GeneralGuide
How to Send Your IELTS Results to Universities
You do not post your own Test Report Form. You ask for it to be sent, through your booking portal or your test centre. Each organisation picks postal mail or e-delivery. Postal is free for up to five organisations, and e-delivery has no limit.
A scan of your Test Report Form that you email is only a copy. What an organisation can check is the record IELTS holds, so getting your score to the organisation is a request you make.
What the organisation does with your result
The IELTS Results Service is free for organisations. They can look up a result by its Test Report Form number to check your identity and score. They can also download results, review them on screen, download them in bulk or import them by API source: ielts.org.
Ask the organisation first
Each organisation says how it wants official scores: by postal mail or by IELTS Results Service e-delivery. Contact each one to confirm which. For postal delivery, ask for the address they want results sent to. For e-delivery, ask for their account name source: ielts.org.
Do this before you request anything. Only the organisation can give you the right address or account name, and your request needs it.
To check whether an organisation accepts IELTS at all, see Who accepts IELTS?.
The two routes
| Postal mail | E-delivery | |
|---|---|---|
| How many organisations | Up to five free, then a processing fee for each extra one | No limit |
| What you need from them | Their postal address | Their account name |
| How you request it | Contact your test centre | Booking portal or test centre |
| IELTS Online results | Not available | The only route |
Ask your test centre what the processing fee is. It matters only if six or more places want your result by post. E-delivery has no limit, so a long list of organisations that take e-delivery is no problem.
How to make the request
You can choose e-delivery organisations in the booking portal, or ask your test centre to add them. For postal delivery, and for any other question or problem with your result, contact your test centre source: ielts.org.
If you tested in the USA, the same steps may work. A request form also gives more information for your US test centre source: ielts.org.
If you took IELTS Online
IELTS Online results can only be shared officially by IELTS Results Service e-delivery source: ielts.org. So the postal route and the five free postal deliveries do not apply to you.
IELTS Online is for Academic only. Each receiving organisation decides whether to accept it, and the Test Report Form shows that the test was taken online source: ielts.org.
Before you book an online test, check two things with every place on your list. Does it take e-delivery, and does it accept an online result? Academic or General Training covers the online option.
An older form design is still valid
From 15 July 2026 every Test Report Form carries the logo of Ofqual, the regulator for qualifications in England. Forms from before and after that date stay valid for university and visa applications source: ielts.org. How long IELTS results take covers the free updated form you can ask for.
UK visas use a reference number
For a UK visa you send no documents. Your result carries a reference number, called the UKVI number for IELTS, and results are checked online with it source: GOV.UK.
What IELTS for UKVI is explains the number and which test a UK visa needs.
Leave time for both waits
Results take 1 to 5 days on computer and 6 to 8 days for IELTS Online source: ielts.org. How long IELTS results take has the figures for every format.
Sending is a second wait after that. IELTS gives no delivery time for either route, so leave a margin before any closing date.
Check the age of your result
Organisations are advised to treat a result as showing your English for up to two years source: ielts.org. A UK visa application needs a test awarded in the two years before you apply source: GOV.UK. Canada's Express Entry needs results less than two years old source: IRCC.
So check the age of your result before you send it. How long IELTS results stay valid covers who does what with an older form.
If you need a better score first
Sending is the last step, so make sure the score is the one you want to send. A One Skill Retake gives you a new Test Report Form with the retaken score and your other three skills. You choose which form to use source: ielts.org. How One Skill Retake works explains who can take one.
If you are not sure how far one low section pulls your overall band down, the band score calculator shows what changing it does.
The sharing routes, the five free postal deliveries, IELTS Online sharing, the closed centre service and the results timings come from ielts.org's getting and sharing your results page. What organisations can do with a result comes from its IELTS Results Service page, the online test details from Ways to take IELTS, the form redesign from its notice on changes to Test Report Forms and the retake form from its One Skill Retake page. The reference number rule comes from GOV.UK's secure English language test guidance, last updated 25 September 2026. All were last checked on 1 October 2026. Fees, portal layouts and centre steps vary by country, so your own test centre is the authority on what a request costs and how long it takes.
- Written by
- Compass IELTS Editorial Team, the team behind the Compass IELTS band score tools and practice tests
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- Sources
- Words in a quote box, and sentences just before a source link such as ielts.org, come from the test owners. Everything else is our explanation. Facts about the test come from official sources, linked where we use them. Read our editorial policy.
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