Is It Worth Appealing Your Leaving Cert Results?

An appeal is worth the fee, €40 per subject in 2026, when you have viewed your script and found something you can point at. Marks added up wrong and answers credited below what the marking scheme allows are the clearest cases. In 2025 the State Examinations Commission upgraded 3,935 of the 20,764 individual subject results that were appealed, about 19%. Those figures were reported on Friday 26 September 2025. Roughly four in five appealed results came back unchanged, and none was downgraded. The viewing happens before the appeal deadline, so you can make the decision with the marked paper in front of you.

The dates, the portal steps and the CAO rounds are in our guide to script viewing and appeals, which is updated each year.

What an appeal actually is

Your script goes to a second examiner, who is not the person who marked it originally. That examiner marks it again against the same published marking scheme. The State Examinations Commission (the SEC) is the state body that runs the exams. Its Candidate Information Guide 2: Results and Appeals for 2025 sets out what an appeal examiner is doing:

Appeal examiners are not searching for additional marks to "bring a candidate up to the next grade". In justice to all other candidates who took the examination, examiners can award only those marks due to you in accordance with the marking scheme.

The same guide adds that "it is possible that the appeal examiner could either add or deduct marks, in accordance with the marking scheme, as they work their way, question by question, through your work".

Asked whether a candidate a few marks short of the next grade is likely to be awarded them on appeal, the guide says: "Not necessarily. The appeal process exists to ensure that the marking scheme has been applied consistently and accurately to your work."

The upgrade numbers

The post-marking adjustment is the uplift the SEC adds to every result while pandemic-era grade inflation is unwound. The adjustment itself cannot be appealed. Where a mark changes on appeal, the adjustment is worked out again on the new mark, and that recalculation can carry a result over a grade boundary. It appears in the last column of the table.

The three most recent published years:

Sources: Irish Examiner, 29 September 2023, Irish Examiner, 27 September 2024, and RTÉ, 26 September 2025. The Irish Times put the rates at 19% of appealed results in 2025, 22% in 2024 and 23% in 2023, which is what those counts come to.

The last column is where the caution sits. In 2024, 814 results were upgraded on the re-marking alone, and the total reached 3,123 once the recalculated adjustment was applied, on the Irish Examiner's figures. So the marks an appeal examiner added accounted for about a quarter of the 2024 upgrades, and 770 of the 2,729 upgrades in 2023.

That uplift is still in place for the class of 2026. The Minister for Education confirmed on 5 November 2025 that the gradual removal of the adjustment, which began in 2025, continues in 2026. Aggregate results are to be brought just below 2020 levels.

The Irish Times counted more than 142,000 scripts requested for viewing in 2025 and 10,048 candidates who went on to appeal, about 16% of Leaving Certificate candidates.

Can your grade go down on appeal?

Yes, in defined circumstances. The SEC states it directly in the 2025 guide:

Yes, the results published in August are provisional and accordingly a result can be downgraded in certain circumstances.

The guide lists two factual reasons a downgrade can happen automatically. The first is a clear error in the summation of marks, or marks incorrectly included, such as credit given for a question that should have been disallowed. The second is where you were awarded marks for an answer that is "clearly and unambiguously not in accordance with the marking scheme".

Beyond those, a Chief Examiner can recommend a downgrade where an examiner made an error of judgement. In those cases, the guide says, "a downgrade would not normally occur where there is a marginal difference".

That is the rule. The outcome in the most recent year was different. RTÉ reported on 26 September 2025 that of the 2025 appeals, "a total of 19% of appeals resulted in upgrades, and no marks were downgraded".

The fee, and when you get it back

The gov.ie page for the 2026 state examinations sets the appeal fee at €40 for each Leaving Certificate subject and €15.50 for each Leaving Certificate Applied subject. The fee "is refunded in the event of a successful appeal".

Appealing three subjects costs €120 up front. If one of the three is upgraded, you get €40 back and the other €80 stays with the SEC. Payment is part of the application, so an unpaid appeal is not a valid appeal.

What to look for while you have the script in front of you

The tot. Add the part marks yourself and check them against the total on the front of the script. An error in the summation of marks is a matter of arithmetic, so it needs no examiner to agree with you. It is also one of the two errors the SEC says change a result automatically on appeal.

Work that was not marked. Check that every answer you wrote has marks beside it, including anything continued in a supplementary booklet or answered out of order.

Marks awarded against the scheme. Read your answer beside the published scheme for that question and see whether the credit given matches what the scheme allows. This is the judgement call, and it is the harder case to argue. Our post on how Leaving Cert marking schemes work covers the notation and the partial credit scales you are reading against. The schemes for 2025 were published on examinations.ie at 12 noon on Tuesday 26 August 2025, and the SEC guide gives the equivalent time each year.

The size of the gap. Leaving Cert grade bands are 10 percentage points wide, so a H4 (60% to 69% at Higher Level) becomes a H3 only at 70%. Our guide to Leaving Cert grades has the full table. Four marks short of a boundary and twenty marks short are two different decisions on the same €40.

There is also a route outside the appeal for one specific problem. It applies where the total mark on the script is clearly inconsistent with the grade you were given. The SEC calls it Rectification Outside the Appeals Process, and it fixes that kind of discrepancy administratively. You ask for it through the Organising Superintendent, the person running an in-person viewing session, or through the SEC candidate helpline. The SEC guide advises lodging an appeal as well, because the appeal deadline will usually pass before you hear back. If the rectification point is upheld, the guide says you can withdraw the appeal and have the fee refunded.

If you do view your script, you can raise specific issues for the appeal examiner to consider. The SEC guide says that facility is open only to candidates who opted to view.

What an upgrade does to your CAO offer

Changes are passed on for you. The SEC notifies the Central Applications Office, which handles college offers, of every result change from the appeals process.

The CAO Handbook 2026 sets out what happens next. The Order of Merit list it refers to is the ranking of applicants for a course by points.

If you have requested to appeal some of your Leaving Certificate examinations, and if your results are changed on appeal, your position on the Order of Merit list will be altered to reflect your new points score.

The handbook continues:

If you are deemed entitled to a place on a course based on your upgraded Leaving Certificate results you will receive an offer. If all of the places for that course have already been allocated, you will receive a deferral of the offer for the following academic year.

Appeal results are due at 11am on Friday 25 September 2026. The CAO offer schedule puts the last scheduled round of offers at 10am on Tuesday 29 September 2026, with acceptances closing at 3pm on Thursday 1 October. An upgrade landing on 25 September can reach that round. The earlier rounds are closed to it, and our script viewing and appeals guide lists them all with their dates.

An upgrade does not create a place by itself. Your points still have to clear the cutoff on a course with places left, which is the competition described in our post on how CAO points work.

FAQ

What percentage of Leaving Cert appeals are successful?

19% of appealed results were upgraded in 2025, which was 3,935 of 20,764 results appealed. The equivalent figures were 3,123 of 14,287 in 2024 and 2,729 of 11,648 in 2023. In 2024 and 2023, about a quarter of those upgrades came from the re-marking before the post-marking adjustment was recalculated.

How much does it cost to appeal a Leaving Cert result?

€40 per Leaving Certificate subject and €15.50 per Leaving Certificate Applied subject, refunded in full for each subject that is upgraded.

Can my grade go down if I appeal?

Yes. The SEC states that results are provisional and can be downgraded in certain circumstances. The main ones are a clear error in the addition of marks and credit given for an answer clearly outside the marking scheme. RTÉ reported that no marks were downgraded in the 2025 appeals.

Do I have to view my script before I appeal?

No. The SEC strongly recommends it, and only candidates who viewed their scripts can raise specific issues for the appeal examiner to consider.

When do the 2026 appeal results come out?

At 11am on Friday 25 September 2026, on the Candidate Self Service Portal. The SEC calls that date provisional until the number of appeals is known.

Have the scheme open before the viewing

The comparison the decision rests on is your answer beside the marking scheme for that question. A viewing session is a poor place to go hunting for the scheme. Pull it up in advance with the ExamAI past-paper finder, which lists the papers and schemes by subject and year.