By guzg · October 6, 2026 · 6 min read

Almost every grade conversion mistake I've written about comes back to one assumption: that failing starts at the same place everywhere.

It doesn't. A 50% is a comfortable pass in some countries and an outright fail in others. A 40% barely scrapes through in the UK and would be among the worst results on a Chinese transcript. This is why two conversion tables can disagree about the same grade while both being correct for their own inputs.

I couldn't find this compiled in one place, so I put it together.

The reference table

Percentages are given where the system uses them. Where a country uses a different scale, the scale is named and the pass mark is expressed in that scale's own terms.

How to read this table

The pass mark is the number that matters for conversion, because it defines the bottom of the scale. But knowing it isn't enough on its own. You also need the top.

Take Germany. The scale runs 1.0 to 4.0 and it's inverted, so 1.0 is the best possible result and 4.0 is the bare pass. Drop that into a converter built for the US 4.0 scale, where 4.0 is the best, and you've just turned a top student into a failing one. Every year people do exactly this.

France's 20-point scale has the same trap in milder form: a 16 out of 20 is excellent, and a converter that treats it as 16% will read it as a fail.

Three warnings about this table

Institutions vary within countries. The Indian entries are the clearest example: the pass mark genuinely differs between universities, and sometimes between programmes at the same university. Treat any single number as a starting point for checking, not as a fact.

Some countries have no national pass mark at all. Canada, Australia and the United States set these at the state, province or institution level. I've given the most common figure, which is not the same as an official one.

I compiled this from published descriptions of national grading systems, not from a survey of individual registrars. That means it's a reasonable summary of what's documented, and it is not authoritative for any specific transcript. If your conversion matters, the number that counts is the one your own institution uses.

Why the pass mark is the thing that matters

A grade is a position between two reference points, not a free-floating number. Change either reference point and the same score means something different.

That's why a 60% can be a comfortable pass in one system and a marginal fail in another, and why two people with identical transcripts from different countries can end up with very different converted GPAs without either conversion being wrong.

If you want to see how a specific system converts, the GPA calculator labels the pass line each system uses, so the assumption is visible rather than buried. The conversion table covers the percentage-to-4.0 case in more detail.