V0 to V14, described in movement and difficulty rather than numbers. Pick a grade to see what stands between you and it — and how long it usually takes.
Every grade below has its own link. The descriptions are about difficulty and movement, not conversion — if you want the Font equivalent, that lives in the V scale to Font converter. Coming the other way, from a Font grade in a European guidebook, is Font to V scale, 6A to 9A.
V0
Beginner
What is V0 in bouldering?
Roughly First weeks · Font 4 · Most people flash it
V0 is the first graded rung. Holds are jugs you can hang from with a bent arm, footholds are large and obvious, and the problem is usually vertical or slightly slabby. If you are strong enough to climb a ladder, you can top a V0 — the thing being tested is whether you'll trust your feet.
What stops people: looking at their hands. Almost every failed V0 is a foot that never moved.
V1
Beginner
What is V1 in bouldering?
Roughly First month · Font 5 · Flash or second go
Same shapes as V0 with fewer of them. Expect one reach that feels long, or a start that leaves you hanging before your feet are on. Grip is still not the limiting factor.
What stops people: starting the sequence with the wrong hand and running out of arms at the top.
V2
Beginner
What is V2 in bouldering?
Roughly Months 1–3 · Font 5+ / 6A · A few goes
The first grade that fights back. There is usually a single awkward move — a high step, a slopey top-out, a hold you have to trust before you believe in it — surrounded by easy climbing. V2 is where people discover that resting on a jug is a skill.
What stops people: rushing the crux move instead of setting the feet first.
V3
Intermediate
What is V3 in bouldering?
Roughly Months 3–8 · Font 6A / 6A+ · A session or two
Where a consistent gym climber tends to land after a few months. Holds get small enough that how you grip them matters, and problems start having a plan you either find or don't. Most gyms have far more V3s than any other grade, which is exactly why it's a good place to build mileage.
What stops people: pulling harder instead of reading the sequence from the ground.
V4
Intermediate
What is V4 in bouldering? (and why everyone stalls here)
Roughly 6 months – 2 years · Font 6B / 6B+ · Multiple sessions
The famous plateau. V4 is where strength stops being the answer: the holds are small but not tiny, the moves are long but not desperate, and the problem is solved with hips, feet and timing. Climbers stuck here for a year are almost never weak — they're climbing with straight-on hips and passive feet.
What stops people: skipping the base. Most V4 plateaus are really a shortage of V2s and V3s. The pyramid builder will tell you in about thirty seconds whether that's you.
V5
Intermediate
What is V5 in bouldering?
Roughly 1–3 years · Font 6C / 6C+ · A project
Solidly intermediate, and the grade most gym climbers mean when they say they "climb mid-range". Real crimps appear, body tension stops being optional, and there is usually one move you simply cannot do until you have done it once. A V5 is normally a project rather than a flash, even for people who climb V6.
What stops people: trying the crux fresh every time instead of learning the position it puts you in.
V6
Advanced
How hard is V6 in bouldering?
Roughly 2–5 years · Font 7A · Several sessions
V6 is the grade almost every gym climber names as their goal, and the one that separates people who climb from people who train. Its Font twin, 7A, carries far more cultural weight in Europe — same difficulty, different reputation. At V6 the holds are genuinely small, the moves genuinely powerful, and warming up properly stops being optional.
What stops people: volume. Almost nobody arrives at V6 without a wide base of V4s behind them.
V7
Advanced
How hard is V7 in bouldering?
Roughly 3–6 years · Font 7A+ · A real project
Advanced. Around V7, unstructured sessions stop producing sends — the climbers who keep moving are the ones who started training deliberately, managing skin, sleep and rest days like inputs rather than accidents.
What stops people: climbing tired. At this grade a bad burn teaches the wrong movement.
V8
Advanced
How hard is V8 in bouldering?
Roughly 4–8 years · Font 7B / 7B+ · Weeks of work
Strong, with years of mileage underneath. V8 is roughly where the general climbing population thins out sharply and where finger strength becomes a measured, trained quantity rather than a by-product of climbing.
What stops people: injury. Most V8 attempts end in a pulley, not a plateau.
V9
Elite
How hard is V9 in bouldering?
Roughly 5–10 years · Font 7B+ / 7C · A season
The edge of the elite amateur world. Problems at V9 have few enough ascents that the grade itself becomes debatable, and progress is measured in seasons rather than sessions.
V10
Elite
How hard is V10 in bouldering?
Roughly A lifetime goal · Font 7C+ · A season or more
Double digits. For most people who ever pull onto a boulder, V10 is the ceiling they aim at and never quite reach — which is precisely why it means something. It is the grade that gets written in bios.
V11
Elite
How hard is V11 in bouldering?
Roughly Sponsored territory · Font 8A
V11 (8A) is where climbing stops being a hobby with a training plan and starts being an organising principle. Sends get logged publicly, and the number is the one European climbers quote.
V12
World-class
How hard is V12 in bouldering?
Roughly Semi-professional · Font 8A+
At V12 the number of ascents per problem worldwide is usually countable, which is exactly why grades at this level move around after each new ascent.
V13
World-class
How hard is V13 in bouldering?
Roughly Professional · Font 8B
Full-time training, full-time recovery, and a body that has been doing this for a decade. V13 is the working grade of a professional boulderer.
V14
World-class
How hard is V14 and above?
Roughly World-class · Font 8B+ to 9A
V14 (8B+) is world-class. Above it, V15, V16 and V17 (8C, 8C+, 9A) are the top of the confirmed scale — V17 has only a handful of proposed ascents on Earth, every one still argued over. That argument is the honest end point of any grading system: past a certain difficulty, there aren't enough people to form a consensus.
The V-scale ("V" for Vermin, John Sherman's nickname) was born at Hueco Tanks, Texas, in the late 1980s. It runs from VB — the B is for beginner — through V0 and upward with no ceiling: when someone climbs something harder than the hardest existing problem, a new number gets added. That open-endedness is the scale's whole design.
Gym grading is set by people, for a customer base, on a schedule. Setters have moods, gyms have brand positions, and a commercial wall benefits from climbers feeling like they're progressing. The result is real and well known: gym grades run soft, and most climbers drop two to three V-grades the first time they climb outside.
None of that makes gym grades useless. It makes them local currency. Compare yourself to last month at your gym, not to a stranger's Instagram — and if you're about to climb outside for the first time, our gym-to-crag guide covers what actually changes.
Out of reach, and that's fine. V5 typically arrives somewhere between one and three years of consistent climbing. Beginners live in VB–V2 and should — that's where movement gets learned cheaply.
V4 to V6 covers the large majority of committed gym climbers, and V10 is a lifetime goal for most people who ever start. But "good" is a comparison, and grades are local currency: the useful question is whether you climb better than you did three months ago.
One to three years of consistent climbing for most people, and the spread is enormous — bodyweight, age, starting fitness, session frequency and how much you climb below your limit all move it. A wide base of V3s shortens it more reliably than any training plan.
V6 (Font 7A) puts you well above the average gym climber and is the grade most people name as their target. It is usually the first grade that requires deliberate training rather than just showing up.
V17 (Font 9A) is the top of the confirmed scale, with only a handful of proposed ascents worldwide.