PISA 2025 Results (Volume I)

This edition of PISA includes data from 91 countries and economies. While the vast majority of countries and economies met PISA’s technical standards (OECD, 2025[1]) (also available online), a small number did not. Quality assurance data were collected by the PISA Consortium for each adjudicated entity throughout the PISA 2025 assessment. These data were reviewed by the PISA Adjudication Group – comprising the Technical Advisory Group and the Sampling Referee – which recommended appropriate treatments to preserve the overall quality of the data.

The following section outlines the reporting approach, which was developed based on these recommendations. Readers are alerted, where relevant throughout the volume, to any potential limitations identified by the Adjudication Group. For further details, please refer to the PISA 2025 Technical Report (OECD, forthcoming[2]). It is important to note that the limitations and implications were assessed by the PISA Adjudication Group in February 2026. There may be a need for subsequent adjustments as new evidence on the quality and comparability of the data emerges.

The results of six countries and eight regions within countries, listed below, will be reported with annotations, signalled throughout the text with an asterisk. Caution is required when interpreting estimates for these entities because one or more PISA sampling standards listed below were not met.

• Overall exclusion rate. Standard 6.8: The PISA defined target population covers 95% or more of the PISA desired target population. That is, school-level exclusions and within-school exclusions combined do not exceed 5%.

• Institution (school) response rate. Standard 6.13: The final weighted school response rate is at least 85% of sampled eligible and non-excluded institutions. If a response rate is below 85% then an acceptable response rate can still be achieved through agreed-upon use of replacement institutions.

• Student response rate. Standard 6.14: The final weighted student response rate is at least 80% of all students sampled for PISA assessments from PISA defined target population across responding schools.

The 14 entities can be grouped into two groups:

(i) Full reporting with asterisk

Canada:

• School response rate: 79% before replacement, and 82% after replacement. Student response rate: 77%. Non-response issues were not uniform across Canada but concentrated in some provinces. Canada submitted a strong analysis of non-response bias. At the school level, its results suggest that achievement differences between participating schools and non-participating schools are generally small and were deemed statistically not significant after weight adjustments were applied. At the student level, non-response led to slightly higher overall results at the national level. In particular, a small upward bias was observed in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec. Taken together, these provinces account for over 90% of 15-year-old students in Canada, and a positive bias is therefore also present at the national level. Range-of-biases analysis conducted by the OECD, based on hypothetical best- and worst-case scenarios, showed that this upward bias affecting mean-score estimates is unlikely to exceed 15 points in science (±15.0% of a standard deviation), like in the case of the Netherlands and New Zealand.

The Netherlands:

• Overall exclusion rate: 9.3%. This remained close to the rate observed in 2022 (8.4%).

• School response rate: 66% before replacement, and 88% after replacement. Student response rate: 78%. Range-of-bias analyses based on hypothetical best- and worst-case scenarios suggest that, even after weight adjustments, student non-response could still affect mean scores by up to ±9.9% of a standard deviation (i.e about 11 score points in science). In contrast, at the school level, the potential bias is very limited (±2.8%). The Netherlands submitted a rigorous non-response bias analysis, but data about student performance were only available at the school level. At that level, the findings suggest that distortions introduced through school non-response were largely removed by using replacement schools and adjusted weights. At the student level, response rates differed by educational track and grade, and the use of these factors in the adjustments likely reduced the initial differences between respondents and the full sample of respondents and non-respondents. However, it cannot be ruled out that, within each grade and educational track, non-response is still related to student performance or attendance.

New Zealand:

• Overall exclusion rate: 8.1%. Overall exclusions increased over the rate observed in 2022 (5.8%); after removing students with limited language proficiency, exclusions amounted to 6.7%.

• School response rate: 45% before replacement; and 52% after replacement. Student response rate: 76%. New Zealand submitted a rigorous non-response bias analysis, using data from national academic records about students’ achievement in national tests and attendance. At the school level, despite low participation rates, the evidence suggests there is little risk of significant bias. This is because school non-response was not systematically related to performance, and any initial differences were largely removed by using replacement schools and adjusted weights. At the student level, however, the analysis points to a likely upward bias, similar in size to what was already observed in 2022 (when student participation was even lower, at 72%). As a result, mean-score estimates may be over-estimated by about 10 to 15 score points. Even so, this bias is unlikely to affect comparisons between PISA 2022 and PISA 2025 in meaningful ways.

Norway:

• Overall exclusion rate: 10.4%. Overall exclusions increased over the rate observed in 2022 (7.3%). This high level of student exclusions may bias performance results upwards.

Spain’s regions:

• In Spain, within-school exclusions increased between 2022 and 2025; in particular, in two regions: Catalonia (from 5.6% to 23.2%) and Murcia (from 4.1% to 12.7%). While PISA 2025 results for Spain can be fully included in reports, Catalonia’s results are not reported separately due to its higher rate of student exclusion. Murcia’s results are reported, but readers should apply caution due to a potential upward bias.

(ii) Limited reporting with asterisk

Albania:

• School response rate: 76% before and after replacement. During the PISA 2025 Main Study data collection, schools with fewer than 21 PISA-eligible students were not contacted to conduct assessment sessions; as a result, these schools did not participate in PISA 2025. A non-response bias analysis was submitted by the National Centre, and a plausible range for the mean score in science was determined by simulating positive and negative selection scenarios as part of a potential-bias analysis. The sampled schools that did not participate in the assessment are likely to be disproportionately located in socio-economically disadvantaged and rural areas, serving populations with historically lower academic performance. Empirical evidence from prior cycles and from auxiliary contextual indicators suggests that these schools differ from participating schools in both socio-economic composition and academic outcomes. At the same time, even in a strong negative-bias scenario, the resulting bias is unlikely to exceed 7.5% of a standard deviation, and a plausible lower bound for the mean score in science is 428 score points.

• Although non-response adjustments have partially mitigated imbalances related to ISCED level and urbanicity, the complete absence of small schools implies a structural coverage gap that cannot be fully corrected. Therefore, the reporting of results for Albania in international reports is limited, with no trend reporting and questionnaire results being presented “below the line” in the result tables, in order to limit potentially unfair comparisons. Indeed, several aspects measured by the questionnaires may differ more markedly than performance scores between participating and non-participating schools.

The United States:

• Overall exclusion rate: 6.9%. This remained close to PISA 2022 (6.1%). After removing students with limited language proficiency, exclusions represent 5.4% of the desired target population in PISA 2025.

• School response rate: 45% before replacement; and 54% after replacement. Student response rate: 76%. Range-of-bias analyses based on best- and worst-case scenarios suggest that both school non-participation and student non-response could meaningfully affect results. In the most extreme cases, school non-participation could lead to differences of up to about ±15.4% of a standard deviation, and student non-response up to about ±15.9%. A non-response bias analysis was submitted at both the school and student levels. After accounting for replacement schools and adjusted weights, several observed characteristics (though not direct measures of school performance, which were not available) appeared similar between participating and non-participating schools. At the student level, the demographic profile of respondents closely resembled that of the originally selected student sample. However, because no data about student academic achievement or engagement were available, the strength of these findings is limited. As a result, it is not possible to rule out bias in PISA performance results, nor to determine its most likely direction.

• More than 40% of responding students in the United States were not administered the student questionnaire. This is due in roughly equal parts to decisions made at the state level, which introduce systematic gaps in coverage for questionnaire results, and mechanisms that can be expected to be unrelated to student characteristics (such as schools testing early in the testing window, when questionnaire administration was suspended at the national level). Because of this, questionnaire results are presented “below the line” in the result tables, to highlight the risk of distortions caused by the systematic exclusion of students in parts of the country (of the 50 states and 1 federal district, 9 states were excluded). These results, however, are still included in the computation of OECD averages.

Uzbekistan:

• For Uzbekistan, a number of inconsistencies were identified in the mathematics and reading response data that require further investigation. These inconsistencies appear to be more frequent in some schools and regions, and undermine the comparability of the scale scores derived from these response data to other countries and over time. The response data for other domains (science and “learning in the digital world”) do not show the same issues and can be used in reporting. Uzbekistan’s results are therefore only reported in tables and figures based on science or on “learning in the digital world” data, as well as in any tables and figures based only on questionnaire data.

Viet Nam:

• Viet Nam transitioned to computer-based administration in PISA 2025, whereas in all previous participating cycles it used older paper-based instruments derived from PISA 2012. The uncertainty in the trend comparisons beyond linking errors remains undetermined. Therefore, Viet Nam’s data are not included in performance trends analyses, while Viet Nam is included in all other analyses (e.g. analyses of performance in 2025, and all questionnaire-based analyses, including comparisons between 2025 and earlier cycles).

Guatemala and Paraguay also transitioned from paper-based to computer-based assessment in 2025, but used the newer paper-based instruments, based on the PISA for Development tests first implemented in 2017, in PISA 2022. These tests incorporated framework updates up to 2015; trend comparisons are possible but should be interpreted with caution, as the uncertainty extends beyond what is captured by the linking errors considered when testing for their statistical significance.

The data referred to in this volume are presented in Annexes B, with all tables made available in greater detail on the PISA website (www.oecd.org/pisa). The following letters are used to denote missing data:

• a: The category does not apply in the country or economy concerned; data are therefore missing.

• c: There were too few observations to provide reliable estimates (i.e. there were fewer than 30 students or fewer than 5 schools with valid data).

• m: Data are not available. There was no observation in the sample; these data were not collected by the country or economy; or these data were collected but subsequently removed from the publication for technical reasons.

• w: Results were withdrawn at the request of the country or economy concerned.

• x: Data included in another category or column of the table (e.g. “x(2)” means that data are included in Column 2 of the table).

This publication features data from 91 countries and economies, including all OECD Member countries and 53 non‑OECD Member countries and economies (see “What is PISA?” for details). Specific territorial disclaimers and footnotes applicable to this publication are included in the copyright page.

“B-S-J-Z (China)” refers to the four PISA-participating provinces/municipalities of the People’s Republic of China (hereafter “China”): Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

The designation “Ukrainian regions (17 of 27)” refers to the 17 PISA-participating jurisdictions of Ukraine: Cherkasy Oblast, Kirovohrad Oblast, Poltava Oblast, Vinnytsia Oblast, Chernihiv Oblast, Kyiv Oblast, the City of Kyiv, Zhytomyr Oblast, Odesa Oblast, Chernivtsi Oblast, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Khmelnytskyi Oblast, Lviv Oblast, Rivne Oblast, Ternopil Oblast, Volyn Oblast and Zakarpattia Oblast. Due to Russia’s large-scale aggression against Ukraine, the following 10 jurisdictions were not covered: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Donetsk Oblast, Kharkiv Oblast, Luhansk Oblast, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Kherson Oblast, Mykolaiv Oblast, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the city of Sevastopol and Sumy Oblast.

PISA covers students aged between 15 years 3 months and 16 years 2 months at the time of assessment and who are enrolled in school and have completed at least 6 years of formal schooling, regardless of the type of institution in which they are enrolled, and whether they are in full-time or part‑time education, whether they attend academic or vocational programmes, and whether they attend public or private schools or foreign schools within the country or economy (this is known as the “PISA target population”).

Specific restrictions to the coverage apply to the following entities:

• PISA 2025 results for the Kurdistan Region (Iraq) cover public schools only.

• PISA 2025 results for Lebanon cover all governorates except two that were most affected by the evolving conflicts in the Middle East.

• PISA 2025 results for the Palestinian Authority do not cover schools most affected by the evolving conflicts in the Middle East. For the purpose of trend analyses in this report, PISA 2022 results were recalculated to match the same coverage as PISA 2025.

The OECD average corresponds to the arithmetic mean of the respective country estimates. It was calculated for most indicators presented in this report.

In this publication, the OECD average is generally used when the focus is on comparing performance across education systems. In the case of some countries, data may not be available for specific indicators, or specific categories may not apply. Therefore, readers should keep in mind that the term “OECD average” refers to the OECD Member countries included in the respective comparisons. In cases where data are not available or do not apply for all sub-categories of a given population or indicator, the “OECD average” is not necessarily computed on a consistent set of countries across all columns of a table.

In analyses involving data from multiple years, several OECD averages may be reported in the same table, typically based on consistent sets of OECD Member countries; however, where data are missing or not applicable across sub-categories, consistency may vary across columns. For instance, the “OECD average-35” includes only 35 OECD Member countries that have non-missing values across all the assessments for which this average itself is non‑missing. This restriction allows for valid comparisons of the OECD average over time.

The number in the label used in figures and tables indicates the number of countries included in the average:

• OECD average: Arithmetic mean across all OECD Member countries.

• OECD average-35: Arithmetic mean across all OECD Member countries excluding Costa Rica, Luxembourg and Spain. This average allows performance comparisons in science, reading and mathematics since PISA 2015.

• OECD average-29: Arithmetic mean across all OECD Member countries excluding Colombia, Costa Rica, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, Poland, Spain and Türkiye. This average allows performance comparisons in science, reading and mathematics since PISA 2015 among immigrant and first- and second-generation immigrant students. This average is used only in analyses related to immigration.

• OECD average-23: Arithmetic mean across all OECD Member countries excluding Austria, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Estonia, Israel, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Türkiye, the United Kingdom and the United States. This average allows performance comparisons in science, reading and mathematics across all PISA cycles (from PISA 2000 to PISA 2025).

Because of rounding, some figures in tables may not add up exactly to the totals. Totals, differences and averages are always calculated on the basis of exact numbers and are rounded only after calculation.

All standard errors in this publication have been rounded to one or two decimal places. Where the value 0.0 or 0.00 is shown, this does not imply that the standard error is zero, but that it is smaller than 0.05 or 0.005, respectively.

The report uses “15-year-olds” as shorthand for the PISA target population. See the details in the earlier section on coverage.

The principals of the schools in which students were assessed provided information on their schools’ characteristics by completing a school questionnaire. Where responses from school principals are presented in this publication, they are weighted so that they are proportionate to the number of 15-year-olds enrolled in the school.

This volume discusses only statistically significant differences or changes. These are denoted in darker colours in figures and in bold font in tables. Unless otherwise specified, the significance level is set to 5%. See Annex A3 for further information.

The analyses presented in this report are based on the June 2026 version of the data. For details of updates incorporated into the Public Use File released on 8 September 2026, see the PISA 2025 Technical Report (OECD, forthcoming[2]).

The detailed descriptions of questionnaire indices presented in this volume can be found in Chapter 22 of the PISA 2025 Technical Report (OECD, forthcoming[2]).

Following OECD data regulations, a visual distinction between countries (in black) and territories (in blue) has been used in all charts to reduce the risk of data misinterpretation.

For further information on the PISA assessment instruments and the methods used in PISA, see the PISA 2025 Assessment and Analytical Framework (OECD, 2026[3]) and PISA 2025 Technical Report (OECD, forthcoming[2]) .

This report has StatLinks for tables and graphs at the end of the chapters. To download the corresponding Excel® spreadsheet, just type the link into your Internet browser, starting with the https://doi.org prefix, or click on the link from the e-book version.

[3] OECD (2026), PISA 2025 Assessment and Analytical Framework, PISA, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/86c36975-en.

[1] OECD (2025), PISA 2025 Technical Standards, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/about/programmes/edu/pisa/publications/technical-standards/PISA_2025_Technical_Standards.pdf.

[2] OECD (forthcoming), PISA 2025 Technical Report, OECD Publishing, Paris.