Typing speed statistics
Every number on this page comes from a primary source you can open: three large academic studies of typing, two official typing standards, and the record books. Where a popular figure has no traceable source, we say so instead of repeating it.
The largest study of typing measured an average of 51.6 WPM across 168,960 volunteers; the slowest tenth were under 26 WPM and the fastest tenth over 78.[1] On phones the average was 36.2 WPM.[2] Typists left just 1.17% of characters wrong.[1] The fastest officially recorded speed is 216 WPM, set on an IBM typewriter in 1946.[6]
What is the average typing speed?
The best data comes from a 2018 study by Aalto University and the University of Cambridge, which recorded 136 million keystrokes from 168,960 people typing 15 sentences each.[1] Its volunteers came from a typing-test website: average age 24.5, 68% from the United States, and 72% had taken a typing course. That makes them younger and more practised than adults in general, and the authors say so. Read the averages below as “people who take typing tests”, not “everyone”.
The figure of 40 WPM that appears on many websites may well be closer to the general population, but we could not trace it to any study, so it does not appear in the table.
| Group | Average | Source |
|---|---|---|
| All 168,960 volunteers (almost all on desktop or laptop keyboards) | 51.6 WPM | Dhakal 2018 [1] |
| Those who had taken a typing course (72%) | 54.4 WPM | Dhakal 2018 [1] |
| Those who had not | 49.0 WPM | Dhakal 2018 [1] |
| Fastest 10% of volunteers | 89.6 WPM | Dhakal 2018 [1] |
| Slowest 10% of volunteers | 20.9 WPM | Dhakal 2018 [1] |
| Typing on a phone, 37,370 volunteers | 36.2 WPM | Palin 2019 [2] |
| Trained touch typists, lab study of 30 typists | 57.8 WPM | Feit 2016 [3] |
| Self-taught typists, same lab study | 58.9 WPM | Feit 2016 [3] |
The typing speed distribution
The study reports a standard deviation of 20.2 WPM and a mild right skew (skewness 0.513): the curve has a slightly longer tail on the fast side.[1] Modelling it as a bell curve with that average and spread reproduces the paper's own cut-offs (10% below about 26 WPM, 10% above about 78), which makes it a fair guide to the bands in between.
| Speed band | Share of typists | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Under 30 WPM | 14.3% | Modelled from Dhakal 2018 [1] |
| 30 – 45 WPM | 23.0% | Modelled from Dhakal 2018 [1] |
| 45 – 60 WPM | 28.9% | Modelled from Dhakal 2018 [1] |
| 60 – 80 WPM | 25.8% | Modelled from Dhakal 2018 [1] |
| 80 – 100 WPM | 7.1% | Modelled from Dhakal 2018 [1] |
| 100+ WPM | 0.8% | Modelled from Dhakal 2018 [1] |
Two things stand out. The middle is wide: about two-thirds of typists fall between roughly 31 and 72 WPM. And genuinely fast typing is uncommon: about 8% exceed 80 WPM and under 1% exceed 100. To see where your own score falls, take the typing test, which reports your position on the same curve.
Typing accuracy statistics
Final text is very accurate; getting there is less so. Typists fix most of their mistakes as they go, which is why the share of keystrokes spent correcting is five times the share of errors left at the end:
| Measure | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Characters left wrong in the final text (keyboard) | 1.17% | Dhakal 2018 [1] |
| Same, fastest 10% of typists | 0.71% | Dhakal 2018 [1] |
| Same, slowest 10% of typists | 1.78% | Dhakal 2018 [1] |
| Keystrokes spent correcting errors (keyboard) | 6.31% | Dhakal 2018 [1] |
| Keystrokes per character typed | 1.17 | Dhakal 2018 [1] |
| Characters left wrong in the final text (phone) | 2.3% | Palin 2019 [2] |
The fastest typists also make the fewest errors. Speed and accuracy go together, not against each other. Our guide on how to type faster covers what that means for practice.
Official typing speed standards
Most typing requirements are set by individual employers and are not published anywhere central. A few are official, set by the body that runs the test. These are the ones we could verify:
| Role or test | Required speed | Source |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. federal clerk-typist, office automation (any grade) | 40 WPM typing | OPM [4] |
| U.S. federal data transcriber, GS-2 | 20 WPM typing | OPM [4] |
| U.S. federal data transcriber, GS-3 and GS-4 | 25 WPM typing | OPM [4] |
| U.S. federal clerk-stenographer, GS-3 and GS-4 | 40 WPM typing + 80 WPM dictation | OPM [4] |
| U.S. federal clerk-stenographer, GS-5 | 40 WPM typing + 120 WPM dictation | OPM [4] |
| SSC typing skill test, English | 35 WPM (10,500 key depressions an hour) | SSC [5] |
| SSC typing skill test, Hindi | 30 WPM (9,000 key depressions an hour) | SSC [5] |
The U.S. federal figures are measured on a five-minute sample with three or fewer errors.[4] Every one of these standards sits below the 51.6 WPM study average. For the ranges private employers commonly advertise, see good typing speed by job.
The fastest typing speeds on record
Typing records are murkier than most lists suggest. Guinness stopped listing keyboard speed records in the mid-1980s because results from different machines could not be compared accurately,[7] and many “records” quoted online are self-reported. These are the ones with a traceable source:
| Who | Speed | Context | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stella Pajunas | 216 WPM for one minute | An official test in Chicago in 1946, on an IBM machine. Still listed by Guinness World Records as the fastest typist on an electronic typewriter. | Guinness [6] |
| Barbara Blackburn | 170 WPM peak · 150 WPM for 50 minutes | Guinness Book of World Records (1985 edition), on a Dvorak keyboard. The entry was accepted without an official test, and Guinness dropped keyboard-speed records soon afterwards because they could not be compared accurately. Her often-quoted 212 WPM was self-reported. | Guinness via Wikipedia [7] |
| Fastest volunteers in the largest study | 120+ WPM | The top of the 168,960-person dataset, transcribing ordinary sentences. | Dhakal 2018 [1] |
What affects typing speed
Why do two people with the same years at a keyboard type at very different speeds? These are the factors the research actually measured. One that it did not: keyboard layout. 98.1% of the large study's volunteers used QWERTY,[1] so it cannot compare layouts. The popular claim that Dvorak is much faster rests on early studies that economists Liebowitz and Margolis argued were flawed,[8] though Dvorak advocates dispute their account.
Overlapping keystrokes
The strongest single predictor of speed (r = 0.73): the fastest tenth pressed the next key before releasing the last on 50% of keystrokes, the slowest on 8%.[1]
Consistent fingering
Using the same finger for the same key, preparing keystrokes early, and little hand movement marked the fastest typists, trained or not.[3]
Number of fingers
A moderate predictor (r = 0.34): the fastest tenth used 8.4 fingers on average, the slowest 5.3. But typists using fewer fingers can still be fast.[1]
Training
People who had taken a typing course averaged about 5 WPM more than those who had not: a real but modest effect.[1]
Type of text
Typing speed fell by about half on random letter strings compared with ordinary sentences, for trained and self-taught typists alike.[3]
Device
Phones average 36.2 WPM against 51.6 for the keyboard study. On phones, 10- to 19-year-olds were the fastest age group.[2]
Study figures are quoted as published. Band percentages and “faster than” figures are our calculation from the published average and standard deviation, and are labelled “modelled”. We do not publish statistics from our own test results. Ninja Typing measures speed as net WPM with the standard five-characters-per-word rule.
See how you compare
Take the free typing test to find your own WPM and accuracy, and see where you land on the same distribution used on this page.
Frequently asked questions
What is the average typing speed?
On a keyboard, 51.6 WPM in the largest published study, which measured 168,960 volunteers. They were mostly young and practised (average age 24.5, 72% had taken a typing course), so the average across all adults is probably lower. On a phone, a study of 37,370 people found 36.2 WPM. The popular figure of 40 WPM has no primary study we could find.
What percentage of people type over 100 WPM?
About 1%. Modelled from the largest study’s average and spread, roughly 0.8% of typists exceed 100 WPM and about 8% exceed 80 WPM. The real distribution has a slightly longer fast tail than the model, so treat these as approximate.
What is the fastest typing speed ever recorded?
Guinness World Records lists Stella Pajunas, who typed 216 words in one minute on an IBM machine in an official test in 1946. Barbara Blackburn was listed by Guinness in the 1970s and 1980s at 170 WPM peak and 150 WPM sustained for 50 minutes, but that entry was accepted without an official test. Her often-quoted 212 WPM was self-reported.
What is the average typing accuracy?
Very high once errors are corrected. In the largest study, only 1.17% of characters were left wrong in the final text, but about 6% of keystrokes went on fixing mistakes along the way. On phones, 2.3% of characters were left wrong. Faster typists made fewer errors, not more.
Does the keyboard layout affect typing speed?
There is little good evidence that it does much. In the largest study, 98.1% of typists used QWERTY, so it cannot compare layouts. The claim that Dvorak is far faster rests on early studies that economists Liebowitz and Margolis argued were flawed, though Dvorak advocates dispute their account. What reliably affects speed is technique: overlapping keystrokes and consistent fingering.
How is typing speed measured?
In words per minute, where a “word” is any five characters, spaces included. Net WPM subtracts errors. Official tests may use other units too: SSC in India also states its requirement as key depressions per hour, 10,500 for 35 WPM in English, and the U.S. federal standard counts a five-minute sample with no more than three errors.
Sources
Numbers in square brackets refer to this list.
- Dhakal, Feit, Kristensson & Oulasvirta — “Observations on Typing from 136 Million Keystrokes”ACM CHI 2018 · Aalto University and University of Cambridge · link checked 20 Oct 2026
- Palin, Feit, Kim, Kristensson & Oulasvirta — “How do People Type on Mobile Devices? Observations from a Study with 37,000 Volunteers”ACM MobileHCI 2019 · Aalto University and University of Cambridge · link checked 20 Oct 2026
- Feit, Weir & Oulasvirta — “How We Type: Movement Strategies and Performance in Everyday Typing”ACM CHI 2016 · Aalto University · link checked 20 Oct 2026
- General Schedule Group Coverage Qualification Standards — Clerical and Administrative Support PositionsU.S. Office of Personnel Management · link checked 20 Oct 2026
- Combined Higher Secondary (10+2) Level Examination, 2026 — Notice (para 13.9.13: Skill Test/Typing Test)Staff Selection Commission (India), notice dated 07-09-2026 · link checked 20 Oct 2026
- Fastest typist on an electronic typewriter — Stella Pajunas, 1946Guinness World Records · link checked 20 Oct 2026
- Barbara Blackburn (typist)Wikipedia, citing the Guinness Book of World Records 1976, 1985 and 1986 editions · link checked 20 Oct 2026
- Liebowitz & Margolis — “The Fable of the Keys”The Journal of Law and Economics, 33(1), 1–25 (1990) · link checked 20 Oct 2026
Changes to this page
- Rebuilt on primary sources. Every figure now carries a citation; unsourced estimates were removed.
- First published.