BJJ belts: ranks, timelines and how promotions work

In many martial arts you change colour every few months. Not in BJJ: a full path from white to black typically takes around ten years of consistent training, and it is not unusual for it to take longer. This is not strictness for its own sake. It is the reason why, when somebody tells you they are a blue belt, you already know what to expect on the mat.

The adult belt order

From sixteen years old onwards, the progression looks like this.

Beyond black the path continues with the degrees of black belt, and at the highest levels the belt itself changes: red and black at seventh degree, red and white at eighth, red at ninth and tenth. These are recognitions that arrive after decades of teaching, not of training alone.

Degrees, in other words stripes

Within each belt there are normally four degrees, marked with tape stripes on the black bar of the belt. They give you a reference point across the long stretches between one colour and the next: going from blue to purple can take years, and the stripes make it visible that something is moving in the meantime.

Who awards them, and how often, varies from academy to academy. There is nothing automatic about it: they are the coach's assessment, not an attendance counter.

How long it really takes

The international federation, the IBJJF, sets minimum requirements for age and time in rank. They are the floor, not the average.

• Blue: available from the age of 16.
• Purple: at least two years as a blue belt.
• Brown: at least a year and a half as a purple belt, and 18 years old.
• Black: at least a year as a brown belt, and 19 years old.

The real factor is not the calendar: it is how many times a week you train and for how many years in a row. Somebody who trains three times a week for five years gets much further than somebody who trains once a week for ten.

Who decides a promotion

Your coach. There is no standard exam, no form and no federation fee: in BJJ a promotion is the judgement of the person who watches you train, based on technique, consistency, how you behave on the mat and how you help your training partners.

That is why the question “who promoted you?” matters more than the colour itself, and why a serious instructor is always happy to talk you through their own lineage. It is one of the things to ask when you are choosing where to train: How to choose a BJJ gym.

And children?

Children have a separate system, with more colours and more intermediate steps, designed to give more frequent recognition at an age where waiting two years makes no sense. At sixteen they move to the adult system. We explain it here: BJJ for kids.

One thing to know before you start

The longest stretch of your life as a practitioner will be the one as a white belt, and the second longest the one as a blue belt. People who sign up thinking about the progression of colours usually quit somewhere in the middle; people who go because they enjoy training find themselves promoted without having thought about it much.