Official HSK links for 2026

HSK is 汉语水平考试 (Hànyǔ Shuǐpíng Kǎoshì, Chinese proficiency test). This site does not run it. Duolingo does not run it. A school that reprints a calendar on Instagram does not run it.

The language-cooperation body is the Center for Language Education and Cooperation, CLEC. Its public portal is chinese.cn. Registration and the test rules live somewhere else: chinesetest.cn, Chinese Testing International.

Wikipedia’s HSK page summarises history, levels, and word counts. Use it to get oriented. It is not a form. It does not book a room. It does not print your certificate.

People used to say Hanban. The institutional name changed. If an old PDF says Hanban and a new one says CLEC, those are not two exams. It is the same system with a new letterhead. The paper you will sit is the one your center and the registration portal confirm, not a footnote on a worksheet.

HSKK is not the same sitting either. The classic written test scores listening, reading, and, at higher levels, writing. Speaking is a separate exam. Both sit in the official ecosystem. Neither is paid for in this app.

If someone sells you “our school’s HSK” without chinesetest.cn, ask which paper they will mark. An in-house mock is not the diploma. A logo on the door is not enough if the center does not show up in the portal’s search.

chinesetest.cn is the registration site. That is where you pick a level, see authorised centers, and find the session that is open. The rules live there. Rumour ends there.

Do not copy a date from this article. Do not copy one from a thread. The calendar belongs to the current session, and the portal publishes it. This page is updated once a year, or when a fact changes (a domain, an organisation). Not every time a center opens seats.

Do not copy fees either. The price depends on level, center, and country. A 2024 number on a blog is not your receipt. The amount you will pay is the one in the registration flow, not a tally on this page.

Cities work the same way. Madrid, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, or a campus in China do not belong in an eternal list here. The portal’s center search is the source. If your city is missing, it is not hiding on this page. It is on chinesetest.cn, or it is not.

What you can do today, without guessing. Open the portal. Name the test (written HSK, HSKK if you are sitting the oral). See whether a session is open for your level. Read the ID and materials rules. If no session is listed, do not invent one. Wait until the center or the portal publishes it.

Three checks before you pay the fee. One: the test name matches the paper you have rehearsed. Two: the center appears on the portal, not only on a poster. Three: the session is open now, not in a March screenshot.

A typical mistake: registering for the level that sounds good, not the paper you have actually practised. 谢谢 (xièxie, thank you) does not put you in HSK 4. The HSK 1 eight-week plan exists so you do not pay for a room your ear cannot yet survive. The date is the last step, not the first.

Another mistake: treating a friend’s screenshot as your sitting. Their center is not yours. Their deadline is not yours. The portal shows your session. Scores, when they exist, are looked up in that same official system. Not in a study-app inbox.

CLEC coordinates international Chinese language education. chinese.cn is its public home: language policy, institutional resources, the cooperation frame. It is not the registration checkout.

Use it to see who speaks for the state on international Chinese. Do not use it to “book HSK on Saturday”. That job sits on chinesetest.cn. Mixing the two portals feeds panic threads: someone hunts for fees on chinese.cn and finds none, or hunts for CLEC on a dead domain.

Wikipedia, again, is the summary in your language. CLEC is the body. Chinese Testing International runs the test. Three layers. One registration.

If a local institute says “we are an HSK center”, the useful seal is that it appears in the chinesetest.cn search. The logo on the door is not enough. CLEC does not examine you at this URL. This URL does not either.

chinese.cn also does not replace a teacher or a classroom syllabus. It is the institutional frame. If you need what is in HSK 1, that is a study question, not an org-chart question. The org chart only tells you whom you should not pay twice.

Almost everyone who sits the exam today sits the six-level HSK. The cumulative counts Wikipedia’s HSK page summarises are about 150, 300, 600, 1,200, 2,500, and 5,000 words for HSK 1 to 6. That is the classic paper. HSK 1 includes pinyin on the written test.

In 2021 the standard moved to nine bands. People often call it HSK 3.0. Vocabulary and characters are counted differently there. High bands 7–9 are not “old HSK 6 under a new name”. Do not mix the two maps in the same study week.

This site uses classic HSK 1–6 and groups 2021 advanced material as HSK 7+. The vocabulary lists are a study catalogue. The public inventory is 12,432 words. That number is not the PDF your center will mark. Do not treat “words on this site” as “words chinesetest.cn asks for”.

Which paper will you sit? Ask the center. Confirm it on the portal when you register. If the center runs the six-level exam, study that count. If it runs another scheme, do not guess with an app. What HSK level is conversational explains what each classic brochure band promises. It does not replace the question to the center.

A toxic mix looks like this. Someone studies 5,000 words, feels like HSK 6, and registers for a 7–9 band because they are “already advanced”. Someone else stays in eternal HSK 1 because an app list has 400 items under “HSK 1”. Classic HSK 1 is about 150. The HSK 1 guide describes that level. Close the inventory that will actually enter the room.

The oral does not fix the mix. HSKK is a different test. You can pass a written paper and freeze asking 多少钱 (duōshao qián, how much). You can talk through a trip and fail a reading. Register each one where it belongs: the portal, not a marketing bundle.

Do not expect this page to tell you which month your city switches from the six-level paper to nine bands. The center and the portal publish that. Until you see it written there, study the map they will mark.

This site is not the test center. It does not take the fee. It does not book a room. It does not publish your city’s calendar. It does not issue the diploma. It is not CLEC. It is not Chinese Testing International.

What you do get here is practice lined up with the paper. Mocks, lists, and a path. A mock is not the exam. A streak is not a certificate. If your center wants a passport and an arrival time, that rule lives on chinesetest.cn, not in a listening drill.

This is not trainchinese, and it is not an institute campus. If you arrived on “HSK registration” and expected a pay button for the test, it is not here. The honest button is the portal link. Anything else would fake registration.

Typical HSK 1 exam mistakes cover listening and reading on the paper. They help you stop giving points away. They do not replace a sitting. The ID the room will ask for is whatever the portal says. Do not invent it because a forum talked about another country.

If an ad promises a “guaranteed HSK” or “official dates updated every day” on a blog, distrust it. The official fact is read on the test domain. This page is rewritten when that fact changes. Not when a center opens a quota.

Registration is there. Study is here. Once you know the paper and have checked the session on chinesetest.cn, open the HSK guides. That is the map: what each level contains, not an invented calendar.

If you are starting from zero, the HSK 1 guide and the eight-week plan give you the syllabus and the clock. Vocabulary lets you see the lexicon. How to learn Chinese is the method. If the goal is speaking, read what HSK level is conversational first. Do not register for HSK 6 out of pride.

Chinese Trainer aligns practice to that paper. Registration stays official. This app is not the test center.

Pinyin is the official romanization of Mandarin. Hanzi are the written Chinese characters. HSK is Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi. Reviewed by Javier Garcia Floriano. About us. Contact.

• Apply one method today, not a second streak.
• Measure one pair or one mock, not XP.
• Use the single CTA on this page.