Cambridge International's November 2026 A-Level Resit

Cambridge International AS & A Level is a qualification awarded by Cambridge Assessment International Education that runs a second full exam series every November, alongside its June sitting. Its own key-dates document for UK exam centres sets the November 2026 entry deadline at 21 September 2026 — five weeks later than the 16 August 2026 date published for centres outside the UK, a distinction most guides miss.

Which Deadline Applies to You: the UK Key Dates or the International Ones?

Cambridge International does not run one November timetable. It publishes two separate key-dates documents for the same series: one titled "Key dates for November 2026 series (UK)", for exam centres located in the United Kingdom, and one titled "Key dates for November 2026 series (International)", for centres located outside it. The two documents are not variations on a theme — they set genuinely different entry deadlines, and a reader who checks the wrong one will either miss a real deadline or panic about one that does not apply to them.

The UK key-dates document is unambiguous: both the final entries deadline and the late entries deadline for the November 2026 series are set at 21 September 2026. There is no earlier cut-off date anywhere in that document. The International document sets a different structure — a final entries deadline of 16 August 2026, with a later 21 September 2026 date reserved specifically for retake entries carried over from the June 2026 series. A UK-based private candidate, entering through one of the UK-approved exam centres covered later on this page, follows the UK schedule. The 16 August date belongs to the International one.

Cambridge International's own help centre explains why the retake window sits later than the first-time entries window in the International schedule: June series results are not released until mid-August, so centres need time to see a result before deciding whether to enter a retake. That reasoning does not disappear for UK centres — it is simply resolved differently, by setting one unified date rather than two staggered ones.

This is easy to miss. Several published guides on this exact question — including material published on Cambridge International's own help centre, which explains the retake rule using only the International dates — describe 16 August as the operative deadline without noting that UK-based candidates work to a different, later one. Our own related guide on resitting A-Levels in November covers the broader question of whether a November resit exists at all in the UK; this page goes further into what the Cambridge International route specifically involves once a reader has established that it is the one live option.

What Else the November 2026 Series Involves

Once the entries deadline is settled, the rest of the UK timetable follows the same official document. The timetabled exam period for the November 2026 series runs from late September 2026 to mid-November 2026 — a window of roughly seven weeks, rather than the single fortnight most UK summer exam series compress into. Centres must submit forecast grades by 31 October 2026, while the exam period is still running.

Results are staggered by qualification. Cambridge International AS & A Level results for the November 2026 series are released on 7 January 2027. Cambridge IGCSE and Cambridge O Level results from the same series follow a week later, on 14 January 2027. A candidate who believes their result does not reflect their performance has until 26 February 2027 to submit an enquiry about results, which is the formal route to a re-mark or a review of marking.

None of these are provisional planning dates. They are Cambridge International's own published key dates for this specific series, not estimates carried over from a previous year.

Which A-Level Subjects Are Actually Examined in November

The November series is not a smaller copy of the June one, and it is not the same set of subjects with fewer candidates. Cambridge International's own syllabus-availability listings show a specific, uneven pattern, and a reader has to check their own subject rather than assume the route is open.

Mathematics, Further Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry and Physics all sit in both the June and November series, as do Economics, Geography, History, Psychology, Sociology, Law, Business, and English Language and Literature. For a student whose gap is in one of the core academic subjects, the November route is genuinely available on paper.

Other subjects do not follow that pattern. Portuguese and Marine Science, to take two examples from Cambridge International's own listings, are offered in the June series only — there is no November sitting to enter for either one. A smaller group runs in the opposite direction: Divinity, Hinduism, Islamic Studies and Classical Studies are offered in November but not in June. Subject availability is reviewed and can change from one year to the next, so Cambridge International directs schools and candidates to its live syllabus pages to confirm current availability rather than relying on a published list from an earlier year.

Finding a UK Centre That Will Actually Take You

Every date above assumes a centre exists to enter you. This is the part of the route that most affects whether it is realistic at all for a given student, and it is worth being direct about it: Cambridge International's own guidance states plainly that private candidates are responsible for finding a centre themselves. "First, you need to find a Cambridge school in your country that accepts private candidates and register with them to take our exams," its help centre states. "You are responsible for making arrangements with the school and they can support you with any exam-related queries." Cambridge International does not place, allocate or guarantee a candidate a seat anywhere.

The UK's options are narrower than the international picture suggests. Cambridge International's own approved exam centres list names exactly nine centres located in the UK, and all nine are operated under a single brand, Tutors & Exams, with sites in Birmingham, Bolton, Coventry, Doncaster, High Wycombe, Mitcham, Romford, St Neots and Taunton. Outside that network, a private candidate's other route is a registered Cambridge International School willing to accept an external entry, searchable separately on Cambridge International's own website — our guide on finding an exam centre as a private candidate covers how to approach that search and what to ask a centre before committing.

Cambridge International also warns that not every syllabus is open to private candidates at all — restrictions are listed under the "Before you start" section of each individual syllabus guide, and a candidate should check this before assuming a specific subject is available to them outside a registered school. Individual centres, in turn, often run to their own internal deadlines rather than Cambridge International's official cut-off. Tutors & Exams, one of the nine UK-approved centres, set its own entry deadline for the October/November 2025 series at 5 September 2025, with late fees applying from 6 September and a hard cut-off of 21 September matching Cambridge International's own UK deadline. A centre's own deadline, not Cambridge International's published one, is the date that actually governs a candidate's paperwork.

Do UK Universities Actually Accept Cambridge International A-Levels?

This is the question the whole route depends on, and it deserves a sourced answer rather than an assumption. The University of Cambridge's own admissions guidance states it directly: "We accept international A levels offered by Cambridge International, Oxford AQA or Pearson Edexcel, as they are comparable to UK AS and A levels." That is one of the most selective universities in the UK confirming, in its own published guidance, that the qualification is treated as equivalent for admissions purposes — not a marketing claim from an interested party.

Cambridge International's own recognition pages make a similar, broader claim: "Cambridge International AS & A Levels are equivalent to the AS & A Levels taken by students in the UK, and are accepted for entrance to UK universities in the same way as the UK A Levels." That statement is worth reading with more caution, since Cambridge International has an obvious interest in its own qualification being seen as widely accepted. The University of Cambridge's independent confirmation is the stronger evidence of the two.

UCAS itself adds an important caveat that neither of the statements above mentions. Its own guidance on the UCAS Tariff notes: "Universities and colleges set their own entry requirements and don't have to accept a qualification just because it's included in the Tariff. They also don't have to use the Tariff points given by UCAS." In practice, that means acceptance of a Cambridge International A-Level is a course-by-course and university-by-university decision. General acceptance at the level of UK higher education as a whole is well evidenced; a guarantee for one specific course at one specific university is not, and needs checking directly against that course's published entry requirements before a student relies on it.

Can You Mix One Cambridge International Subject With Reformed UK A-Levels on UCAS?

A student holding two reformed UK A-Levels and considering a single Cambridge International resit in a third subject is asking a narrower, more practical version of the acceptance question above, and it has its own sourced answer. Cambridge International's own guidance for applying through UCAS confirms that UCAS Apply's qualification search treats "International A Level" as a separate category from the standard UK "A Level, AS, EPQ and T Levels" category. Cambridge International A Level appears as one of 36 qualifications inside that International A Level category, with the awarding organisation recorded on the application as "CIE".

Nothing in that structure stops a single UCAS application from including entries drawn from both categories — a student's education section on UCAS Apply is not restricted to one qualification type, and mixed profiles (an IB subject alongside a school-leaving diploma, for instance) are common enough that the University of Cambridge addresses them directly in its own guidance: "We know that some applicants may be taking a combination of different qualifications... We welcome these applicants and we will assess your application individually." The same guidance recommends contacting the relevant college for advice as early as possible when a combination of qualification types is involved, rather than assuming it will be read the same way everywhere.

What It Actually Costs

Cambridge International sets no public, learner-facing price for its exams. Its own help centre is explicit about this: "We have set fees that we charge schools for our examinations, but schools may charge learners for the administrative costs they incur in addition to this. As such, it is not our policy to provide learners with the fees that we charge schools." Any figure a reader sees, including the ones below, comes from an individual centre, not from Cambridge International itself.

One of the nine UK-approved centres, Tutors & Exams, publishes its own fee schedule, giving a concrete sense of the real cost. Its 2025/26 list sets a standard entry fee of £664.90 for International A-Level Mathematics, rising to £804.90 for a late entry and £944.90 for a very late one. Biology, which includes carried-forward practical marks, is listed at £501.40 standard, £641.40 late and £781.40 very late. These figures are one centre's most recently published prices, not a fixed national rate, and centres typically republish their fee schedules each academic year — a reader should confirm current pricing with their chosen centre before committing to a subject. For the broader picture of what a UK resit year costs across routes, our guide on what GCSE and A-Level resits cost sets out tuition, exam-entry and centre fees side by side.

Source: Tutors & Exams, one of nine UK-approved Cambridge International exam centres, 2025/26 fee schedule. Figures are this centre's own published prices, not Cambridge International's, and are reviewed annually.

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