5 Minute Typing Test

How to use it: click the text box and type the underlined word, then press SPACE or Enter. The 5:00 clock starts with your first letter. Press ESC or Restart for a fresh set of words.

This 5 minute typing test gives you 300 seconds of random common English words, then shows your words per minute (WPM), accuracy, correct words and mistakes. Only words typed exactly right count toward the score. Five minutes is the length many clerk and office typing checks use, so it measures the speed you can hold for real work rather than a short burst.

The clock waits for your first key, every attempt draws new words, and your best five minute score is saved in this browser.

How to take the 5 minute typing test

  1. Click or tap the box that says “Start typing here”. The first word is underlined.
  2. Type that word. The clock above the text shows 5:00 and starts counting down with your first letter, not when the page loads.
  3. Press SPACE or Enter to submit the word. A space on an empty box does nothing, so you cannot skip a word.
  4. If the underline turns red, what you have typed no longer matches the word. Press backspace and fix it before you submit, or the word scores nothing.
  5. Keep going until the clock reaches 0:00. The result card then shows your WPM, accuracy, correct words and mistakes.
  6. Press Try again, Restart or ESC to start a new 300 second test with new words.

Correct words turn lime green and wrong ones turn red with a line through them. The bar above the text shows the time left in minutes and seconds, your live WPM, your accuracy and your best score for this length. The length is fixed on this page, so the duration buttons are hidden. New words keep appearing as you type, so even a very fast typist will not run out before 0:00.

How the 5 minute WPM score is worked out

The tool adds up the characters of every word you type exactly right, plus one for the space after each. At 0:00 it divides that total by 5, the standard length of a typing “word”, and then by 5 for the five minutes.

  • 1,000 correct characters in five minutes = 200 standard words = 40 WPM.
  • 1,500 correct characters in five minutes = 300 standard words = 60 WPM.
  • A word with a wrong, missing or extra letter adds nothing.
  • A word you are still typing when the clock hits 0:00 is not counted.

The live WPM during the test uses the time that has passed so far, so it moves up and down as you go. Only the number on the result card at 0:00 is your score.

How many words do you need to type in 5 minutes?

The word list behind this test has 434 different common words, 4.8 letters long on average. With the space, a typical correct word is worth about 5.8 characters, or 1.16 standard words. Over five minutes that gives these rough targets:

Target speedCorrect charactersCorrect words, roughly
30 WPM750129
40 WPM1,000172
50 WPM1,250216
60 WPM1,500259
70 WPM1,750302
80 WPM2,000345

These are typical values. A run with many short words such as “a”, “to” and “of” needs more words for the same score, and one with longer words needs fewer. The result card shows exactly how many correct words you typed.

In plain standard words, five minutes of typing is your WPM times five. At 40 WPM that is 200 standard words, about the length of a long email or a short letter.

Accuracy and mistakes

Accuracy is the share of your letter keys that matched the word at the moment you pressed them. Backspace is not counted either way, so a wrong letter you correct still lowers accuracy, even though the word then counts for speed.

The mistakes figure is the number of words you submitted with an error. Each one costs the whole word, which over five minutes is only about 0.23 WPM. Three mistakes take roughly 0.7 WPM off your score here. As the next section shows, many formal tests are much stricter than that.

The 40 WPM in 5 minutes standard

The most common formal typing requirement in US government jobs is 40 WPM over five minutes with three or fewer errors. Federal job adverts on USAJOBS state that “a qualified typist can type 40 words per minute based on a 5 minute sample with three or fewer errors” (USAJOBS, Office Automation Assistant). The same wording appears in adverts for secretary, clerk and customer service roles, and a Bureau of Indian Affairs clerk standard uses the same five minute test (BIA qualification standard).

Forty WPM for five minutes means about 172 correct words from this list, or 200 standard words. Most adult computer users can reach it with practice: the average in a study of 168,000 volunteers was about 52 WPM (Dhakal et al., CHI 2018). The hard part is usually not the speed but the error limit. Three errors in five minutes is less than one per minute.

To practise for a 40 WPM, three error test with this tool:

  • Aim for 45 WPM or more here. Nerves and an unfamiliar keyboard usually cost a few words on the day.
  • Keep mistakes at 3 or fewer. The result card counts them for you, so it is easy to check.
  • Hold accuracy at 97% or higher. Below that you are making enough wrong key presses that some will slip through.
  • Pass it three times in a row. One good run can be luck. Three in a row means the speed is yours.

Gross WPM, net WPM and typing certificates

Gross WPM counts everything you typed, mistakes included. Net WPM takes errors off. Formal tests use different rules for this, so the same typing can produce different numbers.

The City of San Diego, for example, accepts typing certificates only from a test of “5 minutes minimum”, rejects certificates with more than 5 errors, and works out net speed as “Gross wpm minus 2 wpm for each error” (City of San Diego). Under that rule, 45 gross WPM with 3 errors becomes 39 net WPM, just under a 40 WPM bar.

Rule45 WPM with 3 errorsEffect of one error
This toolabout 44 WPMabout 0.23 WPM
Net = gross minus 2 per error39 net WPM2 WPM
Error limit only (3 or fewer)passes 40 WPMfails above the limit

This tool sits closer to net than gross, because wrong words never count, but it is gentler than a 2 WPM penalty. If your target test uses a penalty per error, aim for fewer mistakes than the limit allows, not just more speed.

Two honest limits:

  • This result is not a certificate. San Diego says “Internet typing certificates will not be accepted”, and many employers run their own supervised test. Use this page to practise and to know where you stand.
  • Formal tests often use passages. Many copy a paragraph with capitals and punctuation. This tool uses lower case words only, so expect a slightly lower score on a passage test.

What is a good 5 minute typing test score?

For typing on a physical or laptop keyboard, about 52 WPM is average and 78 WPM or more puts you in the fastest 10%, according to the same study of 168,000 volunteers (Dhakal et al., CHI 2018). The slowest 10% in that study typed below about 26 WPM.

Five minute WPMWhat it means
Under 26Slowest 10% of the study, normal while learning
26 to 40Below average, below most clerk standards
40 to 52Meets the common 40 WPM job standard
52 to 78Above average
78 or moreFastest 10% of the study

Use the bands as a guide. The study’s volunteers copied full sentences with capitals and punctuation, while this test uses lower case words and counts only correct ones. Holding a score for five minutes is also harder than for one, so a five minute result just inside a band is a strong one.

Phone typing is slower. A study of 37,370 people typing on mobile devices found an average of 36.17 WPM (Palin et al., MobileHCI 2019), so compare phone results only with other phone results. More benchmarks by age and job are in the guide to average typing speed.

Why five minutes shows your real speed

A five minute test averages over roughly 200 or more words for most people. One slow word, a lucky run of short words or a single mistake barely moves the result, so the number is steadier than a one minute score.

Test lengthWords for 50 WPMOne wrong word costs
1 minuteabout 43about 1.2 WPM
3 minutesabout 129about 0.4 WPM
5 minutesabout 216about 0.2 WPM

It also shows fatigue. Most people score a few WPM lower over five minutes than over one, because attention drifts, small pauses creep in and tension builds in the hands and shoulders. A drop of a few WPM against your 1 minute typing test score is normal. A drop of 10 WPM or more usually means you start faster than you can hold.

To see where you fade, glance at the live WPM three times:

  • At 4:00 left (one minute in). Note the number. This is roughly your sprint speed.
  • At 2:30 left (halfway). If it has already fallen by several WPM, your pace is too high for the length.
  • At 1:00 left. A late drop points to tired hands or lost focus rather than pacing.

Three quick looks are enough. Watching the clock all the time costs words.

A pacing plan for the full 5 minutes

The best five minute scores come from an even pace. This plan works for most people:

  1. First 30 seconds: settle in. Type a little below your top speed and get your eyes reading one word ahead.
  2. Up to 3:00 left: find your rhythm. Let the pace rise only while words stay green.
  3. Middle of the test: stay loose. Drop your shoulders, keep key presses light and breathe normally.
  4. Last 90 seconds: hold, do not sprint. A late burst usually brings red words. With an error limit, each one can cost more than the extra speed gains.
  5. Last seconds: type right to 0:00. A half-typed word at the end does not count, so do not stop early.

Habits that help over the whole five minutes:

  • Forget a mistake once it is submitted. Staring at a red word costs more than the word itself.
  • Look at the screen, not your hands. Touch typing from the home row (ASDF and JKL;) takes a few weeks to feel natural, then saves time on every word.
  • Sit so your forearms are level with the keyboard. Over five minutes, a raised wrist or a hunched neck slows you down more than in a short test.
  • Use the same keyboard each time. A laptop keyboard and an external one can give quite different scores.

For drills and a weekly practice routine, read the guide on how to type faster.

Reading your result

  • Take three tests and keep the middle score. One run is noisy. The middle of three changes much less from day to day.
  • Your best is shared with the 5 minute mode of the main test. The typing speed test also offers 5 min, and both save to the same best score in this browser. Nothing is uploaded.
  • Compare like with like. A result on a phone, a new keyboard or a different language word list is a new baseline.
  • Track accuracy too. A score that rises while accuracy falls below 95% often drops again the next day.

Other typing test lengths

If you play games, the APM test counts actions per minute and the reaction time test measures how quickly you respond to a signal.

Frequently asked questions

How many words can you type in 5 minutes?

At 40 WPM you type 200 standard words in five minutes, which is about 172 correct words from this test’s list. At the computer average of about 52 WPM it is around 224 words, and at 60 WPM about 259. Your result card shows the exact count.

Is 40 WPM good for a 5 minute typing test?

Yes, it meets the most common job standard: US federal adverts ask for 40 WPM on a 5 minute sample with three or fewer errors. It is a little below the computer average of about 52 WPM, so it is a solid working speed rather than a fast one.

How many errors are allowed in a 5 minute typing test?

It depends on the employer. Federal typist roles allow three or fewer errors at 40 WPM, and the City of San Diego rejects certificates with more than five errors and takes 2 WPM off for each one. This tool shows your mistakes count, so you can practise against the limit you need.

When does the 5 minute timer start?

The 5:00 clock starts with your first letter, not when the page loads. You can read the first words and place your hands before you begin. Once it is running it does not pause, so press ESC to restart if you are interrupted.

Why is my 5 minute score lower than my 1 minute score?

That is normal. Focus and finger speed fade a little over time, and small pauses add up across 300 seconds. A gap of a few WPM is expected; a much larger one usually means you start too fast.

Can I use this result as a typing certificate?

No. It is a practice result saved only in your browser, and many employers do not accept online certificates. Use it to reach a steady score with margin, then take the employer’s own test or a supervised one if they ask for proof.

Can I take the 5 minute typing test on a phone?

Yes. Tap the box to open your keyboard and type as usual. Swipe typing and autocomplete work, because each word is scored when a space appears. Phone scores are usually lower, so compare them only with other phone results.

Sources