What the new HSK changed: 6,098 new words and 1,999 that moved level
The old HSK listed 4,991 words. The new standard lists 10,902. That looks like the exam more than doubled, and it did not: levels 1 to 6 grew 7%, HSK 6 got 29% smaller, and almost the whole increase is band 7-9, a band the old exam had no equivalent for.
Below is the word-by-word migration between the two lists. Every number is recomputed when you load this page, so nothing here can drift behind the standards it describes.
The two lists, side by side
| Level | Old HSK words | New standard words | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| HSK 1 | 150 | 302 | +101% |
| HSK 2 | 147 | 198 | +35% |
| HSK 3 | 298 | 491 | +65% |
| HSK 4 | 598 | 991 | +66% |
| HSK 5 | 1,298 | 1,580 | +22% |
| HSK 6 | 2,500 | 1,778 | -29% |
| Band 7-9 | — | 5,562 | New band |
| Levels 1-6 | 4,991 | 5,340 | +7% |
| Everything | 4,991 | 10,902 | +118% |
Read the last two rows together and the headline claim about the new HSK falls apart. The exam did not make its six named levels twice as hard. It kept them roughly where they were, doubled the entry level, shrank the top level, and put a new band above all of them. The one number that changes a beginner's life is HSK 1: 150 words became 302.
Where the old words went
Rows are the old HSK level. Columns are the band that word now sits in. Only the 4,804 words that appear on both lists can be placed, so the row totals are smaller than the level counts above.
| Old level | New 1 | New 2 | New 3 | New 4 | New 5 | New 6 | New 7-9 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HSK 1 | 144 | 3 | · | · | 1 | · | · | 148 |
| HSK 2 | 55 | 70 | 13 | · | 3 | · | · | 141 |
| HSK 3 | 6 | 34 | 226 | 20 | · | 1 | · | 287 |
| HSK 4 | 3 | 5 | 54 | 463 | 53 | 5 | 2 | 585 |
| HSK 5 | 2 | 2 | 12 | 113 | 768 | 252 | 121 | 1,270 |
| HSK 6 | · | · | · | 13 | 156 | 679 | 1,525 | 2,373 |
The diagonal is the finding. 2,350 words of 4,804, or 49%, keep their number. 1,999 moved later and 455 moved earlier. A word list you downloaded for the old exam is therefore right about roughly half of its own labels, and it is wrong in both directions, so no single correction fixes it.
Which old level still means what it did
| Old level | On both lists | Keeps its number | Moved later | Now band 7-9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HSK 1 | 148 | 144 (97%) | 4 | — |
| HSK 2 | 141 | 70 (50%) | 16 | — |
| HSK 3 | 287 | 226 (79%) | 21 | — |
| HSK 4 | 585 | 463 (79%) | 60 | 2 (0%) |
| HSK 5 | 1,270 | 768 (60%) | 373 | 121 (10%) |
| HSK 6 | 2,373 | 679 (29%) | 1,525 | 1,525 (64%) |
Stability falls as you climb. HSK 1 keeps 97% of its words at the same number and HSK 6 keeps 29%. The reason is the new band: 1,525 old HSK 6 words are now band 7-9. Anyone who studied the old HSK 6 list has already met a large part of what the new standard treats as post-HSK-6 material.
The biggest moves in each direction
Ranked by how many levels the word travelled. Each links to its dictionary entry, which carries the reading and the senses; they are deliberately not repeated here, because the dictionary is where a correction gets made once.
| Moved later | Old | New | Moved earlier | Old | New |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 小姐 | HSK 1 | 5 | 女士 | HSK 5 | 1 |
| 孤单 | HSK 4 | 7-9 | 包子 | HSK 5 | 1 |
| 湿润 | HSK 4 | 7-9 | 中文 | HSK 4 | 1 |
| 黄 | HSK 3 | 6 | 饺子 | HSK 4 | 1 |
| 白 | HSK 2 | 5 | 对 | HSK 4 | 1 |
| 黑 | HSK 2 | 5 | 正 | HSK 5 | 2 |
| 红 | HSK 2 | 5 | 不好意思 | HSK 5 | 2 |
| 爱惜 | HSK 5 | 7-9 | 只 | HSK 3 | 1 |
| 鞭炮 | HSK 5 | 7-9 | 面包 | HSK 3 | 1 |
| 辩论 | HSK 5 | 7-9 | 口 | HSK 3 | 1 |
Two sets of words that moved as a group
The word lists in these two tables are chosen by hand, which is a judgement and worth saying out loud. The levels in them are read from the same two files as everything else.
The basic colour words moved up, in some cases by three levels:
| Word | Meaning | Old HSK | New band |
|---|---|---|---|
| 黑 | black | HSK 2 | 5 ↑ |
| 白 | white | HSK 2 | 5 ↑ |
| 红 | red | HSK 2 | 5 ↑ |
| 黄 | yellow | HSK 3 | 6 ↑ |
| 蓝 | blue | HSK 3 | 3 |
| 灰 | grey | HSK 5 | 5 |
| 紫 | purple | HSK 5 | 5 |
Everyday objects and forms of address moved down, several of them to band 1:
| Word | Meaning | Old HSK | New band |
|---|---|---|---|
| 包子 | steamed stuffed bun | HSK 5 | 1 ↓ |
| 饺子 | dumpling | HSK 4 | 1 ↓ |
| 面包 | bread | HSK 3 | 1 ↓ |
| 超市 | supermarket | HSK 3 | 1 ↓ |
| 鸡蛋 | egg | HSK 2 | 1 ↓ |
| 牛奶 | milk | HSK 2 | 1 ↓ |
| 女士 | madam, Ms | HSK 5 | 1 ↓ |
| 中文 | the Chinese language | HSK 4 | 1 ↓ |
The direction of both groups points the same way. The new band 1 is built around what a learner needs in a shop, a canteen and an introduction, and it pays for that room by pushing single-character words that a textbook teaches early but a beginner rarely needs to produce, colours among them, further up the ladder.
The 187 words the new standard dropped
These appear on the old list and nowhere in the new standard, band 7-9 included. The first 40 in stroke order:
上进心 不屑一顾 不择手段 世界观 为首 举世闻名 乌黑 乡镇 付款 以至 伶俐 使劲儿 便条 俯仰 候选 做东 做生意 元宵节 充电器 公共汽车 公婆 公安局 兴致勃勃 冬 凹凸 出洋相 分之 划船 力图 动画片 勤恳 北京 匪徒 反动 合算 合身 吞咽 咋 咬牙切齿 哎哟 … and 147 more.
Three kinds of word dominate the list. Fixed four-character expressions are the largest group. Then institutional and dated nouns. Then single characters and place names that the new standard handles somewhere other than its vocabulary list, so a word missing here is not always a word the exam stopped caring about. Check any individual one before you drop it from your own deck.
What this comparison does not tell you
- Both lists are vendored copies, not the ministry's own files. The new standard's word list is mirrored from a published transcription of the 2021 standard with its 2025 revision, normalised so that trailing sense digits merge and optional parts expand to both forms. Those normalisations move counts by a few words.
- Band 7-9 is one band in the source. The standard publishes 7, 8 and 9 as a single vocabulary list, so nothing here can tell you which of the three a word belongs to. Any article that splits them is inferring.
- A word list is not an exam. Vocabulary is one section. Changes to the paper, the timing and the scoring are on the exam comparison, and the format page covers what you sit.
- A level is a label, not a difficulty measurement. The new band 1 has 302 words where the old had 150. That makes the label harder to reach. It says nothing about whether the words themselves are harder, and several of them are easier.
- Which format your centre runs is still not settled. Prepare for the format printed on your own booking rather than for the one an article names.
Questions about the new HSK word list
Is the new HSK harder than the old one?
Not at the levels that share a name. Levels 1 to 6 of the new standard list 5,340 words against the old list's 4,991, which is 7% more. The 10,902-word total that gets quoted includes band 7-9, a band the old exam had no equivalent for. The bottom did get harder: HSK 1 went from 150 words to 302.
How many words changed level in the new HSK?
4,804 words appear on both lists. 2,350 of them (49%) keep the same number, 1,999 sit later in the new standard and 455 sit earlier. An old word list sorted by level is therefore about half wrong for the new exam.
Is an old HSK 6 word list still useful?
Less than any other level. Of the 2,373 old HSK 6 words that survive into the new standard, 1,525 (64%) are now band 7-9. The new HSK 6 lists 1,778 words against the old level 6's 2,500, so it is a smaller level with much of its old content moved above it.
Which HSK level is least affected by the change?
HSK 1 vocabulary is the most stable. 144 of the 148 old HSK 1 words on both lists are still band 1. The new band 1 is larger, so it adds words rather than moving them.
How many words did the new HSK drop?
187 words on the old list appear nowhere in the new standard, not even in band 7-9. They are mostly fixed four-character expressions and dated objects. 6,098 words in the new standard were on no old list at all.
Where does this data come from?
Two vendored lists: the old HSK vocabulary carried in this site's dictionary, and the 国际中文教育中文水平等级标准 word list in data/hsk30/, transcribed from the Ministry of Education's published standard and its 2025 exam syllabus. Every figure here is recomputed from those two files when the page is requested.
49% of the old labels survived, so a list is a poor way to know where you stand. GraphChinese measures what you can do and serves the next topic from there, on whichever standard your centre prints. The whole course, HSK 0 through HSK 6, is $49 once for lifetime access.
Start at your true level