Fact · Typing and writing speed
120words per minute
The fastest typists in the online study reached 120 words per minute or more.
Checked against its source on October 16, 2026
In the source's own words
“The fastest typists in the dataset reach speeds of even 120 WPM or more.”
Observations on Typing from 136 Million Keystrokes, Vivek Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018, Performance Measures: Words per minute.
Open the original (DOI 10.1145/3173574.3174220)- What it measures
- This is the top of the distribution in a sample of 168,960 self-selected volunteers.
- What it does not show
- The top of the range says little about typical speed, and the sample is not representative of all adults.