Sourced dates only
TOEFL® deadlines: working backwards from the date that actually binds you
ETS publishes no calendar of TOEFL test dates. Its public pages describe how often the test runs and then send you to the registration portal, where the dates depend on your location and your account. So this page does not show you a test-date table — it shows you the timing rules ETS does publish, and the application deadlines a named body has published with a year attached, so you can work out your own last sensible test date.
What ETS actually publishes about timing
Every row below is ETS’s own sentence, with the page it came from and the day we read it. The row that decides everything is the fifth one: score reports reach institutions in a range, not on a promised day.
| What happens | Relative to your test date | ETS’s own words |
|---|---|---|
| Regular online registration closes | 7 days before | “Regular online registration closes 7 full days before the test date. After that, you will be charged an express fee.”ETS · read 2026-08-11 |
| Express (late) registration closes | 2 days before | “Express online registration closes 2 days before the test date. For example, if the test date you want is a Saturday, the last day you can register is Thursday.”Registering inside this window costs an express fee that ETS does not publish on this page.ETS · read 2026-08-11 |
| Last day to reschedule or cancel | 4 days before | “If you need to reschedule or cancel your test appointment, you must do so at least 4 full days before your test date.”Miss it and ETS states the test fee is not refunded.ETS · read 2026-08-11 |
| Your scores appear in your ETS account | 3 days after | “Your scores will be available in your ETS account 3 days after your test date.”ETS · read 2026-08-11 |
| Score reports reach the institutions you chose | 4–16 business days after | “Score reports are sent to your designated score recipients approximately 4–16 business days after your test date.”This is the row that decides whether a score lands before an application deadline, and ETS states it as a range, not a promise.ETS · read 2026-08-11 |
| Paper score report is mailed | 11–15 days after | “it will be mailed 11–15 days after your test date, or sooner depending on how you took the test”Mailing is not delivery. ETS does not publish a delivery time for post.ETS · read 2026-08-11 |
On availability, ETS states: “At home testing is available 24 hours a day, 4 days a week.” Which 4 days depends on your location, and ETS publishes that only inside the registration portal.
The one calculation on this site that is ours, not ETS’s
Each cycle page shows a book-by and a test-by date. Those are Reach120 arithmetic: we take the top of ETS’s published 4–16 business-day delivery range, count back from the application deadline, then count back another seven days for ETS’s regular registration close. ETS has not endorsed that sum and does not publish it.
Two limits, stated rather than buried. First, ETS does not publish whose public holidays its “business days” exclude, so our count skips weekends and nothing else — over a holiday period such as late December, that makes our date optimistic and a real report can arrive later. Second, ETS’s own advice is far more conservative than our arithmetic: “Pick a test date at least 2 to 3 months before your earliest admissions deadline.” Where the two disagree, follow ETS. The backstop is the last date that could work — not the date to aim for.
Application cycles we could source
- UK universities, 2027 entry
The live cycle. If you are preparing for TOEFL now and applying to a UK university, these are the dates to work backwards from.
Next deadline: Oxford, Cambridge, medicine, dentistry and veterinary deadline, in 62 days.
Published by UCAS · United Kingdom
- UK universities, 2026 entry
The 2026 entry cycle is in its final months: the main deadlines have passed and what remains is Clearing. If you are testing now, you are almost certainly working towards 2027 entry instead.
Next deadline: Final date for 2026 entry applications, in 41 days.
Published by UCAS · United Kingdom
What we checked and could not publish
A deadline page is only useful if you can trust the rows that are on it, which means being straight about the rows that are not. These are the questions we went looking for and came back from empty-handed.
A calendar of specific TOEFL iBT test dates
ETS publishes no list of test dates on any public page. The page describes availability — at-home testing runs 24 hours a day, 4 days a week — and then sends you to the registration portal, where dates depend on your location. There is no public URL that answers "what are the TOEFL test dates in March".
What would change this: An ETS page that prints dated test administrations without an account. Until one exists, any site showing you a TOEFL date calendar either scraped one location or made it up.
Checked https://www.ets.org/toefl/test-takers/ibt/take/locations-dates/ on 2026-08-11
Test dates for a specific city or test centre
Reaching real dates means creating an ETS account and searching by location. Reach120 does not hold accounts on other companies’ systems to harvest their data, so these dates are recorded as UNVERIFIED rather than collected.
What would change this: Nothing we should do. Check your own location in your own ETS account — it is the only place the answer is current and correct for you.
Checked https://www.ets.org/toefl/test-takers/ibt/take/locations-dates/ on 2026-08-11
US undergraduate application deadlines
The deadlines are published as "November 1" and "January 4" with no calendar year anywhere on the page. A countdown needs a year, and taking it from the intake instead of the page would be our inference presented as the university’s statement.
What would change this: A university page that prints the full date including the year, or an official cycle calendar that does.
Checked https://mitadmissions.org/apply/firstyear/deadlines-requirements/ on 2026-08-11
University of California filing periods
The page names the term precisely ("fall 2027 admission application filing period") but prints the dates as "November 1–30" with no year. Same problem, same answer: the term implies a year, it does not print one.
What would change this: A UC page that prints the filing dates with their year.
Checked https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/how-to-apply/applying-as-a-freshman/dates-and-deadlines.html on 2026-08-11
Every date on this page traces to a public page with the day it was read; the oldest reading behind this dataset is 2026-08-11. Deadlines move, and no publisher promises otherwise — check the linked source before you rely on a date. Reach120 is not affiliated with or endorsed by ETS.