CLAT Exam Date 2026: Full Timeline, Result Date, and Live CLAT 2027 Dates

If you searched for the CLAT exam date 2026, here is the honest position. The Common Law Admission Test 2026 was written on Sunday, 7 December 2025, the results are out, and admissions to the National Law Universities for the 2026-2027 session are done. Many pages still ranking for this term show the 2026 exam as upcoming and list an application window that closed on 31 October 2025. This page gives you the full, verified CLAT 2026 timeline, then points you to the exam that is actually live: CLAT 2027, on 6 December 2026.

1. When was the CLAT 2026 exam held?

The CLAT 2026 exam was held on Sunday, 7 December 2025, in a single offline session from 2 PM to 4 PM. That admission cycle is complete. The Consortium of National Law Universities conducted it for admission to the five year integrated law programmes and the LLM programmes for the 2026-2027 academic year.

If you are reading this while preparing for an exam you have not yet sat, the date you need is CLAT 2027, held on 6 December 2026. The section below on CLAT 2027 has the live schedule.

2. CLAT 2026 important dates: the full timeline

Here is the complete CLAT 2026 schedule, from the notification to the result. Every date below is what actually happened, not a pre-exam estimate, which is where most competing pages still get it wrong.

3. When were the CLAT 2026 results declared?

The CLAT 2026 result was declared on 17 December 2025, one day after the final answer key. CLAT has no qualifying cut off, so every valid candidate was ranked purely by score, and admission then depended on rank, category, and the NLU preference order filled during counselling.

For CLAT UG 2026, one question was dropped from evaluation, so candidates were assessed out of 119 marks rather than 120. The Allahabad High Court later directed the Consortium to revise the UG merit list after a disputed question was reworked, which shows how a single mark can move an All India Rank near the cut off.

4. What was the CLAT 2026 registration last date?

The last date to apply for CLAT 2026 was 31 October 2025. Registration had opened on 1 August 2025 on consortiumofnlus.ac.in, giving candidates a three month window. That window is closed and no extension was issued.

If your goal is to sit the exam, the window that is open now belongs to CLAT 2027, which closes on 31 October 2026. Before you apply, check who qualifies on the CLAT 2027 eligibility page.

5. What was the CLAT 2026 exam timing and day schedule?

The CLAT 2026 exam ran from 2 PM to 4 PM, a single two hour session. Per the NLSIU centre instructions, candidates could enter the test centre from 1 PM, and entry was not permitted after 2:15 PM.

The paper carried 120 multiple choice questions across five sections: English, Current Affairs and General Knowledge, Legal Reasoning, Logical Reasoning, and Quantitative Techniques. The marking scheme awarded 1 mark for a correct answer and deducted 0.25 for a wrong one, with nothing lost for a blank. The same structure carries into 2027, so you can plan against the current CLAT 2027 exam pattern for the section split.

6. Preparing now? CLAT 2027 is the exam that matters

If you landed here while preparing, the live exam is CLAT 2027, scheduled for Sunday, 6 December 2026, from 2 PM to 4 PM in offline mode. The Consortium released the CLAT 2027 notification on 22 July 2026, opened registration on 3 August 2026, and set the last date to apply as 31 October 2026. The exam pattern is unchanged from 2026. For the full schedule and the official notification detail, see our CLAT 2027 exam date and notification page.

One thing to watch: the Consortium has set up an Expert Committee, chaired by former Supreme Court judge Justice Indu Malhotra, to review the UG and PG exams. The current pattern of 120 questions across five sections still stands for CLAT 2027, and any change would only apply from a later cycle, but you should follow the official notification for updates.

Here is how the two cycles line up side by side.

Building your CLAT 2027 timeline? Message us on WhatsApp and we will map the months from registration to exam around your target NLU.

7. Why the CLAT date decides your whole prep timeline

The exam date is not just a diary entry. It fixes the countdown that everything else hangs on: when to finish the syllabus, when to move to full length mocks, and when to start sectional revision. About 92,344 candidates registered for CLAT 2026, which the Consortium reported as a rise of roughly 17 percent over the previous year, so the gap between a good score and a top NLU rank is thin, and it is decided in the months before the paper.

Law Prep Tutorial Delhi NCR builds every batch only for the CLAT paper, with NLU alumni faculty, in house material, and full length mocks with rank and section wise analysis after each test. Practise on the real thing with our CLAT previous year papers, and if you are targeting CLAT 2027, our CLAT coaching in Delhi NCR page has the batch options and centre list, including online batches for students outside the city.

Ready to plan your CLAT 2027 attempt?

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Trust: 1310+ NLU selections since 2009. Best All India Rank of 1. Law Prep Tutorial Delhi NCR runs five Delhi NCR centres: Hauz Khas, GTB Nagar, Noida, Ghaziabad, and Gurugram, plus online batches.

About the reviewer

Reviewed by Anand Sharma, Director and Academic Mentor at Law Prep Tutorial Delhi NCR (B.A. LL.B., NLIU Bhopal). Published 20 December 2025. Last reviewed 25 August 2026.