CILS exams at the Italian Institute of Culture – Edinburgh
CILS is a certification of proficiency in Italian as a foreign language offered by the Università per Stranieri di Siena (more info on the CILS website).
The Italian Institute of Culture in Edinburgh is a recognized centre of CILS exams. More information on how to enrol and exam dates are available below.
Next exam date: 3 December 2026 (levels A1 – upon request -, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2)
If you are interested in taking the exam, please get in touch at corsi.iicedimburgo@esteri.it.
Students of Italian, people working with Italy or want to obtain a long-stay permit, people who want to have their competence in Italian assessed can take a CILS certification exam. The CILS Certification tests are not linked to particular methods or types of language courses: each candidate can prepare for the CILS certification exams in the way they consider most appropriate and most suitable.
The CILS certification system covers six levels of linguistic-communicative competence as per the Council of Europe’s Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). Each CILS level is autonomous, the levels assess progressively higher linguistic-communicative competence.
Each CILS exam assesses five language skills: listening skills, reading comprehension, written production, oral production, analysis of the structures of communication in Italian. To obtain the certificate it is necessary to reach a sufficiency level in each skill.
It is not necessary to have any particular qualifications to take the CILS exam, but only a knowledge of the Italian language corresponding to the parameters indicated for each CILS level.
For more information, please email corsi.iicedimburgo@esteri.it.