The ACT Test(ACT)

About the exam

About ACT

Outside the United States, the ACT exam is taken on a computer at a test centre, and a student in India registers through MyACT as a non-US tester and pays in US dollars. The version on offer is the enhanced ACT: the Composite score has counted English, math and reading only since September 2025, science is an optional add-on, and ACT set February 2026 as the start of shorter test content for international testers.

ACT's The ACT Test: Non-US Students page describes the test as an admissions exam used by universities to evaluate undergraduate applicants, one that measures what a student learns in high school.

The organisation on the other side of a registration is ACT Education Corp. The ACT Examinee Terms and Conditions 2026-2027 are a legal agreement between the test taker and that company, a candidate accepts them by registering, and they send disputes to binding arbitration except as their Section 15 provides.

For candidates outside the US, ACT's International Computer-Based Testing page states that testing is conducted through computer-based testing at test centres. ACT's FAQ for international test coordinators adds that the international ACT is made of linear tests, not computer-adaptive ones, so every examinee sees the same number of questions per subject (ACT International Computer-Based Testing FAQs).

At a glance

ACT highlights

Calendar

Important dates

India shares its ACT test dates with every other country outside the US, US territories and Puerto Rico. A testing window can span two days, each with morning and afternoon sessions, though session availability may vary by test centre. The 2026-2027 schedule on ACT's non-US registration page reads:

The 5 September 2026 date is the first on that schedule. For the second window, 23-24 October 2026, the page sets 25 September as the registration deadline and 9 October as the last date to register on payment of the late fee (ACT non-US registration page). The same page lists projected 2027-2028 international windows, starting on 11 September 2027, and advises choosing a test date at least two months ahead of the application deadlines of every college and scholarship agency a candidate might apply to.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

ACT's non-US registration, fees and test-day pages set out what a registration needs, not who is allowed to take the ACT, and none of them sets a minimum age, a qualification or a nationality.

The non-US registration page requires a free MyACT account, asks for a computer with internet, a credit card or other payment, and high school course details, and tells candidates they need their high school code to register. ACT's high school code lookup searches for that code by country and by city or school name.

The Terms and Conditions add an age-specific rule: examinees aged 12 or younger may have different photo-submission requirements but must still bring acceptable identification to be admitted (ACT Examinee Terms and Conditions).

A candidate who needs accommodations does not request them alone. The ACT test accommodations page for non-US testers says a school official must submit the request through ACT's Test Accessibility and Accommodations (TAA) system before the published accommodations deadline, which for the 23-24 October 2026 window is 25 September. Students who are homeschooled or not currently enrolled in a school follow a separate process that page points to.

Retesting is limited in one way on the registration page: a candidate cannot receive scores from more than one test date within the same scheduled administration, and if a second sitting happens, ACT reports only the first set of scores and cancels the others without refund (non-US registration page).

Step by step

Application process and fee

Registration runs online only. ACT's page on registering for non-US testing tells candidates not to contact a test centre in advance, to create a MyACT account, and to select "Outside the US" when asked where they will test.

A photo is part of the registration. ACT's photo submission requirements say the photo must be added by the photo upload deadline for the test date, or the registration is cancelled, the candidate is not admitted and the registration fee is not refunded, although a test date change can still be requested for the change fee. The photo must be a portrait-format, full face-and-shoulders image against a plain background, with no dark glasses and no filters, uploaded as a JPG, JPEG, PNG or BMP file of at least 640 x 480 pixels and no more than 5MB.

The current ACT fees page for non-US testers prices every option in US dollars:

Test pricing on that page includes score reports for the candidate and up to four colleges whose codes are given at registration, and the page quotes no rupee price. It states that all fees are nonrefundable unless otherwise noted, and it mentions no fee waiver (ACT fees page for non-US testers). The ACT Fee Waiver Program appears on ACT's US registration page, which ties eligibility to location and household income.

Changes and cancellations follow the non-US registration page. Through MyACT a candidate can add or remove the writing test, change the test date or location, update personal details, add or change college choices, order more score reports and correct the high school code, and ACT says those changes should be possible up to the late registration deadline for the test date. A candidate who decides not to test cannot recover the basic registration fee or service fees such as late registration or a test centre change, while fees for optional services may be refundable. Missing the test for any reason, including illness, being turned away for lack of ID or arriving late, forfeits the registration and service fees; the page adds that a test date change cannot be requested once the deadline has passed, and that retesting then means registering again and paying the full fee.

There is no walk-in route abroad: ACT's coordinator FAQ states that standby testing is not offered at international test centres (ACT International Computer-Based Testing FAQs).

Before the exam

Admit card and exam day

ACT's admit card is the admission ticket. The ACT test day page for non-US testers tells candidates to print it and bring it, because it carries information including the reporting location. The ticket cannot be printed until the photo has been added, according to the photo submission requirements.

Identification decides admission, and the test day page accepts two forms only. The first is a current official photo ID: an original issued by a city, state or federal government agency or by the candidate's school, in hard plastic card format (paper and electronic formats are not accepted), with first and last names matching the roster. The second is the ACT Student Identification Form with a photo, completed by a school official or a notary public who is not a relative, and the page itself notes that a notary public may not be available in every country.

A passport is where this gets unclear. The test day page says an ID not on its list is not acceptable, does not name a passport on that list, and yet includes among its unacceptable examples a passport "so old that the person presenting it cannot be identified". ACT's 2023 identification guide for Middle East and Northern Africa examinees, which the non-US registration page links for complete details, lists a passport as an acceptable ID type, but its title addresses that region. The ACT Examinee Terms and Conditions tell anyone with a question about acceptable identification to contact ACT before the day of testing, and give test staff sole discretion to refuse admission.

Candidates may bring the admission ticket, the photo ID, a watch with no alarm (never a smartwatch), a permitted calculator for the mathematics test and snacks for the break, per the test day page. It bars textbooks, dictionaries, scratch paper, notes, highlighters, coloured pens and any electronic device other than a permitted calculator. Phones and wearables must be switched off and out of sight from admission to dismissal, breaks included, and a device that is accessed or activates gets the candidate dismissed with the test unscored. The same page says a candidate who arrives late is not admitted, and that once testing starts, by one-time password on a computer or by breaking the seal on a booklet, a test date change can no longer be requested.

On the international computer-based test, ACT's coordinator FAQ says morning testing begins at 8:00 a.m. and afternoon testing at 1:30 p.m. local time, a 15-minute break follows the second test, and a five-minute break follows the fourth for those continuing to writing (ACT International Computer-Based Testing FAQs). The same FAQ says centres give each examinee an erasable whiteboard and marker for rough work, or plain paper if whiteboards are unavailable, and that examinees are not allowed to use their own personal computers.

Two current ACT documents disagree on calculators. The ACT Calculator Policy, updated 1 June 2026, says the Desmos on-screen calculator will be available in a computer-based testing environment, while the coordinator FAQ for the international test says on-screen calculators will not be provided or allowed. Both permit a handheld calculator that meets the policy, and the policy prohibits calculators with computer algebra system functionality, including every Texas Instruments model number beginning TI-89 or TI-92. ACT's 2026-2027 Preparing for the ACT Test booklet adds that no calculator is permitted in the science section.

Structure

Exam pattern

The ACT test day page for non-US testers sets out the sections as:

Not every question counts. ACT's score guide for non-US testers lists 40 operational English questions plus 10 field-test items, 41 in math plus 4, 27 in reading plus 9, and 34 in science plus 6. The Preparing for the ACT Test booklet explains that these field-test items are not labelled, so a candidate cannot tell which questions contribute to the score.

Scores come only from correct answers, with no penalty for guessing, according to the test day page. The score guide for non-US testers says each raw score is converted to a scale score so results mean the same across test forms and dates, and that the Composite, on a 1 to 36 scale, is the average of the English, math and reading scores rounded to the nearest whole number, with fractions of one-half or more rounded up. It adds a STEM score, the average of math and science, and an English Language Arts score, the average of English, reading and writing where writing was taken.

The format changed in two steps. ACT's test enhancements page says that beginning with the September 2025 test all students receive the new Composite, built on English, math and reading, and that beginning February 2026 ACT introduces further enhancements for international test takers, including fewer questions.

Inside a section, the coordinator FAQ says an examinee can skip, review and change answers during the allotted time, but cannot move to the next section before that section's time has expired (ACT International Computer-Based Testing FAQs).

What to study

Syllabus

ACT publishes its syllabus as reporting categories with approximate weightings. The score guide for non-US testers sets them out as:

The non-US students page describes the math test as measuring the skills typically acquired in courses up to the beginning of grade 12, and describes the science test through biology, chemistry, and Earth and space sciences. The Preparing for the ACT Test 2026-2027 booklet lists physics as well, alongside biology, chemistry and Earth and space sciences (geology, astronomy and meteorology, for example), and says advanced knowledge in these areas is not required.

The optional writing test is one essay. ACT's writing test scores page for non-US testers says the essay is evaluated on how well it states the candidate's own perspective on an issue and analyses its relationship to at least one other perspective, and is scored in four domains: Ideas and Analysis, Development and Support, Organization, and Language Use and Conventions. That page reports the subject-level writing score on a range of 2 to 12, keeps it out of the Composite, and says international tests taken online currently use one reader paired with ACT's automated scoring engine, CRASE.

How to prepare

Preparation and books

ACT's free material for non-US testers is listed on its ACT test prep page for non-US students. It links ACT Online Practice Tests labelled Practice Test 1 and Practice Test 2, each offered timed and untimed with English, mathematics, reading, science and writing parts, and a free study guide, Preparing for the ACT, which the page says includes complete practice tests with scoring keys and a writing prompt. It also links QuizMe practice quizzes in math, English, reading and science, with an answer key at the end of each quiz.

The 2026-2027 edition of the Preparing for the ACT Test booklet says its practice test uses retired questions and includes the optional science and writing tests. It also says most of its procedures refer to a National test date at a test centre in the United States, US territories or Puerto Rico, and may differ slightly for a different administration of the ACT.

Where it is held

Exam centres

ACT's non-US registration, test day and computer-based testing pages carry no list of test centres in India. ACT's page on registering for non-US testing says not every country has established test centres and not every centre is scheduled for every test date, and tells candidates to view available dates and centres by country in the online registration portal. Where no centre in the candidate's country is scheduled for any date and none sits within reasonable travelling distance in another country, it points to Arranged Testing.

Accommodations can change where a candidate sits. The accommodations page for non-US testers says some accommodations, such as time and one-half in a single session, may be given at a computer-based centre, while those a centre cannot provide, such as multiple-day testing, move the candidate to Special testing, usually at their own school, within a set window that for the 23-24 October 2026 test runs from 23 October to 1 November. ACT's allowable accommodations document for the international ACT states that Special testing is paper-based testing only; home or hospital testing appears in that document, but only among the Special testing accommodations.

After the exam

Answer key

ACT's answer-key product is ACT My Answer Key, formerly called TIR. The ACT My Answer Key page on the non-US site says it will be available for the October 24, 2026, 8:00 am test date, and a notice on the same page adds that the service is not offered for any other administration of the ACT. It costs USD 36 ordered before the test or USD 44 after, and can be ordered at registration or, once scores are out, within 6 months of the test date. It supplies a digital copy of the scored multiple-choice questions, the candidate's answers, the answer key and the conversion table used for the scores, plus the writing prompt and rubric for candidates who took writing.

ACT's own documents disagree on whether that service reaches international test dates. The Preparing for the ACT Test 2026-2027 booklet describes its copy of test questions and answers as available only for National testing or Special testing in the United States, US territories and Puerto Rico.

A candidate who doubts a score can ask ACT to check it. The non-US scores page allows a score verification request for multiple-choice or writing scores up to 12 months after the test date, made on a downloadable form sent with a check payable to ACT Customer Support and answered by letter approximately three to five weeks after ACT receives it. If a scoring error is found, ACT corrects the scores, releases corrected reports to the candidate and every earlier recipient at no charge, and refunds the verification fee.

Scores

Result and scorecard

Scores are posted in MyACT, and ACT cannot give them by phone, email, chat or fax. The non-US scores page gives 29 October 2026 as the earliest date multiple-choice scores can appear for the 23-24 October 2026 window and says ACT cannot guarantee a specific date. Multiple-choice scores are normally posted within 1 week of the test date but could take up to 8 weeks, writing scores normally arrive about two to three weeks after the multiple-choice scores, and Special testing scores typically take two to ten weeks. For a candidate who took writing, overall scores are not officially reported until the writing score has been added.

ACT prepares two reports from each test. The Student Report sits in the candidate's online account, and the College Report goes to each valid college or scholarship agency code the candidate listed and paid for, up to six, adding the grades the candidate reported in up to 30 high school courses and possibly predictions about performance in specific college programmes (non-US scores page). A PDF student report is currently unavailable, and the page suggests printing an unofficial copy from the browser. The candidate decides which test date's scores go to a university, all scores from one test date are reported together, and a candidate may ask ACT to cancel a test date's scores permanently, after which ACT sends cancellation notices to any score recipients.

ACT's non-US scores and sending-scores pages give no expiry date for scores. The sending your scores page says scores from test events from September 2011 onward can currently be sent, at USD 20.00 per test date per report, with a USD 32.00 archive fee per test date per order for any test date at least three years before the order. The same page says ACT cannot currently send score reports to international high schools, citing customs laws in many countries that prevent shipping reports outside the US.

Candidates who test more than once receive an automatically calculated Superscore. For students who take the online ACT from September 2025, the sending your scores page says the Superscore Composite uses the highest English, math and reading section scores from any test event, legacy or enhanced, while science counts only towards the STEM score.

Scores you need

Cutoff

ACT's score guide publishes no pass mark. The score guide for non-US testers defines a good score as one that meets or exceeds the average score of students admitted to the colleges a candidate applies to, and its score chart labels the 24 to 28 band a strong score for more selective colleges and universities. The same guide says expectations vary widely, with some universities expecting scores in the 30s and others treating the mid-20s as competitive, without saying which countries' universities it has in mind. Its advice is to research the average scores at the colleges a candidate is targeting.

Getting a seat

Counselling and seat allotment

ACT's non-US pages describe no counselling or seat-allotment stage. ACT's part ends with the College Report, which the non-US scores page sends to each college or scholarship agency code the candidate listed and paid for. Admission then rests with each university, and ACT's score guide for non-US testers notes that more selective schools tend to admit students with higher scores while others accept a wider range as part of a holistic review.

A score reaches a university only through a code. ACT's sending your scores page tells candidates to use valid ACT codes only, points to its College Code List, and says a report can go only to the office the college or agency designates, not to any other individual or office. Extra recipients can be added after testing, since the same page lets candidates send scores to other colleges and scholarship agencies once their tests are scored.

Where it is accepted

Participating institutes

ACT's claim for the test's reach, on its non-US students page, is that all four-year universities in the US and more than 200 universities outside the US accept and value the ACT. That page names no Indian university among them, and neither do ACT's non-US registration, scores or score guide pages.

ACT's Preparing for the ACT Test 2026-2027 booklet says some colleges and universities require or accept ACT science or writing scores, and gives that as the reason a candidate may consider taking those optional sections.

Get help

Contact

The ACT global contact page lists regional offices in China, Indonesia and Mexico, none in India, alongside an online contact form. The fees page for non-US testers sends billing questions to a separate online form.

By phone, the ACT Examinee Terms and Conditions give +1 319.337.1993 or the toll-free 1.800.525.6932 for reaching ACT from outside the US. For accommodations, the accommodations page for non-US testers lists (319) 337-1332, Monday to Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM (GMT-6). Test security concerns, including anonymous reports, go to ACT's Test Security Hotline, linked from the test day page.

Source

Official links

Read this

Disclaimer

Disclaimer

ACT introduced additional enhancements for international test takers from February 2026, including fewer questions; verify the current structure. Fees, exact dates and college score requirements change per cycle and per institution. Anything per-cycle here is stated for the cycle it names and is taken from the conducting body's own notification; confirm it on the official website before acting on it. Expertie does not conduct any exam, process applications or charge fees.

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