What must I bring to the IOE entrance exam, and where is it held?

Your admit card and the original of the ID you uploaded with your application. Without it you are not permitted to sit. Centres run in assigned shifts across four days.

Bring your admit card as a COLOUR print, and the original of the identification document you uploaded with your online application. The booklet is explicit on both, and that candidates without the identification are not admitted to the examination hall. Any one of these is accepted:

• Nepali citizenship certificate
• National identity card
• Passport
• Driving licence
• I.Sc / 10+2 / Engineering Diploma final year or semester admit card

The colour-print requirement is easy to dismiss and it is written into the procedure, so print it in colour rather than arguing about it at the gate.

Shifts and centres

The entrance runs in assigned shifts across four days. Your date, time and centre are given to you rather than chosen, so read the admit card carefully. In the 2083 cycle the first two days ran at the Information and Communication Technology Centre at Pulchowk, Lalitpur, and the following two days at Paschimanchal Campus Pokhara, Purwanchal Campus Dharan and Thapathali Campus. There were two shifts on the first and third days and four on the second and fourth, the earliest starting at 07:00.

Plan travel around the shift you are given

An 07:00 shift means arriving before dawn in Kathmandu traffic. If you are assigned Pokhara or Dharan, treat the day before as part of the examination. Each year the centres and shift pattern are published on the entrance portal before the exam.

Shift pattern and centres read from page 3 of the booklet for the 2083 cycle. Confirm the current year on the entrance portal; centres change.

Last reviewed 18 August 2026 by Ram Raj Thapa, Admissions Officer, Imperial College of Engineering. Every figure on this page is cited to the document it came from.

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Related answers

• How many questions are in the IOE entrance exam, and is there negative marking?

  The paper is computer-based, runs 2 hours, and has 100 questions worth 140 marks in total. 10% of the marks is deducted for a wrong answer.

• Where does IOE publish the entrance result and the merit list?

  Both on entrance.ioe.edu.np. Campus and college admission then runs on a separate portal, admission.ioe.edu.np, and confusing the two is the usual cause of panic.

• Does IOE publish model questions for the entrance exam?

  Yes. The official booklet contains model questions, and their section headers confirm the paper structure: Section A is 1 mark × 60, Section B is 2 marks × 40.