Searches for the Duolingo English Test are climbing fast among Indian students, and the appeal is obvious: it is taken at home, the scored part runs 45 minutes, and the result arrives in two days. Set against booking an IELTS slot, travelling to a centre and waiting a fortnight, it looks like an easy decision.
For a lot of students it is the right one. But there is a specific thing the DET cannot do, and almost nobody writing about it says so plainly, so we will start there.
The Duolingo English Test is not a UK SELT
For a UK Student visa, the Home Office publishes a list of approved Secure English Language Tests. As of October 2026 that list is: Trinity College London, the IELTS SELT Consortium (IELTS for UKVI and IELTS Life Skills), LANGUAGECERT, Pearson (PTE Academic UKVI and PTE Home), and PSI Services for tests taken outside the UK.
Duolingo is not on it.
So if your situation is one where the Home Office requires a SELT, a Duolingo score will not satisfy it, no matter how many universities accept the test. That is worth knowing before you pay for one.
But that does not mean Duolingo is useless for the UK
Here is the part that gets lost. A SELT is not always required.
For study at degree level or above, the Home Office allows something else: in its own words, “your Higher Education Provider (HEP) can assess your level of English themselves.” The university may use a different test, which “must still be equivalent to a CEFR level B2”.
So if you are applying for a master's and your university accepts the Duolingo English Test and is satisfied by your score, it can assess you on that basis and vouch for it. The visa then rests on the sponsor's assessment, not on a SELT.
Which gives a clean rule:
- Degree level and the university accepts DET — workable. Confirm with the university in writing that they will assess you on it.
- Below degree level — a SELT is required, so DET will not do.
- University does not accept DET — the question does not arise. Sit an approved test.
The one thing never to do is assume. Ask the admissions office whether they accept the Duolingo English Test and whether they will assess your English on it for CAS purposes. Those are two questions, and the second is the one that matters.
What the test actually is
- Length: about an hour end to end — five minutes of setup and ID verification, a 45-minute scored assessment, then writing and speaking samples
- Where: online, at home, with no test centre
- Results: in two days
- Scale: 10–160, with subscores for Literacy, Comprehension, Conversation and Production that average to the overall figure
- Reach: Duolingo states it is accepted by 6,500+ institutions worldwide
Those subscores matter more than students expect. Several universities set a minimum on individual subscores as well as the overall, in the same way IELTS requires a per-component minimum. A strong overall built on a weak Production subscore can still miss.
We are not publishing a DET-to-IELTS conversion table here, because the honest version is more complicated than a two-column chart and a wrong equivalence sends someone into an application underprepared. Duolingo publishes its own comparison against IELTS, TOEFL and CEFR; use theirs.
What it costs, and why we are not printing a number
This is the most-asked question about the DET, and it has an awkward answer: Duolingo does not publish the price on any public page. We checked the applicant pages, the score pages and their own help centre. The figure appears when you go to buy a test, and it moves with promotions and bundles.
Plenty of agent sites and blogs quote a figure anyway. Those go stale, and a stale price is worse than none when you are budgeting. So, what we can tell you without inventing a number:
- It is materially cheaper than IELTS. That gap is the main reason students look at the DET at all, and it is real.
- Duolingo sells test bundles — two tests bought together cost less per test than two bought separately. Worth knowing before the first purchase if you think a retake is likely, because you cannot apply the bundle price retrospectively.
- Take the price from Duolingo's purchase page, on the day you buy. Same principle as taking tuition from the university's own page rather than from a consultant's table.
One thing that genuinely is free: Duolingo publishes an official practice test on its preparation pages. Do that before you pay for anything. It tells you roughly where you are sitting, and if that is well below the band your universities ask for, you have learned it for nothing rather than for the price of a test.
Where it genuinely helps
Cost and logistics. It is materially cheaper than IELTS and needs no centre booking, which matters if you are not in a metro. For a student applying to six universities who simply needs a score on file, that is a real saving in money and weeks.
Speed. Two days versus a fortnight changes what is possible when a deadline is close. If you have missed a results window, the DET may be the only test that fits.
Retakes. Because it is cheap and fast, a retake is a smaller decision than an IELTS retake. That alone makes it a reasonable first attempt for students unsure where they stand — find out cheaply, then decide.
Where it does not
Anywhere a SELT is required, as above.
Where your shortlist does not accept it. 6,500 institutions is a large number and still not all of them. One university on your list that refuses DET means sitting another test anyway — at which point the saving is gone and you have paid twice.
Where the visa route is not the UK's. Every country decides separately. Australia's Department of Home Affairs maintains its own list of approved tests for the Student visa, and a university's acceptance does not move it. Check the immigration department's list for your destination, not the university's prospectus.
How to decide, in order
- List your universities first, then pick the test. Not the other way round. The test that works is the one every university on your list accepts.
- Check the visa rule for your destination separately from the university rule. They are different bodies and they answer differently — our guide to studying abroad without IELTS sets out how that gap catches people.
- If both clear, take the DET. It is cheaper, faster and repeatable.
- If either is in doubt, take an approved test. The saving is not worth a refused visa.
Our comparison of IELTS, PTE, TOEFL and Duolingo covers how the four sit against each other, and our free test preparation is open to anyone, whichever you choose.
Test facts above are from Duolingo's own pages and the UK approved-SELT list at gov.uk, both read in October 2026. Approved-test lists change, and the DET's acceptance is growing — so confirm both the university's position and the immigration department's before you book anything.