Does Khan Academy give a certificate when you finish a course?
None of the Khan Academy courses listed on this page carries a certificate in our records. Khan Academy's own help centre says it is not an accredited school and that work done on the site does not count towards a diploma or degree. The only certificates it names are for teacher training, for Learnstorm and motivational templates for coaches. None of those is tied to finishing a course such as Algebra 1 or Statistics and probability.
That is why no Khan Academy course appears on our free certifications pages, even though every course is free in full.
Is there a Khan Academy certificate of completion?
Not for the courses listed here. What you do get is a record of progress: in courses with tracked skills, your profile shows each skill at one of five levels, from Not started up to Mastered. It is proof for yourself rather than a document for an employer. If a credential matters, start from free online courses with certificates instead, where every entry states what its certificate costs.
How Khan Academy lessons & practice work
Khan Academy free online courses come in two shapes, and the difference matters more than the subject. People searching for Khan Academy certificate courses should note that neither shape ends in a certificate.
Courses with tracked skills and mastery
Most listed courses, including all the maths and history ones, are built for mastery practice. Each unit is a run of short lessons with practice exercises, quizzes partway through and a unit test at the end; a course challenge covers the whole course. The site rates every skill as Not started, Attempted, Familiar, Proficient or Mastered. The course pages state how much is tracked:
- Algebra 1: 17 units and 182 skills
- Calculus 1: 8 units and 171 skills
- Statistics and probability: 16 units and 152 skills
- Grammar overview: 10 units and 100 skills
- World history: 9 units and 74 skills
- AP®︎/College Computer Science Principles: 10 units and 63 skills
- US history: 12 units and 44 skills
Lesson-led courses without a skills counter
Three listed courses have no quizzes, unit tests or mastery tracking. Personal finance and Finance and capital markets are runs of videos and articles grouped by topic, so you can watch a single unit on, say, compound interest and stop there. Computer programming - JavaScript and the web replaces exercises with coding challenges, projects and short review steps, so you write code from the first lesson rather than answering questions about it.
How to start a Khan Academy course
There is no enrolment step, no waiting list and no payment screen. The route is the same for every course listed here:
- Open the course page from our listing and follow the link to Khan Academy; you can watch and read straight away without an account.
- Create a free account if you want progress and mastery levels saved across devices. Teachers, students and families can pick a role at sign-up.
- Choose a unit. There is no fixed order or start date, so begin with the topic you need.
- Do the practice after each lesson, then the quizzes and unit test; finish with the course challenge for a single check of the whole course.
- If Algebra 1 feels too hard, its page points to a separate Get ready for Algebra 1 course, which is not listed here.
What you can study on Khan Academy for free
Every course below is free in full, self-paced and in English, with no stated level or duration.
Mathematics and statistics
Algebra 1 runs from solving equations through functions to quadratics. Calculus 1 covers limits, derivatives, integrals and basic differential equations, and assumes you know algebra and trigonometry. Statistics and probability goes from describing data to confidence intervals, hypothesis tests, chi-square and ANOVA. See more under mathematics and data science.
Computing and programming
Computer programming - JavaScript and the web teaches JavaScript drawing and animation, HTML and CSS, SQL, games and simulations, and interactive pages with jQuery. AP®︎/College Computer Science Principles follows the AP CSP topics, from binary and the Internet to algorithms and data security, with an exam preparation unit; sitting the AP exam itself is a separate matter with the College Board. Related hubs: programming and computer science.
Personal finance and business
Personal finance covers budgeting, emergency savings, interest and debt, investing, housing, car costs, taxes and paying for college. Finance and capital markets is broader and more technical: present value, financial statements, stocks and bonds, central banks and derivatives. Both sit in our business hub.
History, grammar and writing
US history runs from 1491 to the present in nine chronological units plus primary documents. World history covers early humans to globalisation in nine units. Grammar overview takes the parts of speech, punctuation, syntax and usage one unit at a time, and works as a reference for a single rule. Find them under history, English and writing.
No science course from Khan Academy is listed here at present.
How long does a Khan Academy course take?
Khan Academy does not state a duration or a level for any course, so we show none. The number of units and tracked skills on each course page is the only official measure of size. There are no cohorts or deadlines, so a course can be finished in one push or dipped into for years.