If you noted a date from our earlier GATE 2027 piece and planned around it, change it. IIT Madras did not open the application window on 27 August, as the first published calendar indicated. Registration opened on 2 September 2026, and the deadline at the other end has not moved: 27 September.
That leaves 22 days, and this time the fee table is public — which it was not when we last wrote about this.
The story so far
GATE is the single exam that decides two separate futures for an engineering graduate: an M.Tech or PhD seat at an IIT, NIT or IISc, and a shot at the public-sector companies that recruit through GATE scores rather than their own written tests. We covered the GATE 2027 calendar in August, when IIT Madras had published the schedule but not the brochure — and flagged then that any fee figures floating around were guesswork.
What's changed
The window opened 2 September, not 27 August. Some coaching sites are still carrying the older date.
The fees are now published. In the regular window it is ₹1,000 per test paper for female, SC, ST and PwD candidates and ₹2,000 for everyone else. In the extended window it rises to ₹1,500 and ₹2,500.
Nothing else on the calendar moved. The regular deadline is 27 September; with a late fee you have until 5 October.
The DigiLocker step people will leave too late
IIT Madras states it plainly: GATE 2027 registration through DigiLocker is mandatory for all Indian nationals. This is not a formality you clear on the last evening. If your DigiLocker account is not already linked to a working mobile number and your degree records, sort that out first and treat the GOAPS form as the second job, not the first.
What you are actually applying for
There are 30 test papers this cycle, including a newly introduced Robotics and Automation (RA) paper. Two papers in an approved combination means paying the fee twice. Payment is online only and non-refundable.
The dates after the deadline, from the official calendar:
Exam city allotment: 4 January 2027
Exam: 6 and 7, 13 and 14, and 20 and 21 February 2027
Result: 19 March 2027
Admit card release is still listed as to be announced, and IIT Madras notes dates are liable to change.
Why this one matters here
For final-year and passed-out students at IIT Jammu, SMVDU Katra, GCET Jammu and the University of Jammu's engineering departments, GATE is also the route into the research-fellowship economy that already exists in this city. The JRF and project-associate posts that CSIR-IIIM Jammu and IIT Jammu advertise almost every month routinely list a valid GATE score as an alternative to NET — so a score earned in February is a credential you can use here, not only somewhere else.
Applications are at gate2027.iitm.ac.in through the GOAPS portal. Check the Information Brochure on that site for paper-wise eligibility and the revised syllabi before you pay — several syllabi have been updated this cycle.
Sources: GATE 2027, IIT Madras (official website and calendar); fee structure as reported by Careers360 and Shiksha.
