Leaving Cert Results: Your Guide to Script Viewing and Appeals
Key dates and steps for Leaving Cert script viewing and appeals: seeing your marks, viewing your scripts, appealing a grade, and the remaining CAO rounds.
ExamAI Team4 min read 
Leaving Cert results come out on Friday, 21 August 2026 at 10am. After the results themselves, the next decisions are practical: whether to view your scripts, whether to appeal, and how the CAO rounds work. The State Examinations Commission has now published the full schedule for 2026, and it says the deadlines will be strictly applied.
A note on terms. Viewing your script means looking at your own marked exam paper to see how it was graded. An appeal is asking the State Examinations Commission (the SEC, which runs the exams) to have that paper re-marked. The CAO is the Central Applications Office, which handles college offers. Almost everything below happens on the Candidate Self Service Portal, the SEC site where your results appear, usually shortened to the CSSP.
Seeing your results
Your results are published on the CSSP at 10am on Friday, 21 August 2026. That is the first place you see your grade in each subject. The SEC sends your results to the CAO directly at the same time, so you do not need to pass them on.
Your marks for each component, meaning the individual sections of each paper, appear on the CSSP at 12 noon on Tuesday, 25 August. Those are the numbers to look at before you decide whether to view a script or appeal, because they show which part of a paper cost you the marks.
Viewing your scripts
Applying to view your scripts and the viewing itself happen on different days.
The application opens on the CSSP at 5pm on Tuesday, 25 August and closes at 8pm on Wednesday, 26 August. Leaving Certificate Applied candidates apply by email on the same timeline. Viewing your scripts is free.
How you then see the scripts depends on how they were marked.
- Scripts marked online are viewed on the CSSP over a 24 hour window, from 9am on Saturday, 29 August to 9am on Sunday, 30 August. The SEC notes some exceptions, set out in Section 5 of its Candidate Information guide 2, A Guide to Results and Appeals.
- Scripts marked on paper are viewed in your school on Saturday, 29 August. You are assigned to one of two three hour sessions, either 9.30am to 12.30pm or 2pm to 5pm.
Appealing a result
If viewing a script suggests a marking or addition error, you can appeal. Applications and payment go through the CSSP, opening at 10am on Sunday, 30 August and closing at 5pm on Monday, 31 August.
The fee is €40 for each Leaving Certificate subject you appeal, and €15.50 for each Leaving Certificate Applied subject. The fee is refunded in full if the appeal succeeds.
Appeal results are due on Friday, 25 September at 11am. The SEC calls that date provisional until it knows how many appeals were lodged, and says candidates will be told if it moves.
How to review a script
When you look at a script, you are checking two different things: arithmetic and marking.
- Check the addition first. Make sure the marks were totted up correctly. This is the most common and simplest error to catch.
- Bring someone who knows the subject. Teachers are often at in-person viewings. If yours is there, use them.
- Bring the marking scheme so you can see how each part was meant to be awarded. Every marking scheme sits alongside the papers on the past-paper pages, which link straight to examinations.ie.
- Use all the time you are given. A rushed viewing is where you miss things.
- Know where the grade boundaries are. If you are sitting right on the edge of the next grade, a few marks matter more, and an appeal is more likely to be worth the fee. The CAO points and grading document shows the bands.
The CAO rounds
Results day is not the last chance at an offer. The CAO timetable sets these dates.
- Round 1 offers: Wednesday, 26 August at 2pm, online and by email and text. If you get no offer, you receive a Statement of Application instead.
- Available Places opens: Thursday, 27 August. This is the CAO facility listing courses that are still taking applications.
- Round 1 acceptances close: Tuesday, 1 September at 3pm. An offer you do not accept by then lapses.
- Round 2 offers: Monday, 7 September at 2pm, with acceptances closing at 3pm on Wednesday, 9 September.
- Later rounds run through September. The final round of offers is on Tuesday, 29 September, and offer season ends on 1 October.
The appeal timeline runs past several of these dates, so an appeal result on 25 September can only affect the rounds still to come.
Whatever the result
The Leaving Cert is one step, and there is more than one route from here: later CAO rounds, PLC courses (Post Leaving Certificate courses, one-year further-education courses that can lead on to college), repeating, or a different path entirely. If the results are not what you wanted, give yourself a day, then talk it through with a teacher or guidance counsellor before deciding anything.
Start on next year's papers
If you are heading into sixth year, the ExamAI past-paper finder has every paper and marking scheme in one place, so you can start working through them well before results season comes round again.