publishers use slightly different words for the same bands. For a plain-language reading of any single score, open its page, for example what an IQ of 120 means or what an IQ of 130 means.

Reading the chart: three worked examples

IQ 112. Percentile ≈ 79. Roughly four in five people score lower. On a classroom of 30, that is about the sixth-best score, and a comfortable “high average”.

IQ 128. Percentile ≈ 97. About 1 in 32 people. Close to the Mensa line but not over it; a retest could land on either side, which is why Mensa uses supervised tests with known error margins rather than one online result.

IQ 142. Percentile ≈ 99.7. About 1 in 390. In a company of 2,000 employees you would expect around five people at this level or higher, regardless of role.

Why SD 15 matters when you compare tests

Not every scale uses 15. The older Cattell scale used SD 24, which is why “Cattell IQ 148” is the same percentile as Wechsler 130. Some European tests used SD 16 for decades. If a website quotes an IQ without saying which SD it uses, its percentiles cannot be checked against this chart. Every score on IQ-EXAMS.COM is reported on the SD 15 scale, and the methodology page explains how the raw score becomes an IQ.

The percentile is also the number worth remembering rather than the IQ itself. “Top 9%” means the same thing whatever the scale; “IQ 120” only does once you know the SD.

Frequently asked questions