IQ 174
An IQ of 174 is higher than almost everyone: about 1 in 2.5 million.
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- 99.999th
- Percentile, at least
- 1 in 2.5 million
- Score 174 or higher
- Profoundly Gifted
- Classification
Most tests cannot measure this high reliably, so read a 174 as "far above 150" rather than an exact number. The rarity comes from the bell curve model.
An IQ of 174 falls in the profoundly gifted IQ range, which starts at 160. Find 174 on the IQ chart, or check how rare any score is with the IQ rarity calculator.
IQ 174: beyond what most tests can measure
A 174 is 14 points past the ceiling most major tests publish. The model rarity, about 1 in 2.5 million, describes about 3,300 people worldwide, which is far beyond anything a test has been checked against.
No test has enough people in its norm sample to check its accuracy at 174. In a 2,200-person sample the bell curve expects effectively nobody at 174 or higher.
None of this means nobody is this able. It means a single number is not a reliable way to describe them.
How claims like "174 IQ" arise
A 174 almost never comes from a modern, supervised adult test. It usually comes from somewhere like this:
- Ratio IQ. Early childhood tests divided mental age by real age. A 6-year-old solving puzzles like a typical 10.4-year-old got a ratio IQ of 174. Modern deviation IQs do not work this way.
- Unnormed online quizzes. A test with no norm data can print any number. Very high outputs usually say more about the scoring than the person.
- Repetition without a source. Numbers attached to celebrities are often copied from site to site with no test report behind them.
Famous estimates: Newton, da Vinci and the 160+ club
Isaac Newton and Leonardo da Vinci are usually given estimates of 160 or more, and they are among 42 such profiles here. Only 4 go as high as 174. All are judgements from biographies, not test results.
Estimates this high mostly reflect how extraordinary the achievement was. That is a different thing from how someone would perform on a timed reasoning test.
How many people have an IQ of 174 or higher?
If IQ follows the standard bell curve, 0.00004% of people score 174 or higher. Here is what that share means across whole populations:
| Where | Population | IQ 174+ |
|---|---|---|
| UK | 68 million | 28 |
| US | 335 million | 140 |
| World | 8.1 billion | 3,300 |
In a city the size of London, about 9 million, you would expect about 4 people to score 174 or higher.
About 1 in 7.2 million people would score exactly 174, meaning between 173.5 and 174.5 on a continuous scale. In the UK that is about 9 people.
These are model estimates: a bell curve applied to whole populations, including children, rounded. They are not census counts, and real test norms differ a little from one test to another.
How rare is an IQ of 174?
Compare the neighbours: 169 or higher is about 1 in 473,000, 174 or higher is 1 in 2.5 million, and 179 or higher is 1 in 14 million. Each point up here adds roughly 41% to the rarity.
What your 174 could really be. At this height the margin of error is wide. Just 5 points either way, 169 or 179, changes the model rarity from 1 in 473,000 to 1 in 14 million, which shows how fragile such numbers are.
Which scale was it on? Most modern tests use a standard deviation of 15, which is what this page assumes. If your 174 came from a test using an SD of 16, it is about 169 on the SD 15 scale. From an SD 24 scale, used by some Cattell-style reports, it is about 146.
Famous people with an estimated IQ near 174
Estimates this high are reserved for a small group of scientists, artists and thinkers. These sit near 174. Every figure below is a retrospective estimate, not a measured score. Open a profile to see the evidence and how confident anyone can be.
- Alan Turing's IQ (estimated 170+): Mathematician & Computer Scientist, 20th Century. 4 points below IQ 174.
- Pierre-Simon Laplace's IQ (estimated 170+): Mathematician & Astronomer, 18th-19th Century. 4 points below IQ 174.
Fictional characters near 174
For fun, not science: fan estimates for characters near 174, based on how they reason in their stories.
- Reed Richards' IQ (fan estimate 175): Fantastic Four. 1 point above IQ 174.
See all historical IQ estimates or all fictional character IQs.
174 compared with nearby scores
How 174 stacks up against the scores just around it and the round numbers people usually ask about. Each score links to its own page.
| IQ | Classification | Percentile | Score higher |
|---|---|---|---|
| IQ 100 | Average | 50th | 50% |
| IQ 110 | High Average | 74.8th | 25% |
| IQ 120 | Superior | 90.9th | 9.1% |
| IQ 130 | Gifted | 97.7th | 2.3% |
| IQ 140 | Gifted | 99.62nd | 0.38% |
| IQ 150 | Genius | 99.96th | 0.043% |
| IQ 169 | Profoundly Gifted | >99.999th | 0.00021% |
| IQ 173 | Profoundly Gifted | >99.999th | 0.000057% |
| IQ 174 | Profoundly Gifted | >99.999th | 0.00004% |
| IQ 175 | Profoundly Gifted | >99.999th | 0.000029% |
| IQ 179 | Profoundly Gifted | >99.999th | 0.000007% |
Questions about an IQ of 174
Is 174 a good IQ?
What percentile is an IQ of 174?
Is 174 genius level?
What does an IQ of 174 mean?
How rare is an IQ of 174?
What is the mental age for an IQ of 174?
Next in IQ scores
More in IQ scores
- IQ 120 percentileSuperior range, top 10%
- IQ 125 percentileAbout 1 in 20 people
- IQ 130 percentileThe usual gifted line
Related tools
- IQ rarity calculatorHow rare a score is, as 1 in N
- IQ chartEvery band and what it means
- IQ bell curvePlot a score on the distribution
Is your IQ above 174?
See where you land next to 174 with 25 visual reasoning questions.
25 questions · about 12 minutes
Percentiles and counts use a normal distribution with mean 100 and standard deviation 15. Real tests have their own norms, confidence intervals and ceilings, so treat every figure here as an approximation, not a diagnosis. Two tests often give different numbers for the same person: here is why.
By the LifeScore Editorial Team. Reviewed October 2026. Editorial policy