Spelling Bee age eligibility, explained: Minimum & maximum ages allowed, youngest winners & more to know

The Scripps National Spelling Bee is held annually after Memorial Day Weekend, putting some of America's brightest students under the same roof. 

There will be three rounds to face before contestants can advance to the quarterfinals. This includes rounds one and three, spelling a word; and round two, answering a multiple-choice question about the definition of a word (i.e., word meaning).

The love of words is one cherished.

Here's what to know about how children become eligible for participation in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

MORE SPELLING BEE NEWS:

• Spelling Bee winners by year: Full list of champions & winning words from 1925-2025
• Rules, number of words, rounds & how a spell-off works at Spelling Bee 
• Meet Dr. Jacques Bailly, the Scripps National Spelling Bee's longtime pronouncer
• What to know about the Scripps Cup, the intricately designed Spelling Bee trophy

Scripps National Spelling Bee age rules

Spelling Bee rules state that spellers cannot have reached their 15th birthday or passed beyond the eighth grade (or an international equivalent) on or before Aug. 31, 2024.

There are 243 participants in 2025, ranging ages eight to 14 and grades second to eighth. Here are the stats from the event's website:

Spelling Bee minimum age

There is no minimum age allowed to compete in the Scripps Spelling Bee. The youngest participant in 2025 is 8 years old.

Spelling Bee maximum age

The maximum age allowed to compete in the Scripps Spelling Bee is 14. The oldest participants in 2025 are 14 years old.

Who is the youngest to win Spelling Bee?

The youngest child to ever win the Scripps Spelling Bee was Nihar Janga from Austin, Texas. He won the title in 2016 at the age of 11 with the word gesellschaft — defined by Oxford as "social relations based on impersonal ties, as duty to a society or organization."

How to enter Scripps National Spelling Bee

Besides the age requirement, there are other eligibility checkboxes to keep in mind when signing up.

Here are the eligibility rules and how to qualify, according to the Scripps guidelines:

• The speller cannot have any first-, second-, or third-degree relatives who are current employees of the E.W. Scripps Company (as of Feb. 1, 2023). This includes, but is not limited to:
  • Siblings
  • Half-siblings
  • Step-siblings
  • Parents
  • Step-parents
  • Grandparents
  • Aunts
  • Uncles
  • Nieces
  • Nephews
  • First cousins
• The speller cannot have previously won a Scripps National Spelling Bee (SNSB) competition.
• The speller must attend a school that is officially enrolled with the SNSB.
• The speller cannot have repeated any grade for the purpose of extending spelling bee eligibility. If the speller has repeated any grade, they must have notified the SNSB of the circumstances by March 31, 2025. The SNSB will determine the speller's status within a month in its sole discretion.
• The speller cannot have earned a high school diploma, or the legal equivalent to one.
• The speller, speller's parents, league guardians and/or school officials cannot have declared another entity required in an academic classification higher than eighth grade. This includes high school graduation equivalency, proficiency exams and other standardized exams such as the PSAT, SAT and ACT.
• The speller cannot bypass normal school activity to study for the SNSB — the organization defines this as studying a minimum of four courses outside of language arts, spelling, Latin, Greek, vocabulary and etymology for at least four hours per weekday.

In addition, the speller cannot seek advancement through another partner or school in the 2025 SNSB program if disqualified between August 2024 and April 2025 and they must have been declared a champion of an SNSB-sanctioned regional event on or after Feb. 1 to be named a national competitor.

Once the speller has officially qualified for the national level, they must submit a completed version of the following documents:

• Championship Registration
• Prerequisite Assessment
• Appearance Consent and Release Agreement signed by the speller and speller's parent/legal guardian
• Certification of Eligibility Form
• A liability waiver signed by the speller and speller's parents/legal guardian
• A photo

Disqualification can come if any of the forms above are not filled out to the truest knowledge or the speller is not in complete compliance with the above eligibility requirements. The SNSB may also revoke prizes, rank and other benefits won at any time if the speller is later found not in compliance.