Short answer: yes. Spelling is marked under Lexical Resource, and the computer-delivered test has no spell-check. Occasional slips are forgiven at higher bands, but frequent errors drag your Lexical Resource score down — and misspellings that obscure meaning hurt more than harmless ones. The good news: it's one of the easiest things to fix.
✍️ Open Typehush and practise typing accurate, high-band English →IELTS Writing is scored on four criteria, and spelling lives inside Lexical Resource — the same criterion that judges your vocabulary range and word choice. The public band descriptors are explicit: they refer to "errors in spelling and word formation," and how often those errors appear is part of what separates one band from the next. So spelling isn't a separate deduction tacked on at the end; it's woven into a quarter of your Writing mark. A candidate with rich vocabulary but frequent misspellings can't reach the top of Lexical Resource, because accurate use is part of the definition of a wide resource.
| Band level | What it tolerates on spelling |
|---|---|
| Band 8 | Very occasional errors only; word choice is otherwise skilful and precise |
| Band 7 | Occasional errors in spelling and word formation that don't distract the reader |
| Band 6 | Some errors that may cause difficulty for the reader, but meaning is generally clear |
| Band 5 | Noticeable, frequent errors that can cause strain for the reader |
The pattern is clear: it's not one misspelling that hurts — it's the frequency. And errors that make a word hard to recognise cost more than a near-miss on a long word, because they force the reader to work.
This surprises people: the computer-delivered IELTS Writing screen is not like a word processor. There is no spell-checker, no autocorrect, and no red underline flagging mistakes. You are as responsible for your spelling as you would be with a pen on paper. If anything, typing can introduce new errors — transposed letters, doubled keys, dropped endings — that you'd never make by hand. So on the computer test, spelling accuracy is partly a typing accuracy problem, and the fix for both is the same: practise typing real English until clean output is automatic.
Both are accepted. You can write colour or color, organise or organize — IELTS doesn't favour one system. The only rule is consistency: don't mix "colour" and "organize" in the same essay. Pick the variety you know best and stay with it throughout.
Because spelling errors on the computer test are half vocabulary and half keyboard, the most efficient way to reduce them is to type real, high-quality English regularly. Typing Cambridge model essays does three things at once: it drills correct spellings into muscle memory, it exposes the words you personally get wrong, and it builds the typing accuracy that stops slips creeping in on the day. You end up faster and cleaner — the exact combination the computer-delivered Writing test rewards.
Yes — they're marked under Lexical Resource. Occasional slips are fine at higher bands, but frequent errors pull that criterion down.
No. There's no spell-check or autocorrect — your own proofreading is the only check you get.
Both are accepted; just be consistent within one essay.
Occasional ones that don't distract the reader — no fixed count, but rare rather than frequent.
Typehush — practise typing high-band IELTS model essays for the computer-based Writing test. Start practising · Model-essay library · How to get Band 7 · Computer vs paper