The acidities of 40 commonly seen cations of ionic liquids (CILs) in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) were investigated by a well-established theoretical method, SMD/M06-2X/6-311++G (2df,2p)//B3LYP/6-31+G(d). The calculated pK(a)'s agree excellently with the available experimental data and range from 20.0 to 45.8 with an acidity order of 1,3-dialkylimidazolium > amidinium > pyridinium > tetraalkylphosphonium > morpholinium > pyrrolidinium approximate to piperidinium > guanadinim cations. The established acidity scale in this work provides a useful tool, as verified by the acidity comparisons, to assess the stability of ILs under various extent basic conditions, and also reveals the relative basicity of several classical N-heterocyclic carbenes and olefins as well as ylides.