CBSE 2025 starts on February 15? Check the exam date trends of the last 10 years

CBSE Final Exam Date 2025: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is expected to follow its tradition and start the final examinations of class 10th and 12th in 2025 around mid-February. Based on the last few years, the exams are expected to start in February 2025. However, earlier this year, in May 2024, news agency PTI, through a social media post on X, said that the exams are likely to start on February 15, 2025.

However, the official timetable will be released in December 2024, providing students with a detailed schedule. The trend of holding exams in mid-February started in 2019 after the board of examiners decided to reduce the duration of exams for certain subjects. Since then, the CBSE has maintained this pattern, setting February 15 as the start date for most final year exams, with only a few exceptions in 2021 and 2022 due to COVID-19 disruptions.
The pandemic years of 2021 and 2022 were outliers to this trend. In 2021, the exams were postponed and began only in May, while in 2022, they began only in late April. These delays were necessary to compensate for the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and to ensure the safety of students. However, when the situation stabilized, CBSE returned to the February schedule in 2023 and has stuck to it since then.

Here you can find the exam date trends of the last 10 years.

In 2015, CBSE conducted the final examinations of class 10 and 12 from March 2. The class 10 exams ended on March 26, while the class 12 exams ended on April 17. In 2016, the exams also began earlier, on March 1, with the class 10 exams ending on March 28 and the class 12 exams ending on April 22.
For 2017, CBSE slightly postponed the exams and began on March 9 for both classes. The class 10 exams ended on April 10 and the class 12 exams were extended to April 29. From 2018, the exam period was again postponed to early March and began on March 5. The class 10 exams ended on April 4 while the class 12 exams ended on April 13.
The crucial shift came in 2019, when the CBSE brought forward the exam dates to February. The Class 12 exams began on February 15 and lasted till April 3, while the Class 10 exams began a little later, on February 21, and ended on March 29. In 2020, this February schedule was retained, with the exams beginning on February 15. The Class 10 exams lasted till March 18, and the Class 12 exams till March 30.
The pandemic severely disrupted the schedule in 2021, with exams starting only on May 4 and lasting until June 7 for grade 10 and June 10 for grade 12. In 2022, exams resumed later than usual but earlier than the previous year, starting on April 26 for both grades. Grade 10 exams ended on May 24, while grade 12 exams ended on June 15.
From 2023, CBSE reverted to its preferred start date of February and began both Class 10 and Class 12 exams on February 15. Class 10 exams ended on March 13 and Class 12 exams on April 5. A similar schedule was followed in 2024, where exams for both classes began on February 15, with Class 10 exams ending on March 13 and Class 12 exams ending on April 10.

Overview of CBSE board examination dates for the last ten years