Hello! 
We have recently begun the process of migrating our curriculum data to the New HSK 3.0 (2025+) standard published in 2025 by the Ministry of Education of China. We previously used the “old” HSK 3.0 (2021-2025) that was published in 2021. Yes, for some reason they are both called “HSK 3.0” despite being fairly different. You can read more about the HSK 3.0 standard on Wikipedia.
On our end, this mostly involves updating the associated HSK level associated with each character or words within our curriculum database. We use that HSK level association as one of the inputs for our lesson scheduling algorithm. Some higher-level characters in this new list we do not currently have added, so we are slowly adding to the curriculum over the near future, with only about ~50 to go.
On your end, you may notice the total number of HSK characters known per level, shown on the dashboard and in the weekly progress emails, will be a bit different. This is because the HSK level associated with each character may have changed. As you continue doing your lessons, those gaps will continue to be filled in, with the unlearned lower level HSK characters and words being prioritized first in your lessons, the same as it always works.
Your reviews - and the characters you have already learned - are completely unaffected by any of these new HSK data changes.
New HSK 3.0 overview
Here is what the character totals look like for the “old” and “new” HSK 3.0 standard respectively:
| Level | Old total | New total | Character Overlap |
|---|---|---|---|
| HSK1 | 300 | 246 | 221 |
| HSK2 | 300 | 125 | 54 |
| HSK3 | 300 | 284 | 64 |
| HSK4 | 300 | 441 | 112 |
| HSK5 | 300 | 431 | 158 |
| HSK6 | 300 | 413 | 186 |
| HSK7-9 | 1200 | 1148 | 950 |
As we can see, the new HSK 3.0 standard has less characters in the early 1-3 levels, but more in the 4-6 levels. The “overlap” column indicates that there is quite a lot of shuffling of characters between the levels, with many characters changing to new levels. However, the set of HSK 3.0 characters from levels 1-9 between the two standards are mostly the same, with only a difference of ~100 or so characters being added or removed.
Why we updated to the New HSK 3.0
From the perspective of HanziHero, the HSK is just a list of characters and words categorized by level. We use that data as an input into our lesson scheduling algorithm and as a way of expanding, organizing, and presenting our large curriculum corpus.
When we first started building HanziHero in 2022, the “old” HSK 3.0 just came out, and that is the version we used to build up or character and word curriculum over these many years. However, that “old” HSK 3.0 was never actually really used for actual tests the entire 2021-2025 period it was “active”. Instead, the old HSK 2.0 standard continued to be used up until just about now for the lower HSK levels.
Thankfully, this New HSK 3.0 seems to be taken more seriously by the Ministry of Education of China. It is on track to be the new standard going into 2027, with two worldwide mock exams being held or scheduled in 2026 already. Many users have been asking for us to update to the new standard, and many other Chinese-learning apps and resources are beginning to do the same, so we have taken the time to migrate over to the new standard.
Chinese learning is more than the HSK
The HSK is a useful standard worked on by hundreds of Chinese language teaching professionals, and is a great benchmark for determining which characters and words to prioritize learning.
However, Chinese is much more than the HSK. There are people who can memorize their way through an HSK official test without being fluent in Chinese at all. Conversely, there are people who are fluent in Chinese who have never taken or heard of the HSK!
In either case, HanziHero has and will continue to have many characters and words that are not part of the official HSK curriculum but are useful to know. Indeed, we hope to slowly expand this over time. After all, HSK maxes out just above 3,000 characters, but a book of Chinese literature may have around 4,000 unique characters in it! 
Whether you are preparing for future HSK test taking, or just someone who likes learning Chinese characters, we hope HanziHero can continue to support you with your goals. 