What is the CAO?
The Central Applications Office (CAO) processes applications for undergraduate courses in Irish higher education institutions including universities (NUI Galway, UCD, UCC, Trinity, UL, DCU, Maynooth), Institutes of Technology, Technological Universities and colleges of education.
How the CAO Application Works
Students apply online at www.cao.ie. The process works as follows:
- You list up to 20 course choices in order of preference (Level 8 and Level 7/6 on separate lists)
- The CAO does not see your order — only you know
- When results come out, the CAO uses your points and your preference order to make offers
- You receive one offer per list (the highest preference you qualify for)
Application Fees (2025)
- Online application: €30 (by 1 February)
- Late application: €60 (by 1 May)
- Change of mind: Free (online up to 1 July)
- Paper application: €45
Points System
Your best six subjects are counted. You must include:
- English (or a specified language requirement)
- Mathematics (for most courses)
- A language (Irish or another modern European language) for some courses
Visit our Points Calculator for the full grade-to-points conversion.
Offer Rounds
- Round One: Usually mid-September — the main round of offers
- Round Zero: For mature students and certain categories (August)
- Subsequent rounds: September through October — places that become available as students accept or decline
- Each round, the CAO re-runs the algorithm and makes new offers
Change of Mind
You can change your course preferences for free online until 1 July. This is useful if you:
- Re-evaluate your choices based on predicted performance
- Discover a new course or career path
- Want to reorder based on new information about points requirements
Accepting an Offer
You accept your offer online through the CAO website. You can also defer for a year with most institutions. If you accept a course, your other offers are automatically withdrawn for that list.
HEAR and DARE Schemes
HEAR (Higher Education Access Route) — Reduced points entry for students from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds. DARE (Disability Access Route to Education) — Reduced points for students with disabilities. Both require separate applications by 1 March.
CAO 2026: Key Dates for the Offer Season
The 2026 CAO offer season runs on a tight schedule. Leaving Cert results were published on Friday 21 August, and Round One offers were made available online, by email and by SMS on Wednesday 26 August at 2pm. The Available Places facility opened on 27 August, Round One acceptances closed on 1 September at 3pm, and further rounds followed: Round Two offers on 7 September, Round Three on 15 September, Round Four on 22 September and Round Five on 29 September, with the offer season ending on 1 October. The CAO application facility for 2027 opens on 5 November 2026.
All offers and correspondence now happen online through your CAO account at cao.ie — the days of postal offers are gone. Set a reminder for each round and check your account on the day, because acceptance deadlines are strict.
The 2025 Points Snapshot: What It Means for You
The 2025 Round One points give the clearest picture yet of where demand sits. Medicine led the table at 728–739 points across the five undergraduate schools, Trinity's Dental Science required 625, UCD's Economics and Finance 625, and UCD's Actuarial and Financial Studies 613. For the first time, all UCD courses cleared 400 points in Round One, with General Nursing up 34 points to 444 and Radiography at 545. Health sciences, technology and finance courses dominate the upper table, and that pattern is expected to hold into 2026.
If your target course sits in the upper reaches, remember the maths bonus (25 points for H6+ Higher Level maths) and the fact that medicine combines Leaving Cert results with the HPAT. Points are set annually by supply and demand — treat last year's figures as a guide, not a promise.
What's Changing: Medicine Places and the 2027 Reforms
Two structural changes will reshape the CAO landscape over the next two years. First, more than 200 additional undergraduate medicine places are being added nationally from 2026 — the biggest expansion in years — which should ease the extraordinary points pressure at the top of the table. Second, from 2027 entry, the scoring system for medicine changes: HPAT results will carry greater weight, reducing the influence of marginal differences in very high Leaving Cert scores.
For students planning ahead, the practical advice is unchanged: meet the subject requirements for your target courses, maximise your best six subjects, take the maths bonus where you can, and if medicine is the goal, start preparing for the HPAT as seriously as you prepare for the Leaving Cert itself.