Applicants planning to apply through the CAO for a place in an Irish third-level institution for 2026 entry will need to register before February 1st at 5pm, but will have until July 1st to make a final decision on their course choice.
1) January 2026
The 2026 school year is already well under way and any prospective applicant should have already registered with the CAO.
If not, you have until Tuesday, January 20th at 5pm to do so at the early bird rate of €35. Just go to cao.ie and make an application, paying €35 by credit or debit card.
After today at 5pm, you may still apply up until February 1st, for a fee of €50.
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Register now with cao.ie if you are interested in getting a place at a traditional or technological university, institute of technology (IT), teacher-training college or private college where places are offered through the CAO application process.
All the CAO requires at this stage are your personal details, including your name, address, phone number, any disability or specific learning difficulty, country of birth, nationality, email address, payment details and details of any post-second-level course (PLC) or other qualifications you may have. When you have done this, you will get your CAO identification number.
From this point onwards, you may indicate which courses you wish to be considered for in the 2026-2027 academic year.
However, if you have registered but don’t know what courses you wish to be considered for, you have the freedom to leave it for now and return to your application in May or June, to list or amend your course choices until the July 1st deadline. The most comprehensive source of information on courses is on qualifax.ie.
2) January and May/June: Choosing a college course
You need to apply for any of the 58 courses listed as restricted in the 2026 CAO handbook by February 1st at 5pm. All other CAO courses can be added or removed from your application list up to the final change-of-mind deadline on July 1st.
For further education (FE) programmes, you must indicate which PLC courses you are applying for on your initial application to each college. For courses in other European Union countries offered through English, closing dates are on the course profile pages on eunicas.ie.
Between February 5th and March 1st, any CAO applicant may change a course choice for a fee of €10. If you are a mature student or have applied for a restricted application course, or if you want to apply for a course, you have not yet listed and wish to correct or amend your application record, you must report any errors or changes to the CAO by March 1st (fee €10).
Otherwise, you don’t need to make course changes at this stage, but if you must, you can use the change-of-mind facility (May 5th-July 1st) with no charge.
Before the end of May, all applicants receive an online statement of application record as a final acknowledgment and to verify that all information is accurate. If this does not arrive by June 1st, contact the CAO immediately.
You can exercise your option to list any courses other than restricted ones not yet listed up to the closing date of July 1st, at 5pm. You may do this as many times as you wish during this period.
3) July/August: CAO offers
In the first week of July 2025, the CAO made offers to 7,004 people, almost exclusively mature applicants (aged over 23) and applicants who accepted and deferred a place last year.
A further 7,991 individuals received offers in round zero at the beginning of August. Most of these were to FE graduates who had a PLC award. Several hundred places in graduate medicine are offered at this stage also. These offers are available online, but you need to log on to get them and there is no email or text alert.
When the change-of-mind period closes on July 1st, sixth-year students wait for the results of their Leaving Cert in late August.
When the results are released, admissions officers in the third-level institutions inform the CAO of the number of places available on each course. The CAO then allocates places via computer, based on the results of each qualifying student and the instructions of the admissions officers. Colleges offer a specific number of places on each course listed with the CAO.
Students are offered their highest choice on each list that their CAO points give them access to. If there are 100 places on offer, the 100 students with the correct entry requirements, who have the highest points, will be offered these places in round one. When the CAO receives the Leaving Cert results, each candidate’s choices are examined by the computer, starting with their first choice on each list and working downwards. When their points fall within the number of places offered on a course, the computer offers that place and removes all lower-preference courses.
The CAO may later offer a place on a course listed higher up on your list if it becomes available. It is imperative that candidates list their choices in the order they desire them, from one to 10, with one being their most desired course and 10 being the least desired.
4) Consider PLC options
The FE sector has thousands of opportunities for students who may consider that a year consolidating their learning in a specific area of knowledge while developing their academic self-management skills would better prepare them for successful engagement with a third-level programme. FE is also extremely useful for those who may not secure the CAO points for their preferred course choice.
Many third-level colleges reserve up to 20 per cent or more of the overall places for applicants who have successfully completed a level-five FE award in that specific discipline. These places are offered to successful applicants through the CAO in the first week of August each year.
Colleges of further education, which provide these programmes throughout the country, report that many students who defer entering third level directly from school and instead spend a year securing a PLC award often perform far better than their school peers when they progress to universities a year later.
If you have a strength in one subject area in school but may not be academically strong across the full range of Leaving Certificate subjects, deciding to spend a year at PLC level in that subject could prove to be a very wise decision.
If students get distinctions in all eight PLC modules, they have a good chance of a reserved place in their preferred CAO course next year.
See careersportal.ie for a database of such linked programmes. PLC programmes also offer training in practical skills for employment in a trade or craft such as business, hairdressing, beauty and the fire and ambulance services.
Students interested in local PLC courses need to fill out application forms, usually online, from individual colleges in the next few months; a link to a range of FE courses and PLCs is now on offer through a link to Fetch programmes on the CAO website. FE places are offered mostly on a first-come, first-served basis and may be impossible to secure later in the year.
6) Tertiary Degree
Any learner can still apply for a place on a tertiary degree programme. The tertiary degree presents a unique opportunity for applicants of all ages and all backgrounds to achieve the degree of their dreams which otherwise, due to various challenges, could be out of reach.
Entry Requirements
- Entry isn’t based on Leaving Cert points but instead looks at student drive, suitability, skills and ability. This is currently the only direct entry pathway for school leavers into NFQ level seven/eight outside of the traditional entry route.
- Tertiary degrees have a combination of multiple entry criteria (ie Leaving Cert, LCA, mature students, RPL, based on personal statement and interview). These were designed to create the most equitable access possible for a wide range of applicants. Not a ‘one size fits all’ approach; instead, it is more student-centric and student led.
- If a course is in high demand, entry priority is based on the applicant’s long-term career goals, current skills, a student’s need for local study, and fostering a student’s future potential. Again, there’s no points system – if there are multiple students competing for the same spot, none of them will be let down by numbers.
- The entry requirements for tertiary degrees have been developed to facilitate access, widen participation, diversify student population and open new doors.
Fees and financial barriers
- No tuition fee or student contribution fee while attending the FET portion of degree delivery thus reducing the cost of a degree by up to half, depending on the model of study.
- Students are eligible to apply for SUSI HE grants while at both the ETB and HEI.
Location
- Because the first/second years of tertiary degree study are taught in an ETB FET campus, there are now an additional 19 locations across Ireland where students can start NFQ level seven/eight.
Seamless progression
- Currently the tertiary degree is the only seamless guaranteed pathway from ETB FET study into HEI, all housed within one application process.
- There is a guaranteed pathway, subject to passing exams, into an HEI. This is not necessarily the case with other existing level five/six study, which may not be aligned with the HEI entry requirements or have limited progression numbers for FE students.
- Students will also have engagements with the HEI and meet lecturers on the HEI campus during their ETB years. This allows the student to become familiar with the campus environment, understand the course expectations, build relationships and clarify any doubts or concerns they may have about progressing into the next stage, increasing student participation and retention. Details on nto.ie
6) Studying abroad
Applications for places in Northern Ireland and Britain to UCAS closed on January 14th. The numbers applying to the UK have dropped significantly in recent years as it loses much of its attraction to Irish students due to the relatively high fees charges, compared with the Republic and the rest of the EU. Fees in Northern Ireland are far lower than in Britain at £4,855. More than 500 students from the Republic secured a place in the University of Ulster and 347 in Queen’s University Belfast in the current year.
European universities, which offer more than 1,100 undergraduate degrees across all disciplines through English, are attracting growing numbers of Irish applicants.
There are now up to 1,000 Irish undergraduate students in first-year undergraduate programmes in Dutch universities alone, with many hundreds more scattered across colleges throughout Europe. Some of these European universities, which rank in the top 100 worldwide in international ranking and which might have registered four or five Irish students 10 years ago, are now admitting more than 100 students a year (eunicas.ie). Prospective students should be aware that the academic year is considerably longer in many continental European universities, stretching into late June in some cases.
Fees range from just over €2,600 in the Netherlands to no fees in Germany and Scandinavian countries. Medical and veterinary programmes in eastern European countries charge fees of €8,000 upwards.
Many of these countries have invested in their third-level infrastructure for centuries and have sufficient places to accommodate most aspiring applicants. In recent decades, due to lower birth rates, fewer young people are seeking third-level places, so places are more readily available.
Matriculation entry requirements are like Irish universities: two H5s and four O6s in the Leaving Cert in most cases but, unlike in Ireland, there are no CAO points requirements in EU universities. A student on 350 CAO points could well secure entry to a European university programme to study, for example, physiotherapy or psychology – courses that would require at least 500 points in Ireland.
But given that securing a place in a European university for domestic as well as external applicants is relatively easy compared with an Irish one, failure or dropout rates after first year are high, at up to 40 per cent for domestic students. Irish students’ attrition rates on these courses tend to be much lower, probably reflecting a higher level of commitment required to secure the offer of a place.
So be warned: after securing your first-year place, passing your exams and completing the course over three to four years is a big challenge. Repeating the first year is often not allowed, unless you have secured most of the required credits in your examinations.
