The remaining 2026 dates, with deadlines
Four OET on Paper Saturdays are left in 2026: 7 November, 21 November, 5 December and 19 December. These come from the Global OET Test on Paper table on the OET booking page, read on 19 October 2026. Each date carries its own booking-close day and a published-by day for results, and two of the four are open only to Nursing and Medicine. OET on Computer and OET@Home are not tied to these Saturdays; they run on many dates a month and are covered further down.
| Test day (Saturday) | Bookings close | Results published by | Professions listed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 November 2026 | Wednesday 14 October 2026 (closed) | Tuesday 24 November 2026 | Nursing, Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Physiotherapy, Radiography, Veterinary Science |
| 21 November 2026 | Wednesday 28 October 2026 | Tuesday 8 December 2026 | Nursing, Medicine |
| 5 December 2026 | Wednesday 11 November 2026 | Tuesday 22 December 2026 | Nursing, Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Physiotherapy, Radiography, Veterinary Science |
| 19 December 2026 | Wednesday 25 November 2026 | Tuesday 5 January 2027 | Nursing, Medicine |
The same table lists a separate Americas calendar of Friday paper dates (6 and 20 November, 4 and 18 December 2026) with their own closing days one day earlier. Candidates in India, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, the Gulf, Nigeria and Egypt use the Saturday calendar above.
- Next paper date you can still book: 21 November, if you are a nurse or doctor. Bookings close in eight days.
- Next paper date for dentists, pharmacists, physiotherapists, radiographers and vets: 5 December; book by 11 November.
- Need a result before Christmas? Only the 7 November sitting (closed) and the 21 November sitting (published by 8 December) guarantee that on paper. OET on Computer, with results in as little as 48 hours, is the other route.
Dates for 2027 were not on the public table when we checked. OET has published its paper calendar in September for the following year in the recent past (the 2026 table opened for booking on 10 September 2025), but treat that as a pattern, not an announcement.
Booking deadlines: 24 days for paper, 7 for computer
The booking page states two rules. Bookings for OET on Paper close 24 days before the test date, subject to change. Bookings for OET on Computer at a venue and OET@Home close 7 days before the test date, at 11:59 pm UTC. The table above shows the 24-day rule in action: 21 November minus 24 days is 28 October, a Wednesday.
Two things catch candidates every cycle. First, the close is a calendar day in UTC, not Indian or Philippine time, so the practical cut-off in Kochi is 5:29 am on the following morning and in Manila 7:59 am. Do not rely on that margin; book the day before. Second, venues fill before the published close. A Saturday may still show on the table while every seat at your nearest venue is gone, which is why the venue finder, not the table, is the final word on whether you can sit a date.
The test regulations also forbid more than one booking per test administration across all delivery modes, and warn that you may not be eligible for a full refund if you hold two. Book one date, in one mode, and change it through the reschedule process if you must; the fees for that are on our fees and retake page.
A countdown you can copy into your calendar
| If you want this date | Book by (local evening) | Days left from 20 October |
|---|---|---|
| 21 November 2026 (paper, Nursing and Medicine) | 27 October 2026 | 7 |
| 5 December 2026 (paper, seven professions) | 10 November 2026 | 21 |
| 19 December 2026 (paper, Nursing and Medicine) | 24 November 2026 | 35 |
| Any OET on Computer or OET@Home date | 8 days before the date | varies |
OET on Computer and OET@Home dates
The computer and at-home formats do not follow the Saturday rhythm. The published Global OET Test on Computer table for 2026 showed blocks of consecutive dates, Monday to Saturday, several blocks a month, every one open to all twelve professions. Across the year that works out at around ten dates a month or more, which is why our exam dates block lists this mode as "book any time" rather than as individual rows. When we read the public table on 19 October it ran to late July 2026; later dates are shown inside the booking tool once you pick a city, and we could not read them from the public page this week.
Three details matter when you choose a computer date:
- Speaking is on a different day. The OET on Computer page says Listening, Reading and Writing happen on one day at the venue and Speaking is completed at home on a different day, up to five days before or after, subject to availability. The test regulations describe the same window as "usually 8 days before or after". Plan a free evening in that window.
- Speaking at a venue is new for some countries. An OET post dated 20 July 2026 lists the Philippines and, in India, Mumbai and Gurgaon among the regions where OET on Computer candidates can now choose to take Speaking at the venue instead of at home. If your regulator cares which Speaking mode you used (OET asks you to check), this is where you choose.
- OET@Home is not available everywhere and not accepted everywhere. The OET@Home page says it is offered in countries where taking the test at a venue is not yet available, that not all regulators accept it, and that a wired headset is compulsory. Our regulator page lists who accepts which mode.
How booking works, step by step
Booking is done on oet.com. Paper bookings go through the myOET registration site and computer or at-home bookings through the OET Global booking site; the booking page sends you to the right one once you search a location. The sequence below follows the OET test overview page and the test regulations.
- Create your account with a personal email. OET asks you not to use a university or workplace address. If you are applying for ECFMG certification, use the same email you used with ECFMG.
- Enter your ID. The regulations accept a valid passport or a valid national ID that carries your full name, photograph and date of birth on one document. A driving licence is not accepted. You upload the ID (computer and home) or a photo that meets OET's rules (paper), and you must bring the same document on test day. Full detail is on our eligibility page.
- Choose your profession. Writing and Speaking are profession-specific, so this choice fixes your test papers. You cannot change profession by rescheduling; you would have to cancel and rebook.
- Choose the mode, date and venue. Search a city on the booking page. The venue finder shows which modes and dates have seats near you.
- Pay. Fees are paid at booking: AU$587 for the full test per the OET fee article and mode pages. Rupee and peso equivalents, and the single sub-test prices for paper retakes, are on the fees page.
- Watch for two emails. A booking confirmation, then a reminder 48 hours before Listening, Reading and Writing. For Speaking, the regulations say you receive your confirmation number and password no later than 24 hours before the test.
First sitting rule
The regulations require all four sub-tests the first time you sit OET. Single sub-test bookings exist only for OET on Paper, only after a full test, and only if your regulator accepts them. So your first date is always a full-test date.
Where tests run in India and the Philippines
OET does not publish a static venue list; the booking page has a venue finder instead. What OET has said about India and the Philippines in its own posts and pages is enough to plan around:
- Kerala. OET's post on its 20th test venue in India names Cochin (Kochi), managed by Ebek, and says Ebek already ran venues in Chennai and Kottayam. A separate post on new venues in India and Pakistan names Kollam, managed by Cambridge University Press. So Kochi, Kottayam and Kollam are OET-named Kerala venues. Thrissur and Trivandrum appear on coaching-centre calendars but not on an oet.com page we could find; check the venue finder.
- Rest of India. Chennai (Ebek) is named in the same post. Mumbai and Gurgaon are named in the 2026 post on Speaking at venues for OET on Computer. OET said it had 19, then 20, venues in India at the time of those posts.
- Philippines. OET names the Philippines among the regions where Speaking can be taken at a venue for OET on Computer, and the booking page gives Philippine paper candidates the fast 5-day result track alongside India. We could not find an oet.com page naming individual Manila or Cebu venues, so use the venue finder with your city.
- Result speed as a signal. Only India and the Philippines get paper results "in as little as 5 days" per the booking page and the paper page; everywhere else it is from 13 days. That special handling exists because these are the two largest paper markets.
We do not keep a separate venue list, because OET does not publish one. The venue finder on the booking page is the only source that shows seats at a named venue on a named date, so search your city there before you plan around any date on this page. When OET names a new venue in a post, we add it to the list above.
When results come for each date
OET gives two kinds of result timing: a general promise per mode and a published-by date per paper sitting. Both are on the booking page and the results and scoring page.
| Mode | What OET says | What it means for a November or December sitting |
|---|---|---|
| OET on Paper, India | As little as 5 days after the test date | 21 November sitting: possibly around 26 November; published by 8 December at the latest |
| OET on Paper, Philippines | As little as 5 days (booking and paper pages); as little as 6 days (results page) | Same published-by dates as India |
| OET on Paper, elsewhere | From 13 days (booking and paper pages); 12 days (results page) | Rely on the published-by date in the table above |
| OET on Computer and OET@Home | As little as 48 hours after the last sub-test; 95% within 6 calendar days | The six-day clock starts only when Speaking and LRW are both done |
Two official pages disagree by a day on the Philippines and non-India figures, so we show both. OET adds that all timings are indicative, may slip around public holidays at the end of the year, and can be delayed by extra quality or security checks. The 19 December sitting, published by 5 January 2027, is the one most exposed to the holiday caveat. Grade bands and how to share a result with a regulator are on the results page.
Picking your date: work backwards from the sub-test you fear
Most candidates pick the nearest date. The better question is which sub-test you are most likely to miss, because that decides how many weeks you need. OET's 2025 demographic data (grade distributions per first language, published on the test statistics page) is blunt about this for our readers. Adding the A and B columns gives the share reaching Grade B or above:
| First language or group (2025) | Listening B or above | Reading B or above | Writing B or above | Speaking B or above |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Malayalam | 27.8% | 24.0% | 73.2% | 85.0% |
| Hindi | 58.2% | 48.9% | 73.1% | 89.1% |
| Tagalog/Filipino | 67.4% | 43.9% | 57.9% | 85.4% |
| Arabic | 66.1% | 69.7% | 73.1% | 91.1% |
| Nursing (all candidates) | 32.3% | 24.9% | 63.2% | 82.2% |
Speaking is not the gap. Listening and Reading are, and for Malayalam speakers they are the whole story: three in four miss B in Reading. So if your practice tests put Listening or Reading under 30 out of 42 (the mark OET says Grade B candidates "typically achieve at least"), do not book 21 November to save a month. Book 19 December or a January computer date and spend the extra weeks on the two receptive papers; our Listening and Reading page has the part-by-part plan and our six-week plan sets the daily minutes.
If your weak paper is Writing, the calendar matters less than the feedback loop; one letter a day with correction for three weeks is usually enough to move from C+ to B. If, unusually, Speaking is your weak paper, the AI role-play gives you a five-minute patient on demand, and the nurses' speaking guide covers the clinical communication criteria.
Doctors on the US route have one more date to respect. The ECFMG Pathways OET page, read on 20 October 2026, advises applicants in the 2027 Match to take OET Medicine "on or before the last scheduled test date in December 2026" so the score reaches ECFMG in time; on paper that means 5 or 19 December, both open to Medicine. Our regulator page has the ECFMG minimums.
TalkDrill worked example (ours, not a real candidate)
A Kottayam nurse scores L 28, R 27 on an official sample on 19 October. Under the 30-mark guide both would land near C+. She books 19 December (closes 25 November), which gives her eight weeks: five on Listening Part B and C and Reading Part B and C, two on full timed sets, one to taper. If a 1 December mock shows 32 and 31, she keeps the date; if not, the fee structure means a single sub-test paper retake in 2027 costs AU$315, not AU$587, provided the NMC accepts a two-sitting combination, which it does within twelve months.
How this page is kept current
The date table on this page and the dates block on the OET hub are rendered from one file that we check against the OET booking page every week. Each row records the day it was last verified; the current value is 19 October 2026, and when we re-read the booking page on 20 October 2026 every date, closing day and published-by day was unchanged. When OET publishes the 2027 paper calendar, or changes a closing date (it reserves the right to), the row changes here first. A date that passes disappears on its own.
What we do not do: we do not invent dates. If a stage has no announced date we say so and show last cycle's pattern instead. If an oet.com page blocks our check in a given week, the row keeps its last verified date and we say "we could not re-check it this week" in the note. If you spot a difference between this page and the booking page, the booking page wins; please tell us through the feedback link at the foot of the hub.