TARA test dates & registration 2026/27

There are two TARA sittings for 2026/27 entry:

12–16 October 2026 and 4–8 January 2027. Oxford only ever uses the October sitting.

UCL lets applicants choose either one. Registration for the cycle opens 1 June 2026, and booking for the October sitting opens 20 July 2026.

You can register free and start working through the practice bank while you wait for your window to open, so the dates below aren't the only thing on your to-do list.

Both sittings, laid out in order. This combines everything currently published for Oxford and UCL into one sequence, so you can see where the two sittings overlap and where they diverge.

If you want the same information anchored to your specific university rather than a merged sequence, the Oxford-specific dates and UCL-specific dates are broken out separately in each course guide.

Most explanations of TARA dates treat the two universities as interchangeable, listing one set of dates and leaving you to assume they apply everywhere. They don't.

Oxford and UCL run TARA under the same UAT-UK system, but with materially different rules about which sitting you're allowed to use and, it appears, slightly different deadlines within the October window itself.

Both universities publish their own confirmation of this: see Oxford's official admissions tests page and UCL's official tests, tasks and interviews page directly, alongside the university-specific breakdowns in our own Oxford TARA guide and UCL TARA guide.

Here's the detail:

The course-list difference is worth sitting with for a moment. Oxford's seven TARA courses are all humanities- or social-science-adjacent.

UCL's eleven courses span Computer Science, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, and Mechanical Engineering alongside Sociology and Social Sciences — including Mechanical Engineering, added as a new requirement for this admissions cycle — so don't assume TARA is only relevant to humanities applicants just because Oxford's list reads that way.

If you're unsure whether your specific course needs TARA at all, check your course's own admissions page rather than inferring it from a general list like this one; UCL's own Computer Science TARA page is a good example of what that looks like in practice.

Rather than present a single number and risk you missing an earlier real deadline, or panicking about one that's actually later for your university: if you're applying to Oxford, work to the 28 September date but don't leave it that late — book as soon as the window opens on 20 July if you can.

If you're applying to UCL or another UAT-UK university, don't assume Oxford's date applies to you.

Either way, confirm the exact live deadline for your specific university on the official UAT-UK registration site at the point you register, since that's the number that will actually be enforced.

Once your slot is actually booked, you can stop worrying about dates and start practicing for free instead.

We'd previously flagged this as unclear, since older pages float figures anywhere from £75–78 (UK and Republic of Ireland) and £130–133 (elsewhere).

UAT-UK's own registration page now gives a single confirmed current figure:

£78 for UK and Republic of Ireland candidates, and £133 for candidates sitting elsewhere. That's the number to budget against.

Fees can still change between now and when you actually book — test administrator fees generally do, year on year — so treat £78/£133 as the current confirmed figure rather than a permanently fixed one, and follow the link through to UAT-UK's page for the live number at the point you register.

For how this fee compares against the rest of what a full TARA prep plan might cost, our pillar guide's dates & fees section puts it in context.

If cost is a genuine barrier, UAT-UK offers bursary vouchers for UK candidates in financial need, which cover the test fee in full — confirmed directly on the UCL source we checked, and on UAT-UK's own registration page, which also confirms that bursary applications for both the October 2026 and January 2027 sittings open on 1 June 2026 — the same date general registration opens, not a separate later window.

This isn't a discount you apply for after paying; it's a voucher that replaces the fee entirely for candidates who qualify.

Exact eligibility criteria weren't detailed beyond that, so the reliable next step is to check the bursary section of the official UAT-UK site linked above, or ask your school or sixth form's admissions or widening-participation contact, well before your booking deadline — a voucher application is not something to leave until the last few days of the window.

Once your fee situation is settled, our complete dates & fees guide covers how this slots into the rest of the registration process.

We haven't found a published, UAT-UK-specific process for what happens if you miss a booking deadline, so we won't invent one here.

What we can say with confidence:

TARA only runs at fixed sittings, so missing the October window for a course that requires it doesn't mean a quiet makeup slot later in the autumn — your realistic options are the January sitting, if your university offers it (remember, that's UCL's flexibility, not Oxford's), or contacting your university's admissions office directly to ask what they recommend.

For an Oxford application, where October is the only sitting, a missed deadline is a more serious problem worth raising with admissions immediately rather than waiting to see what happens.

The safest approach across the board is the boring one: book in the first week or two of the window rather than close to either the 21 September or 28 September date, so a slow bank transfer, a technical hiccup, or a forgotten form doesn't cost you the sitting entirely.

While you wait for your slot, there's no reason to wait to prepare — you can register free and start the practice bank today.

Results are released through your UAT-UK online account rather than emailed to you directly, and a copy goes to every university you applied to that requires TARA — you don't need to forward anything yourself.

For the October 2026 sitting, Oxford has confirmed results land on 16 November 2026, which is roughly four to five weeks after testing ends on 16 October.

We haven't found an equivalent confirmed date for the January 2027 sitting; going by the same gap, results would plausibly arrive in early-to-mid February 2027, but treat that as a working estimate rather than a fixed date until UAT-UK publishes it, per UAT-UK's own TARA page.

Your score report shows Critical Thinking and Problem Solving as two separate numbers on their own 1.0–9.0 scales, plus a copy of your Writing Task response for each university to read.

For what those numbers actually mean, and how to read your own score without overclaiming, see our TARA results explained guide.