What Happens If You Fail Part of the CILS Exam?
- Tiffany
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
It depends on which CILS exam you took. Fail a section of the B1 Standard and it is a setback. Fail a section of the B1 Cittadinanza or the A2 Integrazione and you start over completely. Same certifying body, completely different consequences.
Here is how it actually works...
You have to pass every section
Every CILS exam tests separate skills, and each one is scored on its own. There is no overall average that carries you through. You have to hit the minimum in every single section. A strong listening score does not rescue a weak written one.
So “failing the CILS” usually does not mean failing the whole exam. It means missing the mark in one or two sections while passing the rest. What happens next comes down to a single word...
Capitalizzazione, and who does not get it
CILS has a provision called capitalization, or capitalizzazione. It is the line between a bad day and a wasted exam.
The rule is simple. If you pass some sections and fail others, your passed sections stay valid for 18 months from the date of your exam. Inside that window, you register for a later session and sit only the sections you did not pass. You pay for only those sections, not the full exam fee. And you can do it at any CILS center, in Italy or abroad. It does not have to be the one where you originally sat.
That is the good news. Here is the catch. Capitalizzazione applies to almost every CILS exam, but not the A2 Integrazione and not the B1 Cittadinanza... The two most commonly taken exams are the two with no safety net.
On those two, missing the mark in a single section voids the whole exam. Your passing sections do not carry forward. You register again, sit the complete exam from the start, and pay the full fee again.
The catch that flips the math
So the B1 Standard is the exam that gives you a second chance at passing, but you may still want the Cittadinanza (Citizenship) version. Why?
The CILS exams are given six times per year: February, April, June, July, October, and December. The B1 Cittadinanza and A2 Integrazione is given at all 6 exam sessions. The B1 Standard, however, is only administered in June and December.
That flips the math. A failed B1 Cittadinanza can often be repeated within a couple of months, even though you repeat all of it. A failed B1 Standard section can leave you waiting six months for the next sitting, even though you only need to redo one part.
The B1 Cittadinanza is the narrower exam and the easier of the two. But it carries the harsher penalty for a bad day. The B1 Standard hands you a second chance at individual exam sections, then makes you wait half a year for a re-take.
Still deciding between the two? We compare them in full in CILS B1 Cittadinanza vs B1 Standard, and make the case for the standard version in why you might take B1 Standard instead.
The timing trap
There is one more piece of timing that catches people off guard, and it has nothing to do with which exam you took.
Results are not instant. You wait weeks, and citizenship results generally come back faster than the others. Meanwhile, registration for the next session closes well before that session runs. So your results can land after the deadline to register for the next exam session has already passed. Plan for that gap instead of discovering it.
One thing to be clear about: registration deadlines are set by individual exam centers, not by a single national date. The University of Siena publishes the calendar, but each center runs its own registration window, and those windows differ. Some close a month ahead. Some fill their seats and close early. Whatever you read online, including here, confirm it directly with the center where you plan to sit. That is the only date that governs you.
For the calendar, see CILS exam dates, and for the process, how to register for a CILS exam.
If you failed a section, start with why
Before you register for anything, work out what actually went wrong. In our experience, the answer is rarely that someone’s Italian is not good enough.
Far more often it is the format. Running out of time on a section. Misreading what a task was asking for. Seeing a question type for the first time on exam day. Those are all fixable, and fixable quickly, but only if you know which issue caught you off guard. The most common failure points are the ones we break down in the mistakes that cost people the B1 citizenship exam.
Preparing for the retake
If you are resitting the whole exam, prepare for the whole exam. But if capitalizzazione applies and you only need one or two sections, you do not need a full program, and you should not pay for one.
We have the B1 Standard exam prep sections available individually for exactly this situation:
Passed everything except the written section? That is all you prepare for. Nothing else.
If you are starting over, or sitting an exam where capitalization does not apply, the full programs are here:
Not sure which exam you need? Take the two-minute quiz.
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