What Is the Average Typing Speed?

Ask ten people how fast they type and most will guess too high. The honest number: the average typist manages about 40 words per minute, and the average accuracy hovers between 92% and 96%. If you are beating that, you are already ahead of most of the room.

The short answer

Across large typing-test datasets, the distribution of net WPM (correct characters only) looks roughly like this:

So 40 WPM is normal, 60 WPM is genuinely fast, and anything past 80 WPM puts you in professional territory — transcriptionists, court reporters and top-tier typists.

Average typing speed by group

• Students and casual computer users: 30–40 WPM.
• Office workers who type all day: 40–55 WPM.
• Developers and writers: 50–70 WPM.
• Professional transcriptionists: 70–95 WPM.
• Competitive typists (the top 1%): 100–150+ WPM.

Notice that even professionals rarely sit above 95 WPM in sustained work. The 200 WPM sprint records you see online are exactly that — short bursts on easy text, not all-day output.

What speed should you aim for?

For everyday work, 60 WPM at 97%+ accuracy is a far better target than 90 WPM at 90% accuracy. Slow-but-correct beats fast-but-sloppy once you count the time spent fixing mistakes: every error costs a backspace, a retype and a moment of lost focus. Aim for 60/97 first; the extra speed then comes almost for free.

Why self-reported typing speeds are wrong

Most people quote their peak burst speed from years ago, on familiar text, with errors forgiven. A proper test measures net WPM — only what you typed correctly, over a full minute, on words you have never seen. That is the number employers and typing services actually care about, and it is usually 10–20% lower than the number in your head.