IB Results Day 2025 & 2026: Dates, Times and What to Do

By Michael Thompson · Education Specialist; 10 years teaching the IB at Bromsgrove School · Published 21 May 2026 · Updated 12 June 2026

IB results day falls in early July for the May examination session and in early January for the November session - and for most students the next 24 hours will determine whether a university place is confirmed or whether a new plan is needed. Results are released online through the IB candidate portal from 12:00 GMT on 6 July, so UK students see their grades from lunchtime - often before their school has been in touch. This guide covers exact dates and access times, what your UCAS application status means the moment results drop, and the full process if you want to query a grade or enter Clearing.

Key Takeaways

In This Article

  1. When Is IB Results Day - May and November Session Dates
  2. How to Access Your IB Results: Candidate Portal and School Release
  3. IB Grade Boundaries 2025 and How They Are Set
  4. What Happens to Your UCAS Offer on IB Results Day
  5. Clearing for IB Students: Timing, Process, and What to Expect
  6. The Enquiry Upon Results (EUR) Process: Remarks and Retabulations
  7. IB November Results Day and the January Release
  8. What to Do If Your Results Are Delayed or Unavailable
  9. IB Results Day vs A-Level Results Day: Key Differences for UK Students
  10. Your IB Results Day Checklist: What to Do Before, During, and After

1. When Is IB Results Day - May and November Session Dates

IB results day for the May examination session falls on 6 July each year - the date the IBO releases results to candidates worldwide. For the May 2026 session that is Monday 6 July 2026. Schools and coordinators can access results a day earlier, on 5 July.

The November examination session follows a separate cycle, with results released in early January. UK students sitting the November session typically receive their results in the first week of January, well before the academic year's university entry points.

Both releases share one quirk that catches students off-guard: the IBO publishes results to candidates from 12:00 GMT, which is lunchtime in the UK. That means most UK students see their grades in the early afternoon, often before the school office has caught up. Unlike A-level results, there is no school-gates moment in the morning.

A few distinctions worth knowing:

Check the IBO's official results page in June for the confirmed 2026 release date once it is published.

2. How to Access Your IB Results: Candidate Portal and School Release

Your results are published at candidates.ibo.org. To log in, you need your personal IB candidate code and the PIN issued to you before your exams. These are two separate things: the candidate code identifies you, the PIN authorises access. If you have mislaid your PIN, contact your IB coordinator well before results day. On the day itself, coordinators are managing dozens of students at once, and a lost PIN is a slow problem to fix under pressure.

What your results page shows:

That last item catches students off guard. A strong Extended Essay paired with a weak TOK presentation, or vice versa, can leave you short of the bonus point even when both components feel like passes. Check the matrix result specifically, not just the total.

Many IB coordinators also host a results morning, unlocking access at the same moment the portal opens and offering on-site support. Whether your school does this varies, so confirm the arrangement in advance.

One thing candidates.ibo.org does not show: your official transcript or Diploma certificate. Those are separate documents issued later by the IBO. Do not plan any administrative deadlines around the day-one portal view.

3. IB Grade Boundaries 2025 and How They Are Set

Unlike A-level grade boundaries, which Ofqual-regulated boards such as AQA and OCR publish on results day itself, IB grade boundaries are not fixed in advance and are not shared publicly before results are released. The IBO sets them after marking is complete each session, combining statistical standardisation with a senior examiner review of student work at each grade threshold. The same raw score can fall at different grades in May 2025 compared with May 2024.

**IB grade boundaries for May 2025 will be published alongside results in July 2025.** After release, the IBO makes them available through its statistical bulletins, which you can find via the IBO's public resources pages once results are out.

The scoring scale runs from 1 to 7 in each subject. A full IB Diploma has a maximum of 45 points: 42 from six subjects (seven points each) plus up to 3 bonus points awarded for the combination of Theory of Knowledge (TOK) and the Extended Essay.

The non-obvious gotcha: students who predict their Diploma total by applying last year's grade boundaries to their mock raw scores are doing something the IBO explicitly does not support. Boundaries shift enough between sessions that a student could be one raw mark above last year's grade-6 boundary and still receive a 5. Treat any pre-results boundary estimate as a rough orientation, not a target.

When grade boundaries are published, check the IBO statistical bulletin for your specific subject and level (Higher or Standard), not a third-party summary.

4. What Happens to Your UCAS Offer on IB Results Day

On IB results day, most of the process happens automatically. UCAS receives your IB Diploma results from the IBO electronically, matches them to your application, and forwards them to the universities holding your offers - you do not need to send anything yourself, provided the IB Diploma is on UCAS's forwarding list.

When you log in to Track on results day, your application will show one of four statuses:

A typical conditional IB offer looks like this: 36 points from the IB Diploma including 6 in Higher Level English. Both the overall points total and the subject-level condition must be satisfied for the offer to be confirmed.

One non-obvious gotcha: if your qualification is not on UCAS's electronic forwarding list, the automatic matching does not happen. In that case, you must send your results or certificate directly to your firm and insurance choices upon receipt. Contact both universities proactively rather than waiting for them to chase you.

5. Clearing for IB Students: Timing, Process, and What to Expect

IB results day decision flowchart showing steps from results to confirmed place or Clearing
IB results day decision flowchart showing steps from results to confirmed place or Clearing

IB students are well-placed for Clearing because their results land in early July, weeks before most A-level students enter the process. That timing matters.

If you miss the conditions for both your firm and insurance choices, UCAS automatically places you in Clearing - you do not need to do anything to trigger it. You just cannot act on it until your results are actually in your hands. Once they are, you can move immediately.

The four-step Clearing process:

  1. Search for a vacancy on the UCAS Clearing course finder.
  2. Call the university admissions team directly with your UCAS Personal ID and your results.
  3. Get verbal confirmation that they will accept you.
  4. Log in to your UCAS application and add the Clearing choice.

Over 30,000 courses across UK universities and colleges are listed in Clearing, so the range is wider than most students expect.

Voluntary Clearing: the 'Decline my place' option

If you hold a confirmed place but want to explore other options, you can use the 'Decline my place' button from 2 July. Be clear on the consequences: declining cancels any accommodation or scholarship arrangements tied to that offer, and you also lose your insurance place.

The non-obvious gotcha here involves changed course offers. If your firm choice offers you a place on a different course or with a different start date, your response depends on what your insurance choice does. Where the insurance choice has already issued an unconditional offer, you must choose between the changed firm offer and the insurance place. If the insurance choice has not yet decided, you can wait before committing. Where both choices issue changed offers, you can select whichever you prefer. Do not decline anything under time pressure before checking which scenario you are in.

6. The Enquiry Upon Results (EUR) Process: Remarks and Retabulations

If your results are not what you expected, the IBO offers a formal review process called an Enquiry Upon Results (EUR). There are three types, each with a different scope and cost.

One non-obvious detail: a retabulation must be completed before you can escalate to a review of marking. That sequencing is easy to miss when you are under deadline pressure.

All EUR requests go through your IB coordinator. You cannot contact the IBO directly as a candidate. Your school submits the request on your behalf, so speak to your coordinator on results day itself if you are concerned, not the following week.

Costs are set by the IBO and differ by EUR type. If a remark results in an upward grade change, the fee is typically refunded. **The critical caveat: grades can go down as well as up.** A remark is not a safety net. Weigh the risk before requesting one, particularly if a borderline grade is already meeting your university offer conditions.

The EUR window closes approximately four to six weeks after results day. That sounds generous, but university conditional offer deadlines compress that window considerably.

If you request a EUR and your grade changes in a way that affects your firm choice offer, contact the admissions team at that university immediately, in parallel with the EUR submission. Do not wait for the remark outcome before picking up the phone.

7. IB November Results Day and the January Release

The November examination session serves two distinct groups: IB students in the southern hemisphere sitting their exams at the end of their academic year, and retake candidates worldwide who need another shot at specific subjects. Results for this session are released in early January, typically within the first week, through the same portal used in July: candidates.ibo.org.

The timing creates a specific problem for UK applicants. By the time January results arrive, two critical UCAS deadlines have already passed: the 15 October equal-consideration deadline (used by Oxford, Cambridge, and most medicine courses) and the 29 January main deadline for the majority of UK undergraduate courses. A student sitting November retakes hoping to strengthen a UCAS application is therefore working against the calendar, not with it.

There is a less obvious gotcha here. Some universities will consider January results for deferred or late applications, but this is not standard practice. Retake candidates planning UCAS 2026 entry should contact each chosen university directly before applying to confirm that January results will be accepted and to ask whether a late application will still receive full consideration.

One further distinction worth noting: IB MYP results day 2025 runs on a separate schedule published by the IBO, independent of both the May/June and November Diploma cycles. If you are tracking MYP results, check the IBO website directly rather than assuming the Diploma release dates apply.

8. What to Do If Your Results Are Delayed or Unavailable

Portal outages and missing subject results are rare, but they do happen. A less obvious scenario is results withheld pending an academic integrity investigation: the IBO can hold individual subject grades while a case is reviewed, meaning your results page may show some scores but not others, with no explanation visible to you.

Your first call is to your IB coordinator. They have a direct line to the IBO and can check whether a result is technically delayed, withheld for a specific reason, or simply mis-routed. Do not assume the worst before that conversation.

If a delay looks likely to affect a UCAS offer decision, act in parallel:

Do not enter Clearing on the assumption your results are lost. Clearing releases your firm and insurance offers permanently. Confirm the status with your coordinator first, because a withheld or delayed result can often be resolved within hours, and re-entering Clearing once a place is released cannot be undone.

9. IB Results Day vs A-Level Results Day: Key Differences for UK Students

IB results day falls in early July, roughly six weeks before the JCQ A-level results day on 13 August. That gap matters more than most IB students realise.

IB students enter Clearing six weeks before A-level students do. University vacancy lists in July are typically longer than they will be in August, because A-level applicants have not yet entered the market. If your IB diploma results day leaves you without your firm offer, call admissions lines promptly rather than waiting to see what happens.

The A-level timeline, for context, runs like this per UCAS:

IB students are not on this timeline. Your results arrive in July, and you can act on them immediately, with no embargo window and no queue of tens of thousands of A-level applicants competing for the same places on the same morning.

One specific quirk worth knowing: the August Clearing rush is partly driven by that 13:00 embargo lift. Admissions teams handling IB results in July face no equivalent spike in call volume, which can mean more considered conversations about vacancies.

For offer-holding purposes, IB points convert to UCAS Tariff points using the IBO/UCAS tariff table. Check the UCAS Tariff calculator for the exact mapping before any Clearing call, so you can state your points precisely.

10. Your IB Results Day Checklist: What to Do Before, During, and After

IB results day moves fast. Having a short checklist means you spend the morning acting, not scrambling to remember passwords.

Before results day

On results day

If confirmed: check whether your accommodation booking or any scholarship has conditions attached. Declining your firm place cancels accommodation and scholarship arrangements automatically, so do not click that button without checking.

If in Clearing: search UCAS vacancies, call the university directly, get verbal permission, then add your Clearing choice in UCAS Hub. Do not wait for a better option to appear before calling. Courses close throughout the day.

If considering a remark: speak to your IB coordinator the same day. The EUR deadline is earlier than most students expect, the coordinator must submit on your behalf, and some subjects carry a fee that must be paid before submission is confirmed.

Your one action this week

Find your IB candidate portal login credentials now and email your coordinator to confirm they work. Do it before the end of the week so there is time to fix any access problem well ahead of IB results day.

FAQ

When is IB results day 2025?

IB Diploma Programme results for the May 2025 examination session were released to candidates on 6 July 2025, from 12:00 GMT (1pm UK time), on the IB candidate results website.

What time do IB results come out?

The IBO releases results to candidates online from 12:00 GMT (1pm UK time) on results day, so UK students can check the candidate portal from early afternoon; schools and coordinators receive results a day earlier.

What happens to my UCAS application when IB results come out?

The IBO sends results electronically to UCAS, which matches them to your application and updates your status automatically - you will see either your place confirmed, your insurance place activated, or an entry into Clearing.

When is IB results day 2026?

IB results day for the May 2026 session is Monday 6 July 2026, with results released to candidates from 12:00 GMT on the IB candidate results website; schools can access results from 5 July.

How long are IB results valid for?

IB Diploma results do not expire - your certificate remains valid indefinitely - but individual universities may have their own policies on how recently qualifications must have been obtained for entry purposes.

Can IB results go down after a remark?

Yes - an Enquiry Upon Results review can result in a grade going up, staying the same, or going down, so discuss the risks with your IB coordinator before requesting a re-mark.

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