What is the average typing speed?
Around 40 words per minute is the figure usually quoted for adults on a full keyboard. It is a fair rule of thumb and we use it throughout this site. It is also softer than almost every article repeating it admits, and knowing why is more useful than the number itself.
What "average" is actually averaging
A typing speed is not a property of a person, the way height is. It is the result of a specific person typing a specific text on a specific keyboard under specific rules, and every one of those changes the number. An average flattens all of it into one figure, which is useful for orientation and misleading for comparison.
The single largest distortion is who gets measured. Most figures you find online come from the site's own visitors, and people who voluntarily take a typing test are not a cross-section of the population — they skew toward people who already type a lot and suspect they are quick. A site with millions of results can still be reporting an average that is well above the population it claims to describe.
What moves the number
| Factor | Effect on the score | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Common-word lists vs real prose | Word lists score higher | Short, familiar, lowercase words are typed as single motor patterns. Prose has names, capitals and phrases you have never seen. |
| Punctuation and capitals | Lower | Both need a modifier key, and the symbols sit under the weakest fingers. A test without them is measuring a different skill. |
| Whether errors must be fixed | Correction lowers it | Some tests deduct for a mistake and let you type on. Others make you go back. The second is slower and closer to real writing. |
| Test length | Short tests score higher | Fifteen seconds captures a burst. A minute or more captures a pace you can hold, which is always lower. |
| Who is being measured | Large swings | People who voluntarily take an online typing test are not a random sample of the population. They are, on the whole, people who suspect they are fast. |
| Keyboard and device | Large swings | A full mechanical keyboard, a laptop and a phone screen produce three different numbers from the same person. |
Those are directions, not amounts. We have deliberately not written "punctuation costs you eight WPM", because we have not measured it and neither has most of the internet. The practical consequence is simple: compare yourself to yourself on one test, and treat any cross-site or cross-population comparison as approximate. This is the same reason your score differs between typing sites.
Why there is no by-age table here
"Average typing speed by age" is one of the most searched versions of this question, and the tables answering it are, as far as we can tell, mostly copied from each other rather than from data. We are not going to add another one.
The reason is not only sourcing. Typing speed tracks how much someone has typed and how familiar the keyboard is, and those correlate with age only loosely and inconsistently — a teenager who grew up on a phone keyboard and an adult who has typed at a desk for twenty years do not line up the way an age table implies. If you want to know where you sit, the useful comparison is against people who type as much as you do, not against people born the same year.
Groups that genuinely differ
Some distinctions are real, even without precise figures attached:
- People who type for a living are faster, because practice is the main input to typing speed and they get more of it than anyone. Roles built around sustained typing generally expect speeds above the general average.
- Touch typists are substantially faster than hunt-and-peck typists at the same amount of experience. This is the one change that reliably moves a beginner a long way.
- Phone typists are measuring something else entirely. Thumb typing on glass with autocorrect is a different skill from ten fingers on a physical keyboard, and the two numbers should not be compared.
- Stenographers and court reporters are not a comparison at all. They use machine shorthand, where one stroke produces a whole syllable or word, so their figures do not describe typing on a QWERTY keyboard.
How to measure your own honestly
Take several tests on one site across different days, and take the middle of that range rather than your best result. A personal best is a run where everything went right; the number worth knowing is the pace you can repeat on a passage you have not seen. Use prose with punctuation rather than a common-word list, and do not restart a run because it started badly, which is the single easiest way to inflate your own average without noticing.
Ours works that way: the typing speed test uses real sentences and requires mistakes to be corrected, so it tends to read a little below a word-list test. If you already have a result and just want the arithmetic checked, use the WPM calculator.
Questions
What is the average typing speed?
Around 40 words per minute is the figure most commonly quoted for adults on a full keyboard. It is a reasonable rule of thumb, but it is repeated far more often than it is measured, and any specific average depends heavily on who was tested and how.
Is 40 WPM good?
It is about average, which means it is entirely functional for most work. Typing is still a visible part of how long a task takes at that speed, so it is also the range where practice pays back fastest.
What is the average typing speed by age?
We do not publish one, because we have not seen a source for it we would be willing to stand behind. Tables of average WPM by age circulate widely online and are rarely traceable to a study you can check. Typing speed tracks practice and keyboard familiarity far more than it tracks age.
Is the average typing speed different for professionals?
Roles built around sustained typing, such as transcription and data entry, generally expect speeds above the general average, and people in them tend to be faster because they type all day. Court reporters are not a useful comparison at all: they use machine shorthand, not a standard keyboard, so their figures are not measuring the same thing.
How do I find my own average?
Take several tests on the same site over different days and look at the middle of the range rather than your best run. One test measures a single attempt; the thing you want to know is the pace you can repeat.
Average is a floor, not a verdict
The reason the average matters less than it appears is that you never type against the average. In a race you are matched against one person, and on TypeBag's paid tiers that person is picked to be near your own rating — so a 45 WPM typist races other 45 WPM typists rather than the top of the ladder. Being average is not a disadvantage in a bracket of averages; consistency is what wins there.
The free tier needs no account and no deposit, so finding out costs nothing. Race someone, or read how a duel works first.