Testosterone Levels by Age Chart: Normal Ranges for Men

Use a testosterone levels by age chart as context, not a diagnosis. Compare your total testosterone, free testosterone, SHBG, symptoms, sleep, body composition, medications, and time of blood draw. A value can be statistically normal for age but still suboptimal if symptoms and free testosterone suggest low androgen activity.

The average total testosterone for a 40-year-old man is approximately 480 ng/dL, with a normal range of 250–750 ng/dL. Optimal levels for symptom-free function are 450–750 ng/dL. Free testosterone averages ~100 pg/mL. However, individual interpretation requires considering symptoms, free testosterone, and SHBG — not just total T.

Testosterone typically peaks in the late teens to early 20s and begins a gradual decline of 1–2% per year around age 30. By age 50, most men have lost 20–30% of their peak testosterone. The decline accelerates with obesity, poor sleep, chronic stress, and sedentary behavior.

Partially. Lifestyle optimization — weight loss (10% body weight loss can increase T by 100+ ng/dL), resistance training, sleep optimization, stress management, and correcting nutrient deficiencies (zinc, D, Mg) — can increase testosterone 100–200 ng/dL. This may restore levels to where they'd be without the accelerating lifestyle factors, but it won't return a 60-year-old to his 20-year-old levels. If lifestyle changes don't resolve your symptoms, our TRT guide covers who qualifies, fertility and family-planning considerations (TRT suppresses sperm production in most men), how to find the right specialist, what it costs with and without insurance, and what ongoing monitoring looks like.

Total testosterone measures all testosterone in your blood: tightly SHBG-bound (biologically inactive, roughly 44–65%), albumin-bound (partially active, roughly 33–54%), and free testosterone (unbound, 1–3%, fully biologically active). Free testosterone is the fraction that crosses cell membranes, binds androgen receptors, and drives the effects most men associate with testosterone — energy, libido, muscle response, and mood. A man can have normal total testosterone but low free testosterone if SHBG is elevated (which rises with age, hyperthyroidism, liver disease, and estrogen exposure). For a complete picture, always test total testosterone, free testosterone, and SHBG together.

Common symptoms include fatigue (especially mid-afternoon energy crashes), reduced libido, difficulty building or maintaining muscle despite training, increased body fat (particularly abdominal), mood changes (irritability, low motivation, mild depression), reduced morning erections, and brain fog or poor concentration. Not all of these symptoms occur together, and they overlap with thyroid dysfunction, sleep apnea, and depression — which is why blood testing (total testosterone, free testosterone, SHBG, thyroid, and CBC) is needed before attributing symptoms to low T. Morning testosterone values below 300 ng/dL (total) combined with symptoms warrant evaluation. If low libido or erectile difficulty persists even after testosterone comes back in the normal range, it's worth ruling out other causes rather than stopping at the T result — see our guide on the causes of low libido. If a confirmed low reading leads to a treatment discussion, weigh the realistic side effects and risks alongside the benefits before starting — our TRT guide covers both.

At-home testosterone kits (finger-prick, dried blood spot) are useful for a first screen, but they are less precise than a venous blood draw processed by a certified lab, and most kits report only total testosterone — leaving out free testosterone and SHBG, the two values that explain a normal-but-symptomatic result. A convenient at-home kit is reasonable when a lab visit isn't practical, but any result near the low-normal cutoff, or one that doesn't match your symptoms, should be confirmed with a full venous panel before making a treatment decision.

Normal total testosterone in women is roughly 15–70 ng/dL during the reproductive years, declining gradually to about 8–35 ng/dL after menopause — levels typically fall by about half between a woman's 20s and mid-40s, well before menopause itself. Reference ranges for women are less standardized than men's because most assays were built for higher male concentrations, so results are best interpreted alongside symptoms, free testosterone, and SHBG rather than the number alone. Unusually high testosterone in a woman points toward PCOS, insulin resistance, or an androgen-secreting condition rather than normal aging.

Yes — low testosterone in a man under 30 is more likely to signal an underlying medical cause, such as a pituitary, testicular, or genetic issue, rather than the gradual age-related decline that explains most low readings in older men, so it generally warrants a more thorough workup. A young man with total testosterone consistently below 300 ng/dL should be evaluated for causes like a testicular disorder, pituitary dysfunction, or significant lifestyle factors (poor sleep, obesity, anabolic steroid use) rather than assuming it is simply low for no reason.

A 23-year-old falls in the 18–25 band on the chart above, where lower-normal is 350 ng/dL and the average is 650 ng/dL. A 25-year-old sits at the edge of that band and the 25–30 band, where lower-normal is 320 ng/dL and the average is 600 ng/dL. Both figures sit well above the flat 300 ng/dL cutoff most labs apply regardless of age, so a man in his early 20s can clear that flat threshold and still read below the lower-normal mark for his own age group. A 45-year-old falls in the 40–50 band instead, where lower-normal is 250 ng/dL and the average is 480 ng/dL, so the same low-300s result reads differently at 45 than it does at 23 or 25. Match your own result to the band it actually falls in, then weigh it against symptoms and free testosterone rather than a single number.

The charts on this page use nanograms per deciliter (ng/dL), the standard unit in the United States. Much of the world — including the UK, Australia, Canada, and most of Europe — reports total testosterone in nanomoles per liter (nmol/L) instead. To convert, multiply ng/dL by 0.0347 to get nmol/L; to go the other way, divide nmol/L by 0.0347 (or multiply by roughly 28.8) to get ng/dL (NIH/NCBI, Testosterone and Aging). So the Endocrine Society's low-testosterone cutoff of 300 ng/dL is about 10.4 nmol/L. Applying the same factor to the averages in the chart above: a young adult average of ~650 ng/dL is about 22.6 nmol/L, the ~480 ng/dL average in the 40s is about 16.7 nmol/L, and the ~330 ng/dL average at 70+ is about 11.5 nmol/L. Free testosterone is reported differently (pg/mL, pmol/L, or a percentage), so use a free-T-specific conversion for that value rather than this factor. As always, compare your result to your own lab's reference range and units — see our lab testing guide.

The free testosterone chart on this page uses picograms per milliliter (pg/mL), the standard US unit. Labs in the UK, Australia, Canada, and much of Europe report free testosterone in picomoles per liter (pmol/L) instead — a different unit family from the nmol/L used for total testosterone, so the two conversion factors are not interchangeable. To convert free testosterone, multiply pg/mL by 3.47 to get pmol/L (to go the other way, divide pmol/L by 3.47). Applying that factor to the ranges in the chart above: the 20–30 age bracket's ~150 pg/mL average is about 520 pmol/L, the 40–50 bracket's ~100 pg/mL average is about 347 pmol/L, and the 60–70 bracket's ~65 pg/mL average is about 226 pmol/L. This is also the number to reach for if your total testosterone comes back in the normal range but you still have low-T symptoms — a normal total testosterone with elevated SHBG can still mean low free testosterone, which is why checking free T (and converting it correctly if your lab reports pmol/L) alongside total T and SHBG gives a more complete picture than total testosterone alone.

There is no formal age-based screening guideline for testosterone testing in men without symptoms, unlike the PSA screening recommendations that exist for prostate cancer. Testing is typically symptom-driven — a doctor orders levels when a man reports fatigue, low libido, mood changes, or other suggestive symptoms — though some clinicians suggest a baseline test in the 30s or 40s simply to have a personal reference point before any age-related decline sets in. Men with risk factors that predispose to low testosterone independent of age — obesity, sleep apnea, or a personal or family history of pituitary or testicular conditions — may reasonably start testing earlier, even without symptoms.