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 the admit card as a colour print and the original of the identification document you uploaded with your online application. The booklet states both in a boxed notice and adds that candidates without those papers are not admitted to the examination hall. Any one of five documents is accepted as the identification: a Nepali citizenship certificate, a national identity card, a passport, a driving licence, or the admit card of your final-year or final-semester I.Sc, 10+2 or engineering diploma examination. It has to be the original of the one you uploaded, not a different document and not a photocopy. Your centre, date and shift are assigned rather than chosen, and they are printed on the admit card. In the 2083 cycle the paper ran across four dated rows, 11 to 14 Shrawan, at the Information and Communication Technology Centre at Pulchowk and then at Paschimanchal, Purwanchal and Thapathali campuses, with the earliest shift starting at 07:00.
- 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 the one candidates dismiss, and it is written into the procedure rather than left to the invigilator. Print it in colour rather than arguing about it at the gate.
Where is the exam held, and how are shifts assigned?
Your date, time and centre are given to you rather than chosen, so the admit card is the only schedule that applies to you. The 2083 pattern published in the booklet ran as four dated rows across two groups of centres, and the number of shifts changed between them.
| Date, 2083 | Shifts | Centre |
|---|---|---|
| Shrawan 11 (Monday) | 10:00 and 16:00 | ICTC, Pulchowk, Lalitpur |
| Shrawan 12 (Tuesday) onwards | 07:00, 10:00, 13:00 and 16:00 | ICTC, Pulchowk, Lalitpur |
| Shrawan 13 (Wednesday) | 10:00 and 16:00 | Paschimanchal Pokhara, Purwanchal Dharan, Thapathali |
| Shrawan 14 (Thursday) onwards | 07:00, 10:00, 13:00 and 16:00 | Paschimanchal Pokhara, Purwanchal Dharan, Thapathali |
Scroll the table sideways for Centre.
All four subjects sit in every shift. The booklet prints Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and English in a single subject column spanning all four rows, so no shift is a single-subject paper.
What should you plan around the shift you are given?
An 07:00 shift means arriving before dawn in Kathmandu traffic, and the two four-shift rows are where that earliest slot appears. If you are assigned Pokhara or Dharan, treat the day before as part of the examination rather than as travel.
The centres and the shift pattern are published for each cycle before the exam, on the entrance portal and in that year’s booklet. The 2083 rows above have already run and are here as the shape to expect, not as a schedule to plan against.
Shift pattern, centres and subject column read from printed page 3 of the booklet for the 2083 cycle; the admit-card and identification rule from the boxed notice on printed page 2 and again at section 3.2.7 on printed page 11. The 2083 online application ran from 23 Asar at 10:00 to 1 Shrawan at 17:00. Confirm the current year on the entrance portal, because centres change. The same PDF was re-downloaded and re-checked on 31 August 2026 and is unchanged.
Sources
- IOE B.E./B.Arch Booklet 2083published 7 August 2026 · read 18 August 2026
- IOE Entrance Examination Board portalread 18 August 2026
Last reviewed by Ram Raj Thapa, Admissions Officer, Imperial College of Engineering. Every figure on this page is cited to the document it came from.
