Booking takes about ten minutes. This guide covers what you need in front of you before you start, how far ahead you have to book, and what happens if you need to move the date.
About 6 minutes to read. Last checked against GOV.UK on . Short sentences, no jargon — written for people reading in a second language.
Start a free practice testBooking is the easy part. It happens entirely on GOV.UK, it takes about ten minutes, and the only thing that catches people out is a name that does not match their ID.
Have these four things ready. Stopping halfway to find one of them is how people end up booking the wrong date.
GOV.UK says you must book at least 3 days in advance. That is the legal minimum, not a realistic plan. Popular centres in big cities are often booked out further than that, so look at the calendar before you decide when you want to sit.
If your own city is full, a nearby one may not be. The fee is the same wherever you sit it, so the only cost of travelling is the journey. Our city pages for London, Birmingham and Manchester are a good place to start if you live near one of them.
If your immigration application has a deadline, work backwards from it. Give yourself room for one retake. About a third of people need one, and a retake needs its own 3 days of notice.
You can rearrange or cancel through the same online account you booked with.
The refund rule is simple and strict. You get your £50 back if you cancel at least 3 days — 72 hours — before your test. Cancel later than that and the money is gone. You also get nothing back if you miss the test, arrive late, or turn up with the wrong document. The full list of what is and is not refunded is on GOV.UK.
The fee is charged per attempt, and it is not refunded if you fail. So the cheapest way to book is to book once you are already scoring well.
A good rule: sit three full mock tests under real conditions. If you pass all three comfortably, book. If you scrape one of them, spend a few more evenings on the chapters that let you down.
The questions people ask us most about this, answered in a sentence or two.
You book it on GOV.UK. There is one official booking service and no other website can give you a test date. Anyone charging you extra to book on your behalf is selling you something you can do yourself in ten minutes.
GOV.UK says you must book at least 3 days in advance. In practice you may have to look further ahead than that, because the closest centres often fill up first.
The test fee is £50 for each attempt. You pay when you book, by debit or credit card, and you pay again every time you sit the test.
Yes. You can rearrange or cancel your test in your online account. You only get your £50 back if you cancel at least 3 days before the test, so move it early rather than late.
No. Nothing stops you booking on your first day of revision. It is usually smarter to book once you are passing mock tests comfortably, because the fee is not refundable if you fail.
Knowing how the test works is the easy half. The other half is knowing the answers.
Sit a full mock test now — it is free
24 questions, 45 minutes and the real 75% pass mark, with a plain-English explanation behind every answer. No account and no payment — you can start reading the questions in the next few seconds.
Rather read first? The five handbook study guides cover everything the test can ask about, in the same plain English.
Everything procedural on this page comes from GOV.UK. Read it there before you pay for anything.
We checked this guide against those pages on . GOV.UK is the only source that is never out of date — if it disagrees with anything here, believe GOV.UK.
The rest of the cluster, in the same plain English.