IB Diploma Requirements: What You Actually Need to Pass

If you are starting your second IB year, or preparing for the November session, understanding exactly what you need to receive the diploma matters now. There is a difference between knowing you need to do well and knowing precisely which conditions you must meet. This guide covers each requirement clearly, where students most commonly fall short, and how to plan with these targets in front of you.

To earn the IB diploma, you need at least 24 points out of a possible 45 from six subjects, no grade 1 in any single subject, a Higher Level subject total of at least 12 points, a Standard Level total of at least 9, no E grade in either your Theory of Knowledge essay or Extended Essay, and completed CAS. Each condition is independent: failing any one of them means no diploma, regardless of your other results.

How the 45-point total works

The IB grades each of your six subjects on a scale from 1 (lowest) to 7 (highest). Six subjects at 7 each gives 42 subject points. On top of that, you can earn up to 3 bonus points from your Theory of Knowledge and Extended Essay combined, bringing the theoretical maximum to 45 points.

The diploma requires a minimum of 24 points from this total. That is an average of 4 across your six subjects, with no bonus points. In practice, most students aiming to pass comfortably target 27 to 30 or higher, which provides a buffer against a weaker paper on the day. Students targeting selective universities in the UK or internationally are usually working toward 36 or above.

It is worth understanding that the bonus points from TOK and your EE can genuinely move you across the 24-point threshold if you are near it. Two students with the same six subject grades can end up with different diploma totals depending on how their TOK and EE are graded.

The grade conditions that override your total

Reaching 24 points is a necessary condition but not a sufficient one. The IBO applies several additional requirements, each of which is independently capable of preventing the diploma from being awarded. These are set out in the IBO's diploma programme documentation.

No grade 1 in any subject

A grade of 1 in any subject is an automatic diploma fail. It does not matter if your total comfortably exceeds 24 in every other way: a single grade 1 ends the result. Grade 1 is the IBO's lowest descriptor, used when the work submitted does not meet the minimum standard for assessment.

Most students are not at serious risk of a 1 unless they have effectively stopped engaging with a subject. But it is worth knowing that there is no averaging-away this condition.

Higher Level subjects must total at least 12

If you take the standard three Higher Level subjects, their combined grade total must reach at least 12 points. That is an average of 4 per HL subject. A student could have a strong total of 28 points overall and still not receive the diploma if their three HL grades add up to only 11.

This condition catches students who are struggling significantly in one HL subject and have not addressed it early enough. A 2 in one HL combined with 5 and 5 in the others gets you to 12 and passes this condition. A 3, 4 and 5 (totalling 12) also passes. A 2, 3 and 5 (totalling 10) does not.

Standard Level subjects must total at least 9

The same principle applies to your SL subjects. Their combined total must reach at least 9, an average of 3. This condition mainly catches students who have treated one SL subject as entirely expendable.

Multiple low grades can also fail the diploma

Beyond the HL and SL totals, two further conditions apply across all your subjects. If three or more of your six subjects are graded 2, the diploma is not awarded regardless of your overall total. Similarly, if four or more subjects are graded 3 or below, the diploma is also not awarded. These conditions mean that a student relying on several very high grades to compensate for multiple struggling subjects can still miss the diploma, even with enough total points on paper. The full list of failing conditions is published in the IBO's diploma programme regulations at ibo.org.

Theory of Knowledge and the Extended Essay

TOK and the Extended Essay each carry their own grade (A through E), and together they determine the bonus points added to your subject total. More critically, both carry a hard fail condition.

An E grade in either your TOK essay or your Extended Essay is an automatic diploma fail. This is the most frequently overlooked condition among students who are otherwise on track. A student who has 28 subject points but submits a TOK essay that receives an E does not receive the diploma.

When both TOK and EE are graded above E, the combination determines your bonus points: strong grades in both can earn up to 3 additional points, contributing meaningfully to your final total. The exact grade combinations and their corresponding bonus points are published on the IBO website and are worth reading early in your second year. In broad terms, two solid grades (B or above in both) earn 2 or 3 bonus points; a D in one or both earns 0 or 1. Any E in either fails the diploma outright.

The Extended Essay is 4,000 words of independent research on a topic of your choosing, assessed against IBO criteria. Students who treat the EE as an afterthought and write it hurriedly in a few weeks regularly earn D or E grades. Given the diploma consequence of an E, your Extended Essay deserves more attention than most students give it in Year 1. The Extended Essay guide covers how to plan and write one that earns a strong grade.

For TOK, the essay is an external assessment worth more to your diploma than students typically realise. It is not an ordinary essay; it requires a very specific type of philosophical argumentation around a Knowledge Question. The TOK essay guide sets out what the top grade actually demands.

CAS: the requirement with no points

Creativity, Activity, Service has no grade attached to it. It is assessed as completed or not completed, and if not completed, you do not receive the diploma. Full stop.

"Completed" means more than just doing the activities. Your school's CAS coordinator has to sign off that you have engaged meaningfully, reflected on your experiences, and met the IBO's CAS learning outcomes. Students who participate in activities without keeping records, or who write reflections as a last-minute box-tick, frequently find their CAS flagged as insufficient.

The practical answer is to treat CAS as a running thread across both years rather than a deadline you will deal with later. A sport, creative pursuit, or community involvement you would undertake anyway satisfies the requirement if you document it properly as you go.

Where students most commonly fall short

Looking at how students miss the diploma is more useful than simply listing the conditions.

Borderline total with a neglected subject. Students who target 26 or 27 points and have one weak subject they never address run the real risk of falling to 23 or 24 and then failing a grade condition on top. Addressing the weak subject early, rather than hoping it comes together in revision, makes a significant difference.

An E in the Extended Essay. The EE is the single most common unexpected diploma fail. Students who understand their subjects well but treat the EE as a lower priority than their main subjects can produce work that does not meet the minimum assessment criteria. An EE that earns an E ends the diploma result regardless of 30 or 35 subject points.

CAS left until the final term. The activities themselves are usually done; the documentation is not. Schools have to submit CAS completion before results are released. Students who have not kept records have a very limited window to reconstruct them, and coordinators are not obligated to approve incomplete records.

An HL subject quietly below 12. Students taking a challenging HL combination, particularly in mathematics or sciences, sometimes find one HL subject underperforming without realising the HL minimum is a distinct condition. Tracking HL grades specifically, not just the total, reveals this early.

Planning around the requirements

The most practical approach is to work backwards from the conditions into a subject-by-subject plan.

Write down your six subjects and a realistic target grade for each. Add them up and check that the total comfortably exceeds 24 (a buffer of 3 to 5 points is sensible; it accounts for an off-day on one paper). Check that your HL targets add to at least 12 and your SL targets to at least 9. Note where your plan is thinnest.

Research on how students maintain knowledge across multiple subjects consistently points to the same conclusion: spaced repetition, returning to material at increasing intervals, produces far better retention than massed revision. Cepeda et al. (2006), in a major meta-analysis of spacing research published in Psychological Bulletin, found that distributed practice led to substantially better long-term retention compared with massed study. In the IB context, this means revisiting your weaker subject's content regularly over both years, not saving it for a pre-exam sprint.

The honest challenge is keeping this kind of multi-subject plan running consistently over two years. You are deciding what to study across six subjects, two assessed core components, and CAS, every single week, while also keeping up with class. Most students do this by instinct and end up discovering their weak points only in mock exams, when time to address them is already short.

Tracking where you are in each subject periodically, and identifying which topic within your weakest HL is the specific problem, is the type of planning that shifts outcomes. Students who find their weak spots and revisit them on a schedule consistently outperform those who revise broadly.

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What to do if you are worried about falling short

If you are in Year 2 and concerned that your predicted grades suggest a borderline result, the most productive thing you can do right now is talk to your subject teachers and your IB coordinator. Schools can identify which students are close to diploma conditions and provide additional support; your coordinator has seen this before and knows what is possible.

For specific subjects where you are underperforming, a targeted revision plan built around past papers and mark schemes is the highest-leverage approach. The IB revision timetable guide covers how to build a subject-by-subject plan for the weeks before exams. Understanding how to read and use predicted grades also helps you work out where you currently sit relative to the requirements.

If you do not receive the diploma in your main session, grade improvements and retakes are available. You can retake individual subjects in subsequent IB exam sessions, and if you then meet all diploma conditions, the IBO will award the diploma retrospectively. This is not the outcome anyone wants to plan for, but it is a real option and not the end of the road.

A note on the IBO as the authority

The IBO publishes the full diploma requirements, failing conditions, and bonus point matrix in its diploma programme documentation at ibo.org. This post covers the core conditions accurately, but the IBO's own published documentation is the authoritative source, and requirements can be updated between exam sessions. Always verify the current conditions through your school's IB coordinator or directly through ibo.org.

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Further reading: How to manage the IB workload | How to get a 7 in IB | Extended Essay guide