SQE2 January 2027 Booking: Seat Reservation Form & Dates

Guide to SQE2 January 2027 booking: your seat reservation form, step by step

SQE2 January 2027 booking opens with a three-day window. Seat reservation forms are emailed from 6pm on Tuesday 13 October 2026, and you must complete yours by 5pm on Friday 16 October 2026. That is 5pm on a working day, not midnight. After that, payment requests go out between 13 November and 2 December, and each one gives you 48 hours to pay before the seat is cancelled.

Not everyone books the same way. If you have passed SQE1, are exempt from it, or are resitting SQE2, you use the seat reservation form. If you sat SQE2 in July 2026 and are waiting for your results, none of the October dates apply to you, and you book directly in December if you need to resit. Find your route first, then follow the steps for it.

Which SQE2 January 2027 booking route are you on?

Your situation	How you book January 2027	Dates that matter
You have passed SQE1	Seat reservation form	Form from 6pm, 13 October; deadline 5pm, 16 October
You are exempt from the whole of SQE1	Seat reservation form (confirm your exemption in your SQE account first)	Form from 6pm, 13 October; deadline 5pm, 16 October
You are resitting SQE2 and already have your result	Seat reservation form	Form from 6pm, 13 October; deadline 5pm, 16 October
You sat SQE2 in July 2026 and are waiting for results	No form. Book directly in your SQE account if you need to resit	Results 17 November; booking 10am, 3 December to 5pm, 4 December
You are sitting SQE2 in October 2026	January is not a resit option	Your results are due 23 February 2027, after the January window ends
You are sitting SQE1 in January 2027	Not eligible for January SQE2	SQE1 results are due 9 March 2027

The rule behind the last two rows is simple: you can only book SQE2 once you have passed SQE1 or been granted an exemption from the whole of it, and you cannot book a resit before you know you need one.

The SQE2 January 2027 booking timeline

Stage	When (UK time)
Examinable law and practice cut-off	Saturday 26 September 2026
Seat reservation forms emailed	Tuesday 13 October 2026, from 6pm
Deadline to complete the form, and to accept a reasonable adjustment proposal	Friday 16 October 2026 (the form closes at 5pm)
Payment requests emailed (48 hours to pay each one)	Friday 13 November 2026, 10am, to Wednesday 2 December 2026, 5pm
July 2026 SQE2 results	Tuesday 17 November 2026
Rescheduling, and direct booking of remaining seats	Thursday 3 December 2026, 10am, to Friday 4 December 2026, 5pm
Booking closes	Friday 4 December 2026
Oral assessments, first sitting	Tuesday 26 to Wednesday 27 January 2027
Oral assessments, second sitting	Thursday 28 to Friday 29 January 2027
Written assessments	Tuesday 2 to Thursday 4 February 2027
Results	Thursday 20 May 2027

Every date comes from the SRA's own January 2027 SQE2 booking pages and its assessment dates and booking windows page. The SRA gives all times in UK time. The examinable law cut-off has already passed: you are assessed on the law as it stood on 26 September 2026. All SQE1 and SQE2 sittings, with locations and fees, are on our SQE exam dates page.

Booking SQE2 from outside the UK

The UK is still on British Summer Time in mid-October, so convert both times before you plan your evening. The form arrives at 6pm UK time on Tuesday 13 October, which is 1pm in New York, 9pm in Dubai, 10.30pm in India, and 1am on Wednesday 14 October in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. The 5pm deadline on Friday 16 October is 12 noon in New York, 8pm in Dubai, 9.30pm in India, and midnight in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. If you are in Asia, the form lands overnight: you can still complete it the next morning, but do not leave it to the Friday.

Before 13 October: the pre-booking steps

For SQE2 the SRA puts the consequence of an unfinished pre-booking step more bluntly than for SQE1:

You must complete these steps otherwise you will not receive a seat reservation form.

An incomplete step does not leave you with a grey tick and a warning. It means no form arrives on the Tuesday evening, and you will probably only notice once the window is already running. Log into My SQE now and check each one.

1. Your SQE account

You register on the My SQE Overview page. If you passed SQE1 you already have an account; check that the email address on it is one you read every day, because the form, the payment request and every change of plan go to that address and nowhere else.

2. ID verification

The step most likely to take longer than you expect, because it depends on a document and on a check you do not control. The name on your ID must match your SQE account exactly. If your ID has expired or your name has changed since SQE1, sort it out before Tuesday. Our SQE ID validation guide covers the detail.

3. The Monitoring and Maximising Diversity Survey

The questions are optional. Submitting the survey is not. You can decline to answer every question, but the survey itself has to be submitted for the step to count.

4. The reasonable adjustments question

Answer it even if you are not asking for adjustments. On SQE2 the SRA is clear that completing this section is how you make a request for adjustments, so a blank section is both an incomplete step and a missing request.

5. Your SQE1 exemption, if you have one

If you are booking SQE2 on the strength of an exemption from the whole of SQE1, make sure it shows as confirmed on your account. The SRA lists confirming exemptions among the pre-booking tasks. Our SQE exemptions guide explains how they are granted.

Reasonable adjustments for SQE2 January 2027

If you have requested adjustments, or intend to, four rules are different for you.

• You still complete the seat reservation form. The SRA says so explicitly. An adjustment request does not replace the form.
• You must accept your adjustment proposal by 16 October 2026, the same day the form closes. That is the deadline to accept a proposal you have already been sent, not the deadline to apply. If you need adjustments for January and have not yet received a proposal, contact the SQE team now.
• You pay by phone. Your payment request still arrives from 13 November, but it asks you to call the team to pay. The 48-hour limit still applies.
• You must not book through your candidate account. The direct booking route on 3 and 4 December is not for you. To change a booked seat, email accessibility@sqe.sra.org.uk rather than using the Bookings page.

Completing the SQE2 seat reservation form

The form asks for your preferred dates and locations. For SQE2 that means two separate choices, and it helps to have made both before 6pm on the Tuesday.

Your oral sitting. You attend one oral sitting only: either the first (26 and 27 January) or the second (28 and 29 January). Oral assessments run at exam venues in Birmingham, Cardiff, London and Manchester, and the SRA warns that not every location may be available for every sitting. The venues are confirmed when the booking window opens, so have a first and a second choice ready, along with the travel and the night in a hotel that each one implies.

Your written centre. The written assessments take place at Pearson VUE test centres in the UK and internationally, across 2 to 4 February. Most candidates can sit these much closer to home than the orals.

The SQE2 booking pages do not say how competing forms are prioritised. Assume that earlier is better: for SQE1, seats go in the order completed forms are received, and the SRA calls the form the "recommended and preferred method" of booking. Complete it in one go on the Tuesday evening rather than saving it for later. If something goes wrong (the email is in spam, or no form arrives at all), you have Wednesday, Thursday and Friday morning to sort it out. Do not spend them waiting.

Paying for your SQE2 seat: the 48-hour rule

This is the stage that catches people out, because it is the one you cannot schedule. Payment requests are emailed at some point between 10am on 13 November and 5pm on 2 December 2026. You do not know which day yours will arrive, and once it does, you have 48 hours to pay or your seat is cancelled.

That applies to every candidate, including those with reasonable adjustments. A reserved seat is not a booking. The booking happens when you log into your SQE account, review the seat you have been allocated, accept it and pay. If you decline the seat, you lose your place.

Prepare for a three-week window, not a single day:

• Have the money ready. The SQE2 fee is £3,086, which covers the oral and written assessments together. A payment that size can hit a daily card limit or trigger a fraud check, so check your limit or tell your bank in advance.
• If your employer or training provider is paying, get the prepaid voucher before 13 November. The SRA accepts debit and credit cards or a prepaid voucher.
• Check your inbox and spam folder every day from 13 November to 2 December, and mark the SQE address as a safe sender.
• Plan around travel. If you will be on a flight or without signal for two days in that period, make sure you can still log in and pay.

Rescheduling and late booking: 3 and 4 December

Online booking opens in your SQE account for just over a day: from 10am on Thursday 3 December to 5pm on Friday 4 December 2026. Booking for January 2027 closes at the end of it.

If you already have a seat, you can move it to another location, subject to availability, through the Bookings page. Be careful with the orals. The SRA notes that rescheduling an SQE2 oral assessment means cancelling and rebooking your whole oral booking, so make sure the seat you want is available before you give up the one you have.

If you did not complete a seat reservation form, this is your only other way in. The SRA says a limited number of seats will be available to book directly, subject to availability, and you pay at the time of booking. You will be competing for those seats with July 2026 candidates who need to resit. The SRA "strongly recommends" the form instead, and that is the right advice: the December route is a fallback, not a plan.

Waiting for July 2026 SQE2 results? Your January 2027 resit

You have nothing to do until results day, Tuesday 17 November 2026. You do not need to complete a seat reservation form this time.

If you pass, you are done with the SQE assessments. If you do not, and you want to resit in January:

1. Make sure your pre-booking steps are complete as soon as you have your result.
2. Be logged in at 10am on Thursday 3 December, when the candidate account opens for online bookings.
3. Book and pay before 5pm on Friday 4 December. Seats in this window are limited, so do not leave it to the Friday.

If you have reasonable adjustments, do not book through the candidate account. Complete the reasonable adjustments section of the pre-booking steps instead.

Think about the timing before you book. Results day to the first oral assessment is about ten weeks, which is enough time to work on the specific assessments your result shows you were weakest in, but not enough to start your preparation again from scratch. You have up to three attempts at SQE2 within the six-year SQE window, so a January resit is not your last chance. Our SQE2 results analysis shows how pass rates have moved across sittings.

The January 2027 SQE2 runs the orals first

There is no fixed order between the SQE2 oral and written assessments, and in January 2027 the orals come first. The four oral assessments (two client interviews with attendance notes, and two advocacy assessments) run in the last week of January. The written assessments follow on 2 to 4 February.

That affects which oral sitting you should ask for. The second oral sitting finishes on Friday 29 January, leaving a weekend and a Monday before the written assessments start on Tuesday 2 February. The first sitting finishes on Wednesday 27 January and gives you most of a week. If you want time between the two parts, ask for the first sitting.

The format itself is not changing for 2027. SQE2 is still 16 assessments across five practice areas, with one pass mark for SQE2 as a whole. Changes from the SRA's annual review apply to every assessment from 1 September 2026, including this one: money laundering is now examinable in Property Practice as well as Business Law and Practice, Ethics and Professional Conduct is marked as its own criterion under application of law, practice area names now match SQE1, and the monetary values of tax exemptions and reliefs will be provided. We cover each change in SQE changes 2027.

SQE2 fees for January 2027

The SQE2 fee is £3,086, covering the oral and written assessments together, at the fee level that took effect in September 2026 (previously £2,974). It is VAT exempt and covers the assessment only, not preparation, travel or a resit. You pay it in full when your payment request arrives, by card or prepaid voucher, within 48 hours.

Your SQE2 January 2027 checklist

1. Work out which route you are on from the table at the top of this guide.
2. Log into My SQE and check ID verification, the diversity survey, the reasonable adjustments question and any SQE1 exemption.
3. Check that the email address on your SQE account is one you read every day.
4. If you need adjustments, make sure you can accept your proposal by 16 October.
5. Choose your oral sitting and your first and second choice venues and written centre.
6. Put Tuesday 13 October, 6pm UK time in your calendar, converted to your own time zone.
7. Put Friday 16 October, 5pm UK time in as a hard deadline, not a reminder.
8. Have £3,086 (or your voucher) ready, and check your inbox daily from 13 November to 2 December.
9. Waiting for July results? Put 17 November and 10am on 3 December in your calendar instead.

If you are planning your preparation around this sitting, our SQE2 readiness checklist lists what to have done before January, and our SQE2 preparation guide covers how to prepare for each assessment.

SQE2 January 2027 booking: FAQ

When is the SQE2 January 2027 seat reservation form sent?

From 6pm UK time on Tuesday 13 October 2026, by email to the address registered on your SQE account. You only receive it if your pre-booking steps are complete.

What is the deadline for the SQE2 January 2027 seat reservation form?

5pm UK time on Friday 16 October 2026. The same date is the deadline to accept a reasonable adjustment proposal for the January 2027 sitting.

When are the SQE2 January 2027 exam dates?

The oral assessments run in two sittings, 26 to 27 January 2027 and 28 to 29 January 2027, and you attend one of them. The written assessments run from 2 to 4 February 2027.

When does booking close for SQE2 January 2027?

Friday 4 December 2026 at 5pm, at the end of the two-day online booking and rescheduling window that opens at 10am on 3 December.

When are SQE2 January 2027 results published?

Thursday 20 May 2027. SQE2 results are published 14 to 18 weeks after the assessment.

When do I pay for SQE2 January 2027?

When your payment request arrives. Requests are emailed between 10am on 13 November and 5pm on 2 December 2026, and you must pay within 48 hours or your seat is cancelled.

How much does SQE2 cost in January 2027?

£3,086 for the oral and written assessments together, at the fee level that took effect in September 2026. The fee is VAT exempt and covers the assessment only.

Can I resit SQE2 in January 2027 if I fail the July 2026 SQE2?

Yes. July 2026 results are released on 17 November 2026. If you need to resit, complete your pre-booking steps and book directly through the Bookings page in your SQE account between 10am on 3 December and 5pm on 4 December. You do not need a seat reservation form.

Can I resit in January 2027 if I sat SQE2 in October 2026?

No. October 2026 SQE2 results are due on 23 February 2027, after the January window has finished.

What if I miss the SQE2 seat reservation form deadline?

A limited number of seats can be booked directly through your SQE account between 10am on 3 December and 5pm on 4 December 2026, subject to availability. Candidates with reasonable adjustments cannot use this route.

Where are the SQE2 oral assessments held?

At exam venues in Birmingham, Cardiff, London and Manchester, although not every location may be available for every sitting. The written assessments are at Pearson VUE test centres in the UK and internationally.

What is the examinable law cut-off for SQE2 January 2027?

26 September 2026. You are assessed on the law as it stood on that date.