If you need to cancel or reschedule your IELTS test, it's important to understand the applicable policies and timelines. Below, you'll find everything you need to know about transfers, cancellations, refunds, exceptional circumstances, and IELTS One Skill Retake.
Cancellation, refunds, and transfers
The following transfer rules apply for IELTS:
15 or more days before your Listening, Reading, and Writing test date
Free transfer is allowed.
Within 5 - 14 days of your Listening, Reading, and Writing test date
Transfer allowed – an administrative fee of up to 25% of the test fee paid is charged.
Within 4 days of your Listening, Reading, and Writing test date
No transfer allowed – any transfer during this period is treated as a cancellation.
The following cancellation rules apply for IELTS:
15 or more days before your Listening, Reading, and Writing test date
Cancellation is allowed. A refund of 75% of the test fee paid can be claimed.
Within 14 days of your Listening, Reading, and Writing test date
Cancellation is allowed. Test fees are non-refundable.
Exceptional circumstances and special consideration
If you're unable to attend your test, or if your performance on test day is affected by illness, injury, or another exceptional circumstance beyond your control, you can apply for special consideration at your test centre.
Examples of exceptional circumstances and special consideration include:
Bereavement or other forms of significant hardship
Civil unrest or extreme weather
A domestic crisis
A traumatic experience
Serious medical conditions which prevent you from attending or performing normally on the test day
You can apply for special consideration before the test and up to two calendar days after the test date. However, applications for special consideration will not be accepted after your results have been released.
Please note that special consideration does not result in an adjustment to your IELTS band scores. You can find more information about the process here.
Under certain circumstances outside IELTS’ control, your test centre may need to cancel the test and transfer the booking to a future date.
These circumstances include, but may not be limited to:
Extreme weather conditions
Natural disaster
Civil unrest
Industrial action
Global pandemic
Or for reasons of force majeure
In these circumstances, your test centre will provide you with as much notice as possible and give you the choice of either a full refund or a transfer to a future test date, subject to availability.
If your test is cancelled or postponed due to other circumstances within the test centre’s control, such as technical failure, venue or environmental factors, the test centre will provide you with as much notice as possible and give you the choice of a full refund or a transfer to a future test, subject to availability.
IELTS One Skill Retake: Cancellations, refunds, and transfers
Here is what you need to know if you wish to reschedule or cancel your IELTS One Skill Retake test:
As a test taker, you are entitled to a full refund of the OSR test fee if you cancel the test 72 hours or more before the OSR test session.
No refund is provided if you fail to show for an OSR or if the OSR result is not recognised by any given institution, organisation, or government body. It is the test taker’s responsibility to check whether relevant bodies recognise OSRs.
If you wish to cancel the test within 48 hours, please contact your IELTS test centre.
If an OSR test-taker is absent for their OSR, they may be able to rebook another OSR within the 60-day eligibility period from the original test.
If an OSR test-taker is absent due to special circumstances (sickness, accident, bereavement etc.) they may be able to transfer their registration from the registration system or provided a refund.
No administrative fees will be charged for cancellations, refunds, or transfers.
To be eligible to register for an IELTS One Skill Retake test, you must have already taken a full IELTS test and received your results. Only then can you register for IELTS OSR linked to a single skill (Listening, Reading, Writing, or Speaking) on your original full IELTS test.
A maximum of one skill can be retaken for each full IELTS test. A second One Skill Retake on the same full IELTS test cannot be requested.
The results of your One Skill Retake cannot be applied to any IELTS test other than the original full IELTS test against which the One Skill Retake was booked.
Taking an IELTS One Skill Retake may result in a different score for the single skill you choose to retake. The score for this single skill may go up, down, or remain the same as the score you received in my original full IELTS Test on that skill.
After taking an IELTS OSR test, your overall IELTS score will be recalculated, and this overall score may go up, down, or remain the same in relation to the overall score given on your original full IELTS test.
You can contact your test centre to get the latest information on this process.
*Please note that this transfer and cancellation policy applies to IELTS on computer tests only, excluding IELTS for UKVI tests.
*Additional policies might be applicable to your country. Please check with your local IDP IELTS Test Centre for the in-country Transfer and Cancellation Policy.