What rating is considered intermediate?

The official definition might be 1200-1599, but I would consider intermediate rating to be 1400-1600. In my OTB experience, anybody under 1400 is still learning the more advanced fundamentals of chess. Anybody above 1600 seems to be playing with limited mistakes.

Well, you do say "the more advanced fundamentals". That can very well be intermediate level.

I meant that the player is still learning but hasn't learned the advanced fundamentals or endgames such as the Philidor Position.

1000 to 1500

to me

It depends on the time control.

1500 Daily Chess is very different to 1500 Blitz for example.

Whatever rating I'm at

It depends on your interest in the game.

Do you want to compete against the very best gauging yourself against GM's then use the FIDE definitions? If so play FIDE events and use their rating categories.

If you just want to play chess against friends and family then use the chess.com stats where 800 means you are better than most.

I really hate the FIDE elitists.

I think when you’re trying to gauge your ability in terms of “beginner” “intermediate” “advanced” “expert/master” then you do have to take into account everyone who plays chess. If you were discussing something like football, you wouldn’t class someone as “intermediate” if they were about average among your friends and family. 

chess is a wonderful game in the way it can be enjoyed by people at different levels of familiarity, and while there is definitely some elitism and over-emphasis on classical chess to determine skill, I don’t think it’s reasonable to classify someone at 800 as an intermediate. 

I’d hesitate to call myself higher than intermediate, and I’ve been 2000 on this site. Maybe I count as advanced, but considering how sh*t my chess feels on the day-to-day, I definitely wouldn’t classify myself like that. And if I’m intermediate, then (with as much respect as possible) an 800 is still firmly in the beginner camp.

So if a person is a terrible chess player and has struggled with the game for 5 years to get from 200 to 800 that person is still a beginner?

Beginner means a person just beginning.

Beginner means different things depending on the context. It can mean someone beginning, but it can often be a label for someone who hasn’t progressed beyond the beginnings of a hobby, vocation, sport or game. That’s the context that makes more sense in association with the labels I used in my post. Imagine someone is a child prodigy and immediately is at a higher standard than most people will ever achieve. Are they a beginner?

If by "intermediate" you mean "average". The USCF considers C class players 1400-1599 as the average chess player.