The highest IQ ever recorded
The famous numbers, where they actually come from, and why almost none of them would survive a modern test.
By the MyIQTest team · Reviewed November 2026
The short answer: there is no verified record. The best-known claim is Marilyn vos Savant, reported as high as 228 from childhood testing, but Guinness retired the category in 1990. Modern professional IQ tests top out at 160.
- 160 highest score on today’s professional tests
- 1 in 31,600 people score 160 or more
- 1990 Guinness retires “highest IQ”
- 140 the classic “genius” line since 1916
Famous IQ scores: claimed vs. verified
Marilyn vos Savant
Tested, ratio scaleChildhood Stanford-Binet results reported in the 1980s, calculated as a ratio IQ. Listed by Guinness for “highest IQ” until it retired the category.
William James Sidis
Estimate onlyRetrospective guesses about a famous child prodigy who entered Harvard at 11. He never took a modern IQ test.
Kim Ung-yong
Childhood ratio scoreChildhood testing of a Korean prodigy, once cited by Guinness.
Terence Tao
Not verifiedOnline claims only. What is documented: he scored 760 on the SAT math section at age 8 and won an IMO gold medal at 13.
Christopher Langan
ReportedScores reported in media profiles from high-range and supervised tests.
Albert Einstein
Estimate onlyA popular estimate. Einstein never took an IQ test.
Stephen Hawking
Estimate onlyA popular estimate. Asked about his IQ, Hawking said he had no idea and that people who boast about their IQ are “losers”.
Elon Musk
Estimate onlyAn internet estimate. No test result has been published.
Figures are as reported in public sources. Apart from childhood scores, none come from a published, supervised modern IQ test.
Why scores above 200 don’t add up
Modern IQ is a deviation score: it says how rare your result is. Every 15 points is one standard deviation, and rarity explodes as you move out. Here is how many people you would need to meet to find one person at each score:
An IQ of 200 would be rarer than 1 in 76 billion, while about 8 billion people are alive today. No test could ever be calibrated that far out, because there would be nobody to calibrate it against. (The bars use a log scale; otherwise only the bottom one would be visible.)
What a 140 looks like in a crowd
In a room of 1,000 people, someone with an IQ of 140 would be smarter than 996 of them.
- Outscored: 996
- Would score higher: 4
That is the classic “genius” line: about 1 person in 260 scores above 140.
Ratio IQ vs. deviation IQ: where the giant numbers come from
Ratio IQ
Mental age ÷ real age × 100. A 6-year-old who performs like a 12-year-old gets 200. It exaggerates prodigies and doesn’t work for adults at all.
Deviation IQ
Your position on a bell curve of people your age. It is why scores stop around 160: there simply aren’t enough people beyond that to measure against.
Every major test switched to deviation scores decades ago, starting with David Wechsler’s scale in 1939. Most of the legendary 200+ figures predate that switch, or come from childhood testing.
Others come from history books. In 1926, Catharine Cox estimated childhood IQs for 301 eminent historical figures by reading their biographies. Those figures are educated guesses, not test results.
What is the highest score on today’s tests?
The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale and the Stanford-Binet 5 report full-scale IQs up to 160. Beyond about 150, even these tests have very little data to separate people, so a 155 and a 160 can be within measurement error of each other. Societies for very high scorers rely on special “high-range” tests, which are not validated the way the main professional tests are.
High-IQ societies and what they require
| Society | Admits | Equivalent IQ (SD 15) |
|---|---|---|
| Mensa | top 2% | 130+ |
| Intertel | top 1% | 135+ |
| Triple Nine Society | top 0.1% | 146+ |
| Prometheus Society | 1 in 30,000 | 160+ |
| Mega Society | 1 in a million | 171+ |
Equivalents are approximate translations of each society’s percentile cut-off onto the standard scale. Each society sets its own list of accepted tests.
What counts as a genius IQ?
There’s no official cut-off. Lewis Terman, who adapted the Stanford-Binet test in 1916, described scores above 140 as “near genius or genius”, and the number stuck. On the modern scale, about 1 person in 260 scores above 140. Mensa, the best-known high-IQ society, accepts the top 2%, which is 130 on the standard scale.
High scores also aren’t the same as achievement. Terman followed about 1,500 high-IQ children for decades. Many did very well, but none won a Nobel Prize, while two boys his screening passed over, William Shockley and Luis Alvarez, later did.
See what specific high scores mean: 135, 140, 145, 150, 160.
Highest IQ FAQ
Who has the highest IQ ever recorded?
No one holds a verified record today. Guinness listed Marilyn vos Savant, with a childhood score reported as high as 228, but retired the “highest IQ” category in 1990 because tests are too unreliable at the extremes.
Who has the highest IQ alive today?
There is no verified answer. Modern professional IQ tests top out at 160, and the extreme figures you see online come from childhood ratio scores, unsupervised high-range tests or guesses.
What was Albert Einstein’s IQ?
Nobody knows. Einstein never took an IQ test. The figure of about 160 that is often quoted is a modern estimate, not a measurement.
What is the highest possible IQ score?
On today’s main professional IQ tests, the Wechsler adult scale and the Stanford-Binet 5, the highest full-scale score you can get is 160. Higher numbers come from old ratio-IQ formulas, special high-range tests or estimates.
Is an IQ of 200 possible?
Not on the modern scale. An IQ of 200 would be 6.7 standard deviations above average, rarer than 1 in 70 billion, more than the number of people alive. Claims of 200+ come from childhood ratio scores or guesses.
What IQ is considered genius?
There is no official threshold. Lewis Terman’s 1916 classification called scores above 140 “near genius or genius”, which is why 140 is the number people usually mean.
How close can you get?
Take the free 30-question IQ test. Hard questions count for more.
Take the free IQ test