When a commentator calls a gymnastics skill “D-rated,” that letter tells the audience how much difficulty the skill is worth. Under FIG elite rules, a D skill contributes 0.40 in Difficulty Value when it counts toward the routine.
- What Do the A–J Difficulty Letters Mean?
- How Does a Skill Receive Its Difficulty Rating?
- Which Skills Actually Count Toward Difficulty?
- How Difficulty Values Build the D-Score
- Why a Harder Skill Can Still Lower the Final Score
- Why Vault and USAG Value Parts Work Differently
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Conclusion
The letter scale begins at A = 0.10 and currently reaches J = 1.00. These individual skill values help build the D-Score, the difficulty portion of an elite gymnast’s score.
Learning the letters makes it easier to understand why gymnasts choose certain skills, why a planned upgrade might not earn its full value, and why the hardest routine does not always win.
This article covers the 2025–2028 FIG artistic gymnastics rules for women and men. Vault and the Value Parts used in USA Gymnastics work differently, as explained below.
Rules checked September 13, 2026, against the current official Codes and relevant updates.
What Do the A–J Difficulty Letters Mean?
Judges use the FIG Code of Points, the sport’s international rulebook, to identify skills and their assigned values. A competitive skill is often called an element in the Code.
For the letter-rated elements, each step through the alphabet adds another tenth:
| Difficulty rating | Difficulty Value |
|---|---|
| A | 0.10 |
| B | 0.20 |
| C | 0.30 |
| D | 0.40 |
| E | 0.50 |
| F | 0.60 |
| G | 0.70 |
| H | 0.80 |
| I | 0.90 |
| J | 1.00 |
This scale appears in Section 7 of the FIG women’s Code and the FIG men’s Code.
An E skill is therefore worth 0.20 more than a C skill. If it replaces that C among the skills that count, the individual-skill subtotal increases by two tenths. Other parts of the D-Score may also change, depending on the routine.
The letter describes the skill’s assigned difficulty. Judges evaluate how well the gymnast performs it separately.
Difficulty Rating, Difficulty Value and D-Score
These terms refer to different things:
| Term | Plain-English meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Difficulty rating | The letter assigned to a skill | D |
| Difficulty Value, or DV | The points associated with that skill | 0.40 |
| D-Score | The routine’s combined difficulty score, including other permitted difficulty points | 5.70 |
A D-rated skill can be one part of a routine with a 5.70 D-Score. The letter D itself does not tell the reader how difficult the entire routine is.
The broader explanation of FIG scoring and the two parts of the score shows how difficulty combines with execution to produce the final result.
How Does a Skill Receive Its Difficulty Rating?
The Code contains Tables of Elements for each apparatus. These tables describe the skills and list their values, usually alongside drawings that help judges identify the movements.
A skill’s twists, flips, body shape, flight, turns or grip can distinguish it from another element. A flip is also called a salto. A tuck uses bent knees drawn toward the body, a pike folds at the hips with straight legs, and a layout uses a stretched body position.
The applicable table determines the rating. Judges do not award an extra tenth simply because a gymnast adds something that looks harder. The resulting movement must match a recognized element or have an approved new-element evaluation.
The apparatus matters too. Performing a movement from the floor presents a different task from performing a similar movement while leaving a bar. The relevant women’s or men’s table must be checked for that event.
What Happens When Someone Invents a New Skill?
A gymnast’s federation can submit a new element for evaluation. The appropriate technical committee reviews it, and a provisional difficulty may be assigned before the skill appears in an updated Code.
Officially naming the element after the gymnast involves additional conditions and confirmation of the performance. Submitting a proposed skill, receiving a provisional rating and having a named skill added to the Code are separate stages. The process is described in the women’s new-element rules, Section 7.2.3 and the men’s naming rules, Article 5.8.
What Is the Highest Difficulty Value?
The current published artistic gymnastics Codes include J-rated elements worth 1.00. Examples on floor exercise include:
| Skill | Event | What the gymnast performs | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| Biles II | Women’s floor | Two backward flips with three twists in a tucked position | J — 1.00 |
| Jarman | Men’s floor | Two backward flips with 3½ twists in a layout position | J — 1.00 |
| Nagornyy | Men’s floor | Three backward flips in a piked position | J — 1.00 |
The Biles floor element appears in the women’s floor table; the Jarman and Nagornyy appear in the men’s floor table.
Not every apparatus has skills at every letter. J is also not a permanent ceiling on what the sport can recognize: the tables can expand as new elements are evaluated.
Can a Skill’s Rating Change?
Yes. A new Code can raise or lower the value of an existing skill.
For the 2025–2028 cycle, the women’s uneven bars dismount consisting of a double backward layout with one full twist increased from E to F. Its individual value rose from 0.50 to 0.60. FIG describes this change in its official explanation of the women’s Code updates.
A gymnast performing the same skill across two Code cycles can therefore receive different difficulty credit. Older videos and scoring guides need to be read in the context of the rules used at the time.
Which Skills Actually Count Toward Difficulty?
A routine can contain more skills than judges include in its Difficulty Value total. Judges must apply both the counting rules and the technical rules for recognizing each element.
How Many Skills Count?
Under the current senior FIG rules:
| Discipline | Events | Individual skills counted for difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| Women’s artistic gymnastics, or WAG | Uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercise | Up to eight, including the dismount, subject to the apparatus rules |
| Men’s artistic gymnastics, or MAG | Floor exercise, pommel horse, still rings, parallel bars and horizontal bar | Eight under the relevant counting, dismount and element-group rules |
| Women’s and men’s vault | Vault | A complete vault receives a predetermined numerical difficulty value |
The men’s limit changed from 10 to eight for the 2025–2028 cycle. FIG explains the change in its overview of the men’s scoring updates.
“Eight counting skills” does not always mean choosing the eight hardest movements from an unrestricted list. On women’s beam and floor, for example, the eight must include at least three dance elements and three acrobatic elements. Dance elements include movements such as leaps, jumps and turns; acrobatic elements include skills such as handsprings and flips. These requirements appear in Sections 12.2 and 13.2 of the women’s Code.
Lower-rated skills can also have a useful role. In women’s gymnastics, a skill may help earn connection credit even when its individual DV is outside the eight that count, provided the connection meets the event’s rules.
What If a Skill Is Not Performed as Intended?
The D-Jury, the judges responsible for difficulty, identifies what the gymnast actually completes. A planned skill may receive a lower value, be recognized as a different element, or receive no difficulty credit if it does not meet the technical requirements.
For example, suppose a planned D skill worth 0.40 is recognized as a C skill worth 0.30. The individual value is one tenth lower. If the same skill still occupies a counting place and nothing else changes, the D-Score falls by 0.10.
The total effect can be different if another skill takes its place among the counting elements, or if the mistake also affects a connection or requirement. That is why a downgrade cannot always be translated into a fixed change to the final D-Score.
An ordinary form fault does not automatically cause a downgrade. A gymnast may still receive the full difficulty of a skill while losing execution points for bent knees or poor body position.
Can the Same Skill Earn Difficulty Twice?
Generally, repeating an element does not earn its Difficulty Value again. The Code also limits certain closely related skills, so a visible variation does not necessarily make an element different for scoring purposes.
There are apparatus-specific exceptions and rules for retrying skills that did not receive credit. Judges therefore check the element’s identity and the repetition rules, rather than simply counting how many times the gymnast performs a recognizable movement. The general provisions are in WAG Section 7.2 and MAG Article 7.5.
How Difficulty Values Build the D-Score
Once the counting elements have been identified, their numerical values are added together.
For a hypothetical arithmetic example, suppose the eight counting elements are:
F + E + D + D + D + C + C + B
Their values total:
0.60 + 0.50 + 0.40 + 0.40 + 0.40 + 0.30 + 0.30 + 0.20 = 3.10
That 3.10 is the individual-skill subtotal. Judges still need to calculate the other difficulty points available on the apparatus.
In women’s gymnastics, those can include Composition Requirements, which reward specified types of routine content, and Connection Value, which rewards qualifying links between skills. Applicable bonuses can also contribute.
Men use Element Groups, categories of movements that help determine required-content credit, along with connection points and other provisions where the apparatus rules allow them. The men’s requirements should not be treated as identical to the women’s system.
The complete D-Score calculation for women and men explains how these additional components are combined.
Why an Upgrade Can Be Worth More—or Less—Than Its Letter Difference
Replacing a counting C with an E adds 0.20 to the individual-skill subtotal. But the complete routine might gain more if the new element also earns additional connection or requirement credit.
The gain can be smaller if the replacement breaks a valuable connection or fails to satisfy something the original skill provided. Adding another E also does not automatically add 0.50 if it simply replaces a D that was already counting: the individual-value gain would be 0.10.
Coaches therefore consider how a skill fits into the whole routine, as well as its letter.
Why a Harder Skill Can Still Lower the Final Score
Difficulty and execution are judged separately. Execution describes how well the gymnast performs, and the FIG E-Score starts from 10.0 before mistakes are deducted.
Suppose an upgrade adds 0.20 to the D-Score, but the gymnast loses an additional 0.30 in execution compared with the previous version. With everything else unchanged, the final score becomes 0.10 lower.
Those extra deductions might come from form, height, rotation or landing control. A gymnast can receive full difficulty credit for the harder skill and still lose the scoring advantage through execution errors.
For a coach choosing between two routines, consistency matters alongside potential difficulty. For a spectator, the letter alone cannot establish which performance deserves the higher final score.
Why Vault and USAG Value Parts Work Differently
Vault Uses a Numerical Value for the Whole Vault
FIG vault has its own difficulty tables. A recognized vault receives a number such as 5.0 or 5.6, rather than being treated as a sequence of A–J skills to add together.
A 5.6 vault does not contain 5.6 points obtained by assigning separate letters to its run, entry, twists and landing. The number belongs to the complete vault identified by the judges.
The comparison of vault values and scoring across the main programs explains how this differs from domestic Start Values.
USAG Letters Belong to a Different System
USA Gymnastics’ women’s Development Program uses lettered Value Parts in its optional levels. These help judges check whether a routine contains the difficulty required for that level.
Although the letters look familiar, their numerical role differs from FIG:
| Letter | FIG value when the element counts | USAG women’s DP Start Value loss for a missing required Value Part |
|---|---|---|
| A | 0.10 | 0.10 |
| B | 0.20 | 0.30 |
| C | 0.30 | 0.50 |
The domestic column applies when the required Value Part remains missing after allowed substitutions are considered. The A/B/C values and level requirements are listed in the 2026–2030 DP optional event rules.
Performing a B skill in DP does not automatically add 0.30 to a running difficulty total. It can help satisfy the routine’s Value Part requirements within a Start Value system—the score available before execution deductions.
The separate explanation of USAG Value Parts and their role in Start Value covers that domestic system.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is an A Skill Easy?
A is the lowest lettered difficulty category in the FIG tables. That does not make every A skill easy for a beginner. The rating describes its place in competitive scoring, rather than how quickly a particular gymnast can learn it.
Is an E Skill Worth Twice as Much as a C Skill?
No. An E is worth 0.50 and a C is worth 0.30, so the difference is 0.20. Each step through the alphabet adds one tenth.
Does Every Movement in a Routine Have a Difficulty Value?
No. Choreography, transitions and preparation do not all earn separate difficulty points. Judges award DV for elements recognized under the Code or an approved new-element evaluation.
Does a J Skill Make the Routine’s D-Score 10.0?
No. A counting J skill contributes 1.00 to the individual-skill subtotal. The routine’s D-Score also depends on the other counting skills and applicable difficulty components.
Can a Skill Receive Full Difficulty Credit Despite a Fall?
Sometimes. It depends on whether the skill meets the recognition rules for that apparatus. A fall brings an execution deduction and may also affect difficulty, connections or bonuses; it does not have exactly the same difficulty consequence in every situation.
Conclusion
The A–J letters show how much an individual skill contributes to FIG difficulty. To understand its effect on the score, also check whether the skill counts, whether judges recognize it as intended, and how it fits the routine’s requirements and connections.