Australian Citizenship Test 2026: Free Practice Questions by Topic
To pass the Australian citizenship test you need two things at once: at least 15 of the 20 multiple choice questions correct, and every one of the five Australian values questions correct. The test runs for 45 minutes and is drawn from the official study booklet, Australian Citizenship: Our Common Bond. These four topic guides cover the booklet part by part, with free practice questions from an 813-question bank.
How do you pass the Australian citizenship test?
You pass by clearing two hurdles in the same sitting. The first is the overall mark: the test has 20 multiple choice questions, you have 45 minutes, and you must answer at least 15 correctly, which is 75 per cent. The second hurdle is the one that catches prepared candidates off guard: five of the 20 questions are drawn from Part 4 of the booklet, Australian values, and you must answer all five of them correctly. There is no averaging between the two rules. A candidate who scores 19 out of 20 but misses a single values question fails, while a candidate who scores exactly 15 with all five values questions right passes. That structure should shape your study plan: master the values section to a level where you cannot be caught out, then build the remaining 15 marks across the other three parts of the booklet.
The four parts of Our Common Bond, and a guide for each
Every question in the test comes from the testable section of Australian Citizenship: Our Common Bond, which is organised into four parts. Each guide below explains what its part actually tests, gives you a comparison table for the points candidates confuse, answers the questions people really ask, and lets you try free practice questions with full explanations:
- Australia and its people: the First Australians, the First Fleet in 1788, the gold rush, Federation in 1901, the states and territories, national days and the national symbols.
- Democratic beliefs, rights and liberties: parliamentary democracy, the Rule of Law, the freedoms of speech, association and religion, and the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship.
- Government and the law: the Constitution, the three arms of government, Parliament and the Senate, the Governor-General, voting, the courts and the police.
- Australian values: freedom, respect, fairness and equality of opportunity, the section where all five of your test questions must be answered correctly.
Why the values section decides your result
Part 4, Australian values, is short compared with the rest of the booklet, but it carries a rule no other section has: a wrong answer there is an automatic fail, whatever your total score. The values questions are also written differently. Instead of asking for a date or a name, they present everyday situations and ask what is consistent with Australian values and Australian law: whether a better qualified woman should be hired ahead of a man, whether a person can be forced to join an organisation, what the law says about polygamy and forced marriage, or how the law treats violence against a spouse or partner. The booklet names freedom, respect, fairness and equality of opportunity as the values central to Australia remaining a secure, prosperous and peaceful place to live, and the questions test whether you can apply those values, not just recite them. Treat the values guide as your first stop and return to it until every practice question feels obvious.
What the rest of the booklet actually tests
The other three parts reward focused factual study. Part 1 is history, geography and symbols: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first inhabitants with the oldest continuous cultures in the world, the First Fleet arriving on 26 January 1788, the gold rush of 1851, Federation on 1 January 1901, the six states and two mainland territories, and symbols such as the golden wattle and the Commonwealth Star. Part 2 covers the beliefs and freedoms behind Australian democracy, and the split between what a citizen must do, such as vote and serve on a jury if called, and what a citizen may do, such as apply for an Australian passport. Part 3 is the largest single source of questions in our bank: how the Constitution divides power between the legislative, executive and judicial arms, how the two Houses of Parliament work, what the Governor-General does, and how the courts and police operate independently of government.
How to use these free guides
Start with the values guide, then work through the other three in any order, using the free practice questions on each page to find your weak spots. Every question shows the correct answer with a full explanation and a reference to the section of Our Common Bond it comes from, so you can check anything against the official booklet itself. The questions are a free sample of the same bank that powers our offline study app, which holds 813 original practice questions and 192 flashcards written from the 2020 edition of the booklet, published by the Commonwealth of Australia under a CC BY 4.0 licence. RiverMap Learning is an independent study resource: we are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or representing the Australian Government, and the citizenship application itself happens only through the Department of Home Affairs. The facts on these pages were last reviewed on 2026-07-13; always confirm application requirements against the official site before you book your test.