By Rahul Choudhary · Founder, IndiaSchool AI Pvt Ltd
The rule used to be simple: every CA level, examined three times a year — January, May and September. That's still true for Foundation and Intermediate. CA Final broke the pattern in 2026 — since the May sitting, ICAI examines Final only twice a year, in May and November.
Foundation and Intermediate haven't changed. CA Final has — and if you're still planning attempts around three sittings a year, the math you're using is out of date.
| Level | Sittings per year | Months |
|---|---|---|
| CA Foundation | 3 — unchanged | January, May, September |
| CA Intermediate | 3 — unchanged | January, May, September |
| CA Final | 2 — down from 3, effective May 2026 | May, November (was Jan, May, Sep) |
Both levels keep the rhythm ICAI's New Scheme has used since it began: a sitting every four months, in January, May and September. Nothing about this cadence has changed, and there's a confirmed sitting on the calendar to prove it — ICAI began Live Virtual Classes for Foundation students appearing in the January 2027 exam on 2 September 2026, the sitting right after the current one.
Practically, this means a Foundation or Intermediate group you don't clear in one sitting costs you about four months, not six — the gap is exactly one exam cycle, same as it's always been under the New Scheme.
More on this sitting: Sept 2026 admit card. Full syllabus and papers: CA Foundation guide, CA Intermediate guide.
Under the New Scheme, CA Final initially ran on the same three-times-a-year cycle as Foundation and Intermediate — January, May and September. That held through the January 2026 exam, whose results ICAI declared on 1 March 2026.
On 6 April 2026, ICAI's Examination Department announced that, in view of feedback from stakeholders, the Council had decided Final examinations would move to twice a year — May and November — with effect from the May 2026 exam onwards. There was no Final exam in September 2026, and there won't be one in January 2027 either; those windows belong to Foundation and Intermediate only now.
Worth noting: twice-yearly was also the norm for Final for decades before the New Scheme introduced a third sitting — so 2026 is best read as a return to that older rhythm, not an entirely new one.
Preparing for the current sitting: CA Final Nov 2026 mock test papers. Full syllabus: CA Final guide.
For Final candidates specifically, a group you don't clear now costs roughly six months, not four — the gap between May and November is wider than the old May-to-September gap was. If you're building a study or articleship-completion timeline around "I'll just catch the next sitting," that next sitting is further away than it used to be, so the cost of an under-prepared attempt has gone up.
It also compresses ICAI's own prep calendar around Final into two windows instead of three: Mock Test Papers and the "Success at CA Exam" BoS sessions for the November 2026 sitting ran through September and into early October, feeding directly into the 2 November start — there's no equivalent January-facing round anymore.
Foundation and Intermediate candidates aren't affected by any of this — the three-a-year cycle they've always had continues unchanged. And separately from this specific change, ICAI's CRET committee is reviewing the whole Scheme of Education and Training, so exam frequency generally is a live topic — the Final change above was decided through its own dedicated April 2026 circular, not through that review, but it's a reminder that the calendar you're planning around today isn't guaranteed to be the one in place a year from now.
Sourced from ICAI's Examination Department announcement of 6 April 2026 on Final moving to a twice-yearly cycle from the May 2026 exam onwards, and cross-checked against ICAI's own published result-declaration announcements (Final January 2026 results, 1 March 2026; Final May 2026 results, 18 June 2026) and its September–November 2026 examination schedule, all listed on icai.org. CA Grader is not affiliated with ICAI — verify current exam dates against icai.org before relying on this for exam-day or attempt-planning decisions, since ICAI can and does revise the calendar by circular.
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