How to become a grandmaster
It takes two things. The first is a number: at some point you must have reached a rating of 2500. You don't have to keep it.
The second is results. A strong enough result in an event is called a norm: you must have played like a 2600-rated player against opponents averaging at least 2380, and the field must include titled players from several countries. A norm usually takes at least nine games, and together your norms must cover at least 27 games.
Some championships award the title directly, without norms, if you have reached 2300 at some point.
The title is for life, though FIDE can revoke it if someone cheated to get it.
All the titles
Grandmaster is the highest of FIDE's four open titles, which anyone can earn. Women also have four titles of their own with lower requirements. FM, CM, WFM, and WCM come with the rating, once you have played at least 30 rated games. The others also take norms or a good finish in a championship.
| Title | Rating | On the list | From Sweden |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grandmaster (GM) | 2500 | 1,904 | 25 |
| International Master (IM) | 2400 | 4,320 | 50 |
| FIDE Master (FM) | 2300 | 9,883 | 106 |
| Candidate Master (CM) | 2200 | 3,948 | 44 |
| Woman Grandmaster (WGM) | 2300 | 540 | 0 |
| Woman International Master (WIM) | 2200 | 985 | 8 |
| Woman FIDE Master (WFM) | 2100 | 2,268 | 6 |
| Woman Candidate Master (WCM) | 2000 | 1,404 | 0 |
From 27 to almost 2,000
FIDE first awarded the title in 1950, to 27 players. One of them was the Swede Gideon Ståhlberg. The word had been used for the very best before, but that is when it became an international title.
In November 2026 FIDE's list had 1,904 grandmasters, 1,325 of them active. 44 are women, 33 of them active. That isn't everyone who ever earned the title: Boris Spassky, who died in 2025, for example, is no longer on it.
Sweden has 25 grandmasters on the list, 19 of them active. In 1992 Pia Cramling became the first Swedish woman with the title.
The youngest
Bobby Fischer became a grandmaster in 1958, at 15, the youngest ever up to then. His record stood until 1991, when Judit Polgár did it a little over a month younger, also at 15.
Players have gotten there faster since. Sergey Karjakin was 12 years and 7 months old in 2002, Magnus Carlsen was 13 in 2004, and Gukesh Dommaraju was 12 years and 7 months old in 2019.
The record is 12 years, 4 months, and 25 days, set in 2021. The person who set it isn't 18 yet, and neither are several of the other youngest. We don't name anyone under 18 on this site.
Sources
- FIDE: Title Regulations, effective January 1, 2024
- FIDE: the standard rating list, November 2026 (downloaded and counted November 8, 2026)
- Wikipedia: Grandmaster (chess); Chess prodigy
- Chess.com: The Youngest Chess Grandmasters In History
- The players' pages on this site and their sources (Ståhlberg, Spassky, Cramling, Fischer, Carlsen, Gukesh)
The facts on this page come from the sources above and, where possible, were checked across several sources. Where the sources disagree, we say less or say what each one says. A number that is an estimate says whose it is, and a counted number comes with its date.
Updated November 9, 2026