The article is devoted to the problem of categorizing the climbing routes by difficulty levels. The purpose of the study: development the criteria for categorizing climbing routes. The object of the study: climbing routes. The task of the study: the development of criteria that provide clear guidelines for categorizing climbing routes each level of complexity. Criteria developed based on the physical, technical and tactical complexity, training requirements to climbing athletes and the competitive level. Based on the criteria, it is possible to assign climbing routes to the certain category of difficulty. Five climbing difficulty categories developed and correlated with the international scale of difficulty in climbing. The criteria of difficulty climbing routes allow standardizing the process of preparing routes in the training process, organizing climbing competitions at various levels and developing training plans for the preparation of climbers.