How long does it take to reach 1500?
We read 570 real Lichess rating histories. About three weeks of actual playing, spread over six months of calendar — and half the players never had to make the climb at all.
There is a catch in the question that nobody mentions. On Lichess a new account is handed 1500 on day one, so for half the players we measured — 287 of 570 — the first rating their history ever records is already at or above it. They did not reach 1500; they were given it, and then found out whether they could hold it. The median first recorded rating in this sample is 1514, which is that starting line showing through the data. So the real question belongs to the other half: the players whose rating settled below 1500 and who had to climb. Chess.com starts people lower, which is why the same question has a different answer there, and why any single number you have read is probably answering about a different site.
| Milestone | Had to climb to it | Share who got there | Days played | Days elapsed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,200 | 88 | 90.9% | 21 | 133 |
| 1,400 | 226 | 79.2% | 13 | 110 |
| 1,500 | 283 | 71.4% | 19 | 180 |
| 1,600 | 332 | 62.3% | 25 | 160 |
| 1,800 | 462 | 44.6% | 24 | 160 |
| 2,000 | 544 | 23% | 46 | 312 |
Two clocks, and the gap between them is most of the answer. Getting to 1500 took a median of 19 days on which the player actually played, and 180 days of calendar time. That is under three weeks of chess spread across six months, and quoting either figure alone is how this question gets answered badly: “six months” sounds like a grind, “nineteen days” sounds like a fortnight of effort, and they describe the same people. Then read the third column, which is the one usually missing. Of the players who had to climb to 1500, 71% got there. Of those below 1800, fewer than half did. Of those below 2000, 23% did — so a median time to 2000 describes the one player in four who made it and says nothing whatever about the other three.
The median first rating recorded in this sample is 1,514, and 50.4% of these players were already at or above 1500 on the first day their history has a point — because that is where Lichess starts a new account.
Two limits worth knowing. These are people who enter arena tournaments, so they play more than a casual account does; their current blitz ratings run from about 1310 at the tenth percentile to 1975 at the ninetieth, which is a real spread but not a random sample of everyone who ever signed up. And the players who have not reached a milestone are not finished — someone eight months in may well cross 1800 next year, so every share here is a floor rather than a verdict. What the table does settle is the shape of the thing. Progress is not measured in months of membership, it is measured in days at the board, and the honest answer to “how long does it take” is “about twenty playing days, if you are one of the seven in ten who get there”.
Common questions
Is 1500 good?
On Lichess it is roughly the middle, which is exactly why the site starts you there. It is not the same 1500 as on Chess.com or over the board — those are different scales, and one player carries a different number on each. If you want yours placed against the population it actually came from, that is what the rest of this site does.
I have been playing a year and I am not there yet.
Then you are in ordinary company: 29% of the players in this sample who started below 1500 had not reached it either. Look at the two clocks before concluding anything about yourself — a year of membership with twenty games in it is not a year of chess, and what moves a rating is days at the board, not months since signing up.
Why does reaching 1200 take longer than reaching 1400?
Because those two rows describe different people. Only players whose rating fell below 1200 appear in the first one, and someone who has dropped that far from a 1500 start is having a harder time than someone who settled at 1350. Each row is its own population, which is why the times do not form a neat ladder even though the shares do.
Counted from 570 Lichess blitz rating histories, drawn from 6 finished open arena tournaments read from first place to last, each history carrying at least 20 days of recorded rating movement. Days played counts the days a rating actually moved. Measured 2026-08-02; no username is published, only counts and medians.