Italian universities grade individual course exams on an 18-to-30 point scale, where 18 is the minimum passing mark and 30 e lode ("30 with praise") is the highest possible result — while the final degree itself (the laurea) is scored separately on a 66-to-110 scale, with 110 e lode as the top honor for the overall degree.
The 18–30 exam scale
Every course exam in the Italian university system — whether a written test, oral exam, or project defense — is graded on a scale from 0 to 30, though in practice scores below 18 simply mean the exam wasn't passed and typically don't appear on the transcript at all. Only 18 and above are recorded as passing results:
| Grade range | General interpretation |
|---|---|
| 30 e lode | Exceptional, beyond the standard maximum |
| 30 | Excellent |
| 27–29 | Very good |
| 24–26 | Good |
| 21–23 | Satisfactory |
| 18–20 | Sufficient (minimum pass) |
| Below 18 | Fail (not recorded as a passing grade) |
The "e lode" (with praise) distinction added to a 30 isn't a separate numeric value — for GPA-conversion purposes it's often treated as equivalent to a 31, since it signals performance beyond what the standard scale alone can capture. It's awarded at the discretion of the professor or, in an oral exam, unanimously by the examining commission, and at competitive universities it can represent a small fraction of results in any given course.
Because 30 e lode is somewhat rare by design, don't assume a transcript full of 27s and 28s reflects weak performance — Italian university grading is often described as comparatively conservative, and a solid 26–28 is a genuinely strong result at many institutions, not a middling one.
The separate 66–110 final degree scale
Individual exam grades feed into an overall weighted average, but the score that actually appears on an Italian diploma is calculated on a completely different scale: 66 to 110, sometimes shown as "110 e lode" at the very top.
| Final degree score | General interpretation |
|---|---|
| 110 e lode | Highest possible distinction |
| 110 | Excellent |
| 105–109 | Very good |
| 95–104 | Good |
| 80–94 | Satisfactory |
| 66–79 | Sufficient (minimum pass) |
This final score isn't a simple straight average of the 18–30 exam grades. It typically starts from the student's weighted exam average (converted onto the 110-point scale) and then adds or subtracts points based on factors like the thesis defense, time to completion, and study-abroad experience, with the exact formula set by each university's own regulations.
Don't confuse the two scales when reading an Italian transcript. A "28" refers to a single course exam on the 0–30 scale, while a "105" refers to the cumulative final degree score on the 66–110 scale — they aren't directly comparable numbers, and converting only one of them to a US GPA can misrepresent the other.
Converting an Italian grade to a US 4.0 GPA
There is no single official Italy-to-US GPA conversion formula — practices differ between US universities, study-abroad programs, and credential evaluators such as WES. A commonly referenced general mapping for the 18–30 exam scale looks like this:
| Italian exam grade (0–30) | Approximate US letter | Approximate GPA points |
|---|---|---|
| 30 e lode / 30 | A | 4.0 |
| 28–29 | A- | 3.7 |
| 26–27 | B+ | 3.3 |
| 24–25 | B | 3.0 |
| 21–23 | C+ / B- | 2.3–2.7 |
| 18–20 | C / D | 1.0–2.0 |
| Below 18 | F | 0.0 |
Worked example: A student's transcript from an Italian university lists the following exam results:
| Course | Credit hours (CFU/ECTS) | Italian grade | Approx. GPA points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Analisi Matematica I | 9 | 26 | 3.3 |
| Diritto Privato | 6 | 30 e lode | 4.0 |
| Economia Aziendale | 6 | 24 | 3.0 |
| Statistica | 9 | 21 | 2.3 |
Weighted GPA = ((3.3×9) + (4.0×6) + (3.0×6) + (2.3×9)) ÷ 30 = (29.7 + 24.0 + 18.0 + 20.7) ÷ 30 = 92.4 ÷ 30 ≈ 3.08
Italian universities generally report credit loads in CFU (Crediti Formativi Universitari), which are directly aligned with the European ECTS system — see our ECTS grading scale guide for background on how those credits translate. Once each exam grade is mapped to an estimated GPA value, a GPA Calculator or the GPA to Marks Calculator can handle the weighted arithmetic.
If you're submitting an Italian transcript for a US graduate program, scholarship, or job application, check whether the receiving institution or a credential evaluator like WES has a published Italy-specific conversion table before relying on a generic self-calculated GPA — this matters most near admission or scholarship cutoffs, and it's worth clarifying which scale (18–30 exam grades or the 66–110 final degree score) they actually want converted.
How Italy compares to other European systems
Italy's dual-scale system is one of the more distinctive setups in Europe, alongside France's 20-point scale, Germany's inverted 1.0–5.0 scale, and Spain's named 0–10 bands. For a broader side-by-side view of how these systems compare, see our international grading systems comparison.
Key takeaways
- Italian university exams are graded 18–30, with 18 as the minimum pass and 30 e lode as the top honor.
- The final degree (laurea) score uses a completely separate 66–110 scale, calculated from the exam average plus additional factors like the thesis — the two scales aren't directly comparable.
- Italian grading is often considered conservative, so a mid-to-high 20s exam score is a genuinely strong result, not a mediocre one.
- No single official Italy-to-US GPA conversion exists; treat conversion tables as estimates and confirm with your target institution or evaluator when the stakes are high.
