Which IFoA exam first, and when could you actually be qualified

How the IFoA exam calendar actually works

The IFoA runs two exam sessions a year, in April and in September, and each one has four dates that matter rather than one. Entry opens, roughly ten weeks before the papers are sat. Entry closes, at midday about ten days later, and that is a hard stop rather than an end-of-day one. The exam window itself runs over two working weeks. Results follow around eleven weeks after that, on two dates: the CS, CM and CB papers first, then the CP, SP and SA papers two days later. Miss the closing midday and the next opportunity is not next month, it is five or six months away, and everything behind it moves with it.

That is the whole reason this tool exists. Most people planning their exams count subjects and divide by a load, which gives an answer that ignores the two dates doing the real work: the closing deadline you have to be inside, and the results date that decides whether you can even carry a pass into the next session.

The trap that catches almost every autumn starter

A graduate scheme that begins in September begins after that September session has closed to entry. Entry for a September sitting closes in the second half of July, seven or eight weeks before the papers, which is usually before the contract is even signed. So the first realistic sitting for an autumn starter is the following April, and if you are not already an IFoA student member there is an earlier deadline again: the IFoA publishes a date by which a student membership application has to be in for you to book a paper at all, and for non-members only CS1 and CM1 can be entered without membership.

The planner works this out from your start date rather than making you notice it. Tell it you start in September and it will say, plainly, which window has already gone and why.

Why 24 months and 12 more is not 36 months

Exams are only half of the qualification. The other half is recorded practical work, and for anybody who joined the IFoA on or after 2 January 2019 the published requirement is 24 months for Associate and then, in the IFoA’s own words, a further 12 months of recording after Associate status is confirmed.

That second clock is the part almost every online answer gets wrong. It does not start on your first day, and it does not start at the two-year mark either: it starts when the Associate award is confirmed, which means it cannot start until the last Associate paper has a result. If your exams run three years, Fellow is four years away at the earliest, not three. The planner runs both clocks and says which of the two, exams or experience, is the one actually holding you up, because there is no point sitting three papers a session to finish exams a year before you are allowed to apply.

What the planner assumes

It assumes you enter sittings from the date you give it onwards, that you pass every paper except the resits you asked it to leave room for, and that your practical work is recorded and signed off as the requirements ask. It assumes CB3 is fitted in between sittings rather than delaying anything, which is reasonable because the IFoA schedules CB3 outside the April and September windows entirely, and it is the one Associate subject that never competes for a slot. It counts two Specialist Principles papers and one Specialist Advanced paper for Fellow without asking which ones, because that is a practice-area decision rather than a scheduling one.

It does not know which day of a window each paper falls on, so it cannot tell you that two of your choices clash. Every paper starts at 09:00 UK time, so two on the same day is two you cannot both sit: the published timetables are printed under the plan for exactly that check.

What it will not tell you

There is no recommended first exam here because the IFoA does not publish one. Its position, verbatim, is that Members may still sit any examination in any order, however, they must achieve the Associate award before Fellow. The planner arranges your remaining subjects by the IFoA’s own recommended study hours, lightest or heaviest first as you prefer, and that arrangement is ours and not a rule. If your employer’s study plan says otherwise, follow your employer.

It will not date a sitting the IFoA has not dated. The published calendar currently reaches September 2027. Past that, the planner names each sitting on the April and September pattern and leaves every date column empty, because a date we had worked out ourselves would sit on the page in the same typeface as one the IFoA published, and somebody would enter it in a calendar.

And the answer is not a qualification date. It is the earliest date on which the published requirements could all have been met. Passing an exam is not a certainty, sign-off takes as long as it takes, and the IFoA reserves the right to move its own dates. Treat the output as the floor under a plan, not the plan.

Nothing is stored and nothing is sent

The whole planner runs in your browser. There is no account, no email box and nothing uploaded: your start date and your ticks stay in your own tab, kept in local storage so that a second visit does not mean retyping them, and the calendar file is built in the page and handed straight to your machine.

Where every figure comes from

Every date, month and study hour in this tool was read from an IFoA page on 10 September 2026 and is held with that page and that date beside it. Nothing here is an estimate, and where a page does not publish something, the planner does not claim it: that is why it prints subject codes rather than titles, and why it stops dating sittings after September 2027.

• IFoA, Key exam dates
• IFoA, Personal and Professional Development
• IFoA, Curriculum
• IFoA, Exam news

Last checked: 10 September 2026 · published sessions to September 2027