GATE 2027 Registration: Last Date 5 October, Exam in February

The dates have moved twice. The portal was due to open on 14 August, was pushed to 27 August, and finally opened on 2 September. The regular deadline went from 21 September to 27 September and now 5 October. Some websites still show the old GATE 2027 registration dates, so go by the dates on this page.

GATE 2027 at a Glance

• Conducted by: Indian Institute of Technology Madras, on behalf of the National Coordination Board, Ministry of Education
• Papers: 30 test papers. You can take one, or two from the allowed combinations.
• Exam dates: 6, 7, 13, 14, 20 and 21 February 2027
• Result: 19 March 2027
• Score valid for: three years from the result
• Age limit: none
• Apply at: the GATE Online Application Processing System (GOAPS), goaps.iitm.ac.in

GATE 2027 Eligibility

You can apply if you are in the third year or higher of any undergraduate degree, or have completed a government-approved degree, in engineering, technology, architecture, science, commerce, arts or humanities. That covers B.E., B.Tech, B.Sc., B.Com. and B.A. students from Assam's colleges and universities. MBBS, BDS, B.V.Sc. and B.Sc. (Agriculture, Horticulture, Forestry) students are eligible from the fifth semester onward. The full table is on the eligibility page.

There is no age limit. What changes from year to year is the syllabus, and it has been revised for most papers this time.

GATE 2027 Application Fee

The fee is per paper. If you take two papers you pay twice. Bank charges are extra, and the fee is not refunded.

Category	Regular period (by 5 Oct)	Extended period (by 12 Oct)
Female, SC, ST, PwD	Rs 1,000	Rs 1,500
All other candidates	Rs 2,000	Rs 2,500

The late fee adds Rs 500 per paper. For a general-category student taking two papers, missing 5 October costs Rs 1,000 more.

Before You Apply: DigiLocker, Photo and Signature

This is where most GATE applications get stuck, so sort it out before you open the form.

• DigiLocker is compulsory for Indian nationals. Your name, date of birth, mobile number, email and address are pulled from it. You cannot change your date of birth in the form. A verified account (completed e-KYC) is recommended. An unverified account is allowed, but your documents are checked after the deadline and you must show originals at the exam hall. Do not delete your DigiLocker account after applying; GATE will only contact you through it.
• Live face capture. The form takes a live photo of you. Use a laptop with a webcam or a phone with a front camera of at least 5 MP, in good light.
• Photograph: colour, white background, face covering 60 to 70% of the image. JPEG, between 200 × 260 and 530 × 690 pixels, up to 600 kB. Our passport photo tool can crop one on a white background.
• Signature: black or dark blue ink, JPEG, between 250 × 80 and 580 × 180 pixels, up to 300 kB. Use the image resizer if your scan is too large.
• SC or ST certificate: upload it to DigiLocker as a PDF named CATEGORY.pdf inside a folder named GATE2027. Files must be between 10 kB and 600 kB, so a phone scan may need our PDF compressor. If you still need the certificate itself, see how to get a caste certificate in Assam.

IIT Madras has published a list of common registration problems and fixes. Read it before you email the helpdesk.

GATE 2027 Registration: How to Apply

1. Log in to DigiLocker and finish e-KYC if your account is not yet verified.
2. Open GOAPS and register using DigiLocker.
3. Enter your parent or guardian details, college name with PIN code, and degree.
4. Pick one paper, or two from the allowed combinations.
5. Choose six exam cities from the same zone.
6. Upload your photo and signature and complete the live face capture.
7. Pay by UPI, debit or credit card, net banking or wallet, then download the submitted form.

GATE checks every application after submission. If something is wrong, you get an email, SMS or WhatsApp message, and you must fix it in time. Paper, category, city and personal details can be changed from 14 to 21 October 2026, for a fee of Rs 500 per change. The fees page on the GATE site still mentions a 3 November cut-off for changes, but the Important Dates page and the brochure revised on 27 September both say 21 October. Plan for the earlier date.

Exam Centres in Assam

Assam falls in the IIT Guwahati zone. The tentative exam cities in the state are Dibrugarh, Guwahati, Jorhat, Silchar and Tezpur. The same zone also covers the other northeastern states, parts of Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, so pick your six cities with travel in mind. Exam cities will be announced on 4 January 2027. The admit card download date has not been announced. The admit card will only be available on GOAPS, and nothing is sent by post.

For zone queries, the IIT Guwahati GATE office is at gate@iitg.ac.in. The IIT Madras helpdesk is helpdesk@gate.iitm.ac.in and 044-2257 8200, which answers application questions from 5 to 7 PM on weekdays.

GATE 2027 Exam Pattern and What Is New

Each paper is a three-hour computer-based test in English with 65 questions for 100 marks. Ten questions are General Aptitude (15 marks) and 55 are from your subject. There are three question types: multiple choice, multiple select and numerical answer. Wrong multiple-choice answers lose one-third of their marks. Multiple-select and numerical questions have no negative marking, but multiple-select questions get no partial marks either. You get an on-screen calculator only.

New this year:

• A new paper, Robotics and Automation (RA).
• Textile Engineering is no longer a separate paper. It is now a section of XE (XE9).
• The section codes for XE, XH and XL have changed.
• The syllabus has been revised for most papers. Download yours from the syllabus page, not from last year's notes.

What a GATE Score Gets You

A valid score is used for M.Tech, M.E., direct PhD and PhD admission in institutions supported by the Ministry of Education and other government agencies. M.Tech students with GATE get financial assistance of Rs 12,400 a month, usually for 22 months.

Many public sector companies also shortlist engineers on GATE scores. The official list includes IOCL, ONGC, GAIL, NTPC, POWERGRID, BHEL, SAIL, Coal India and the Airports Authority of India. GAIL has already said its Executive Trainee recruitment will be filled on GATE 2027 marks, so if you want that job you must write GATE this February. GATE is not the only route to a central engineering job. The UPSC Engineering Services Examination 2027 is a separate exam with its own form. Other openings are under jobs. Qualifying in GATE does not guarantee a job or a seat; each institute and company sets its own cut-off.