Converter / Average chess rating

What Is the Average Chess Rating?

As of July 2026, the average (median) active rated blitz player sits at about 694 on Chess.com and about 1487 on Lichess. Those two numbers describe the same kind of player; the platforms simply run on different scales. Everything below is computed from current player data, not folklore.

Quick answer: if you are rated above 694 on Chess.com blitz or above 1487 on Lichess blitz, you are better than the average active rated player. Averages for every platform and time control are in the first table.

Typical ratings by platform and time control

We use the median of active rated players: the middle player, with half the pool above and half below. Rating distributions have a long right tail, so a mean would drift above what a typical player actually holds; the median is the honest center.

Rating pool	25th pct	Median	75th pct
Chess.com Bullet	370	617	1013
Chess.com Blitz	414	694	1070
Chess.com Rapid	442	714	1053
Lichess Bullet	1238	1567	1900
Lichess Blitz	1197	1487	1766
Lichess Rapid	1101	1392	1674
Lichess Classical	1297	1532	1747

These figures cover active rated players: accounts playing rated games now, not every account ever created. Counting abandoned accounts drags published averages far below what you actually face across the board.

Milestones: from average to elite

Blitz is the most-played pool on both platforms, so it makes the cleanest yardstick:

Percentile	Chess.com Blitz	Lichess Blitz
25th (below average)	414	1197
50th (the average player)	694	1487
75th (clearly above average)	1070	1766
90th (strong club level)	1477	1996
95th (top 5%)	1709	2124
99th (top 1%)	2184	2368

The gap between the platforms is not a constant. Lichess starts new players at 1500 and Chess.com starts them lower, the populations differ, and the distance between the two scales stretches and shrinks across the range. That is why a single "add N points" conversion is wrong at most levels, and why our converter matches percentiles instead.

Is your rating above average?

Type your rating into the converter to get your exact percentile, or read the breakdown for your band below. For scale: a 1200 Chess.com blitz rating is already higher than 81.1% of active rated players, comfortably above the average player, whatever chess culture's inflated expectations suggest.

Your rating, band by band

Getting started: 600 · 700 · 800 · 900

Improving: 1000 · 1100 · 1200 · 1300 · 1400

Advanced: 1500 · 1600 · 1700 · 1800 · 1900

Expert territory: 2000 · 2100 · 2200 · 2300 · 2400

Numbers come from our percentile-equating model, recomputed monthly from the Lichess weekly census (CC0) and our own random sample of active Chess.com players. Full details on the methodology page.

Frequently asked

What is the average chess rating?

Among active rated players in July 2026, the median blitz rating is about 694 on Chess.com and about 1487 on Lichess. There is no single cross-platform average because each site is a separate rating pool with its own starting points and population.

Why is the average rating so much higher on Lichess?

Lichess starts new players at 1500 while Chess.com starts them lower, and the two player populations differ. The same strength therefore maps to a higher number on Lichess across most of the range; the honest comparison is by percentile, not by subtracting a fixed amount.

Is my chess rating above average?

Compare it with the median for your platform and time control: 694 for Chess.com blitz or 1487 for Lichess blitz among active rated players. For example, 1200 on Chess.com blitz is higher than 81.1% of active players, which is well above average.