CAO dates trip students up for a simple reason: one cycle holds several different kinds of date, and they do not all do the same job. There is an opening date, there are programme closing dates, there is a fee deadline, there is a late-fee start date, and there are office dates. This page gathers the confirmed dates for 2027 entry in one place, spells out what each date actually controls, and marks clearly the dates you will see quoted online that were not confirmed on cao.ac.za while this page was written.
By the end of the page you should be able to answer four questions without guessing: when applications open for January and July entry, when the on-time administration fee runs out and the late fee takes over, why programme closing dates cannot be taken from one general date, and which other dates in the cycle are worth keeping an eye on once you have applied.
The 2027 Entry Dates at a Glance
Only two kinds of date made it into the table: dates confirmed on cao.ac.za while this page was written, and dates that follow straight from a confirmed CAO rule in the Terms and Conditions. Anything that could not be confirmed on cao.ac.za was left out of the table as a fact, and is talked about separately further down, so you can see exactly where the confirmed information ends.
| Milestone | Verified date or rule for 2027 entry |
|---|---|
| January (first-semester) applications processed from | 1 March of the year preceding entry (Terms and Conditions: 1 March for the following year's January intake) |
| July (second-semester) applications processed from | 1 August of the preceding year for the following year's July intake (Terms and Conditions) |
| On-time administration fee ends, January 2027 entry | Fee reaches CAO on or before 31 October 2026 |
| Late administration fee starts, January 2027 entry | Fee reaches CAO on or after 1 November 2026 |
| On-time administration fee ends, July 2027 entry | Fee reaches CAO on or before 31 May 2027 |
| Late administration fee starts, July 2027 entry | Fee reaches CAO on or after 1 June 2027 |
| CAO face-to-face office period, 2027 cycle | 2 March to 30 November 2026 (2027 Entry FAQs) |
| Acknowledgement letter after a valid application | Within two weeks (Terms and Conditions) |
| Correction window after the acknowledgement letter | Information treated as correct one week after the letter is sent (Terms and Conditions) |
Look closely at the first two rows. CAO's Terms and Conditions describe the opening pattern in general terms: CAO starts processing applications for member institutions on 1 March for the next year's January intake, and on 1 August for the next year's July intake, with institutions beginning to make offers early in the year before entry. For January 2027 entry, that pattern lands on 1 March 2026 as the opening date — a date third parties also report widely for the 2027 cycle. Because the Terms lay down the rule rather than naming the 2027 cycle date in the passage opened, this page treats 1 March 2026 as the date that follows from the official rule, and suggests you confirm the opening notice for your own cycle on cao.ac.za if you are applying for a different entry year. The same care applies the other way: do not carry a 2027 opening date into a later cycle without checking that year's Handbook and notices.
When Do CAO Applications Open?
January entry opens on 1 March in the year before entry. CAO opens that early on purpose. Institutions begin making offers early in the year before entry, and CAO's Terms and Conditions urge applicants to complete and submit the online application as soon as possible — the earlier in the year you apply and hand in the required documents, the earlier you come into consideration for a place.
July, or second-semester, entry opens on 1 August in the preceding year, for member institutions that run a second-semester intake. Treat July as its own cycle, with its own fee dates and its own programme closing dates. If July is your entry point, use the July dates in the table above, not the January ones.
An early opening does not keep every programme open for the same stretch of time. One programme can close long before the general fee deadline, and another may take no late applications whatsoever. Opening date, programme closing date and fee deadline are three separate dates, and you need to check all three against your own choices.
The Fee Dates: The Most Important Deadlines After Opening
Of all the dates in the cycle, the fee dates are the ones most applicants have to act on, because they change what you pay, and because your payment has to clear before your application counts as valid.
For January 2027 entry, the administration fee is R250 for South African citizens and R300 for international applicants when it reaches CAO on or before 31 October 2026, and R470 and R580 respectively when it reaches CAO on or after 1 November 2026. For July 2027 entry, the same amounts apply either side of 31 May and 1 June 2027. The Change of Mind administration fee is R140 per submission.
Two details here catch people out. First, what counts is when the fee reaches CAO, not when you start paying. A payment started on 31 October that only clears on 1 November has not reached CAO on or before 31 October. Second, the late-fee date is one CAO-wide date, whatever the closing dates of individual programmes are. That is why an application can be marked late for a programme and still be charged the on-time fee, provided the fee reached CAO before the late-fee date.
Programme Closing Dates: The Dates You Must Check Individually
This page gives no single confirmed date for programme closing, and that is deliberate. Under CAO's system, each programme has its own published closing date, and the cao.ac.za pages opened for this page — the 2027 Entry FAQs and the Terms and Conditions — describe that system and what happens with late applications, but they do not set out a single institution closing-date table in the sections read.
Other guides widely quote 30 September 2026 as the closing date for most programmes at UKZN, DUT, MUT and UNIZULU for 2027 entry, and 30 June 2026 as an earlier closing date for Medicine and health sciences programmes. This page does not treat those as confirmed official CAO dates, because they were not confirmed on cao.ac.za while it was written. If either date shapes your plans, check the date for your exact programme in the CAO programme list and the current Handbook before you depend on it. A programme can close before any general date, and a programme marked as taking no applications after its closing date will not be considered at all, regardless of the fee you pay.
To find a programme's closing date, open cao.ac.za, head to Available Programmes and then Programme List, search by institution, faculty, campus or programme name, and open the programme to read its details. Run that check again for each of your up to six choices.
Dates That Are Not Verified in This Guide
The dates below are left out as confirmed CAO facts on purpose, even though other guides state them, so that a third-party date is never dressed up here as an official one:
- One closing date — 30 September 2026 — shared by every programme at UKZN, DUT, MUT and UNIZULU.
- A closing date of 30 June 2026 for Medicine or health sciences programmes.
- A general opening or closing window for Change of Mind in the 2027 cycle.
- Any opening, closing or fee date for entry years beyond 2027.
If one of those dates matters for your application, check it in the current CAO Handbook and programme list on cao.ac.za, or ask CAO or the institution concerned, before you build your plans around it. A date that was right for one programme or one cycle is not proof that it holds for your programme or your cycle.
