31-clue puzzles sit at the medium-to-easy boundary. Friendly enough for newer solvers but still substantial enough to feel like a real puzzle - subsets appear occasionally but are rarely necessary.
50 empty cells. The 31-clue band is where confident beginners start to feel comfortable. Scanning finishes most of the grid, and the few stuck moments usually yield to a single naked pair.
31 clues is the threshold above which hidden singles dominate the solving experience. If you can finish 31-clue puzzles consistently, you have a solid grip on the fundamentals and you are ready to drop a clue and try the 30-clue band.
Crosshatch every digit through every box. Hidden singles will carry you through 90 percent of the puzzle. When you stall, look for cells with only two candidates - they often pair up to form naked pairs that unlock the rest of the unit. Pencil marks are optional at this clue count for most solvers.
For deeper coverage of the techniques you will need, see our guides on Hidden Singles, Naked Singles, Naked Pairs, and the full Sudoku strategies hub.
This page is part of our Sudoku by clue count cluster. The fewer clues a puzzle has, the more advanced the techniques required. The proven minimum is 17 clues - see 17-clue Sudoku for the famous case. For the matching difficulty band see Medium Sudoku.
They are friendly, but not trivial. An experienced solver will finish in 8 to 12 minutes, which makes 31-clue puzzles a good warm-up before tackling harder difficulty bands - keeps your scanning sharp without consuming a full break.
Drop to 30 clues, then 28. The candidate density barely changes between 31 and 30, but the technique demand starts to escalate - 30-clue puzzles will occasionally require pencil marks, and 28-clue puzzles will reliably require subsets.
A 31-clue Sudoku puzzle starts with 31 digits already placed in the grid out of 81 cells, leaving 50 cells for you to fill. Lower clue counts generally mean harder puzzles because you have less starting information.
Most experienced solvers complete a 31-clue puzzle in 8-15 minutes. Beginners may take significantly longer at this clue count, especially if pencil marks are required.
In our classification, 31-clue puzzles are rated medium. The exact difficulty also depends on which solving techniques are required - clue position matters as much as clue count.
Yes. Open any puzzle from this page and use the print function in your browser, or visit our printable collection at /printable-sudoku for printer-optimized layouts of medium puzzles.
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