You have an LL.B., or you are a few months from one. Someone has told you there is one more exam before you can practise, and nobody has explained it properly. That exam is the All India Bar Examination. This page is what it is, who runs it, and what actually changes on the day you clear it.
The short version
- The Bar Council of India sets it. Your university does not, and neither does your State Bar Council.
- 100 questions, one mark each, three hours, marked on an OMR sheet in pen.
- There is no negative marking.
- You may carry Bare Acts in. Notes and comments are not allowed.
- The pass mark is set as a percentage: 45% for General and OBC candidates, 40% for SC, ST and specially abled candidates. In each of the last two exams, the mark that actually passed was lower than that.
- Most people clear it. The Bar Council put the AIBE XXI pass rate at 65.92%.
- Clearing it leads to a Certificate of Practice, issued by the Bar Council of India and collected from your State Bar Council.
- The next one is AIBE XXII on 29 November 2026. Registration closes on 27 October 2026.
Who sets it, and what it is for
The Bar Council of India runs the exam. Its result press releases are signed by Manan Kumar Mishra, Chairman, Bar Council of India, and the official exam site, allindiabarexamination.com, is run by the BCI Trust.
Two websites matter and they do different jobs. allindiabarexamination.com carries the notices, guidelines, syllabus, answer keys and results. Registration happens somewhere else entirely, at aibe.digivarsity.online. People land on the wrong one.
A third site, barcouncilofindia.org, has its own AIBE page. It is a primary source and it is years out of date.
The closest thing to a statement of purpose in any document below is from the Bar Council's own resolutions of 12 April 2013 and 31 January 2017:
the All India Bar Examination is a post-enrolment examination where persons are initially said to be provisionally enrolled on an undertaking that they will pass the exam within 2 years of said enrolment
That description is now only half true. In AIBE XXI, 95,962 of the people who sat it had no enrolment certificate, because the rules changed. It is the single most misreported thing about this exam.
What the paper looks like
All of this is from the AIBE XXI question booklet and the AIBE XXI Examination Guidelines.
| Item | What it is |
|---|---|
| Questions | 100, one mark each |
| Duration | 3 hours |
| Sets | Four, A to D |
| Answer sheet | OMR, blue or black ball point pen only |
| Negative marking | None |
| Reporting time (AIBE XXI) | 11:30, entry closed at 13:15 |
| Extra time | 20 minutes per hour for more than 40% disability |
Three of those rows need a sentence more.
The pen rule is a disqualification, not a warning. The Guidelines say so:
All markings on the answer sheet must be with Blue/Black Ball Point Pen only. Using a pencil for marking on the answer sheet will lead to Disqualification of the exam.
No negative marking is printed on the booklet itself, page one: "There is no negative marking." Note where that appears. It is on the booklet, not in the Guidelines, which say nothing about it either way.
The reporting times above are AIBE XXI's. The AIBE XXII guidelines are not published yet, so check them rather than assuming the same clock.
What is actually on it
The Bar Council publishes a subject by subject breakdown. This is the AIBE XXI syllabus of 2 March 2026, identical row for row to the AIBE XX syllabus of 27 September 2025. The spellings are the Bar Council's own.
| Subject | Questions |
|---|---|
| Constitutional law | 10 |
| I. P. C. (Indian Penal Code) & (New) Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita | 8 |
| Cr. P. C. (Criminal Procedure Code) & (New) Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita | 10 |
| C. P. C. (Code of Civil Procedure) | 10 |
| Evidence Act & (New) Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam | 8 |
| Alternative Dispute Redressal including Arbitration Act | 4 |
| Family Law | 8 |
| Public Interest Litigation | 4 |
| Administration Law | 3 |
| Professional Ethics & Cases of Professional Misconduct under Bar Council of India Rules | 4 |
| Company Law | 2 |
| Environmental Law | 2 |
| Cyber Law | 2 |
| Labour & Industrial Law | 4 |
| Law of Tort, including Motor Vehicle Act and Consumer Protection Law | 5 |
| Law related to Taxation | 4 |
| Law of Contract, Specific Relief, Property Laws, Negotiable Instrument Act | 8 |
| Land Acquisition Act | 2 |
| Intellectual Property Laws | 2 |
| Total | 100 |
One more thing about the paper. Where the English and the translated version of a question disagree, English wins:
If there is any sort of ambiguity/mistake either of printing or factual nature then out of English and Language Version of the question, the English Version will be treated as standard.
We are not going to tell you how many languages the paper comes in. The answer keys are headed "COMMON FOR ALL LANGUAGE" and a Hindi version is on record for AIBE XVII, but the Bar Council has published no full list. Any site printing a language count cannot source it.
The pass mark, and the number almost every site gets wrong
The rule is a percentage, and the Bar Council states it the same way in edition after edition. From the AIBE XXI schedule notice of 10 February 2026:
The passing percentage for General and OBC candidates is fixed at 45% and for SC/ST and Specially abled candidates the passing percentage is fixed at 40%.
The same wording appears in the AIBE XX notice of 28 October 2025 and the AIBE XVIII notice of 6 October 2023. So it is a standing rule.
Here is the part nobody tells you. A percentage needs something to be a percentage of, and that something moves. In both of the last two exams, the mark that actually passed was below 45.
| Exam | Marked out of | General and OBC | SC, ST, specially abled |
|---|---|---|---|
| The standing rule | the percentage | 45% | 40% |
| AIBE XX, 30 November 2025 | 95, after 5 questions were withdrawn | 43 | 38 |
| AIBE XXI, 7 June 2026 | 100, qualifying mark cut by 3 | 42 | 37 |
In neither of the last two exams did a General candidate need 45 correct answers. In AIBE XX questions were withdrawn and the paper was marked out of 95, so 45% of it was 43. In AIBE XXI the qualifying mark was brought down by three, to 42.
Do not plan for 42. The cut is set after the exam, and you cannot know which way it will move. Aim at 45 and treat anything below it as a fail. But a site that tells you flatly that you need 45 out of 100 knows less than you now do.
One last trap in the same place. "Pass percentage" means two different things inside a single Bar Council press release: the 45% you need, and the 65.92% who got it. They are unrelated numbers that share a name.
How many people sit it, and how many pass
Both of these are the Bar Council's own published figures, from the result press releases of 7 January 2026 and 18 July 2026.
| AIBE XX | AIBE XXI | |
|---|---|---|
| Exam date | 30 November 2025 | 7 June 2026 |
| Centres | 399 in 56 cities | 292 in 60 cities |
| Appeared | 2,51,968 | 1,75,701 |
| Qualified | 1,74,386 | 1,15,805 |
| Not qualified | 77,579 | 59,876 |
| Pass rate | 69.21% | 65.92% |
| Cut-off, General and OBC | 43 of 95 | 42 of 100 |
| Result published | 7 January 2026 | 18 July 2026 |
Read that honestly in both directions. About two in three people clear it, so it is not an exam designed to keep you out. And in AIBE XXI, 59,876 people did not clear an open book paper. It is not a formality either.
Notice also that two full editions ran inside about six months of each other, AIBE XX in November 2025 and AIBE XXI in June 2026, with AIBE XXII following in November 2026. If you miss one, the next is not years away.
What changes the day you pass
You get a Certificate of Practice. It is awarded by the Bar Council of India, but it does not come to you directly. From its notification of 17 October 2024:
the Certificate of Practice (COP) for the AIBE-XVIII examination has been dispatched to all State Bar Councils ... We kindly request all candidates to collect their COP from their respective State Bar Councils.
So the Bar Council of India issues it and your State Bar Council hands it over. If you passed and nothing has arrived, the State Bar Council is where you ask.
There is an online version, and the Bar Council is blunt about what it is worth. From its notification of 14 February 2024:
These online COPs are not printable, nor downloadable from the AIBE App. These online COPs do not hold any validity, as they are only drafts for correction purposes.
How long does it take? The Bar Council has never committed to a timeline, and we are not going to make one up. We have one observed case: AIBE XVIII was sat on 10 December 2023, dispatch was notified on 27 August 2024, and completion was notified on 17 October 2024. That is roughly eight to ten months. One case is not a rule. Treat it as the order of magnitude, not a promise.
The other thing that changes is the clock you may already be on. If you enrolled with a State Bar Council first, that enrolment was provisional and carried an undertaking to clear this exam within two years. Clearing it is what settles that. If you sat the exam without being enrolled, which is now the majority route, a different and much shorter rule applies to you. Both are worth understanding before you register, and neither is explained clearly on any official page.
The next exam, and what it costs
AIBE XXII is open for registration right now. This timetable is from the registration portal itself, and the same table appears in the Bar Council press release of 18 July 2026.
| Step | Date |
|---|---|
| Registration opened | 19 August 2026 |
| Registration closes | 27 October 2026 |
| Last date for online payment | 28 October 2026 |
| Last date to correct the form | 30 October 2026 |
| Admit card goes live | 14 November 2026 |
| Exam | 29 November 2026 |
| Result | Tentatively 7 to 10 January 2027 |
On the fee, we can only tell you what we have seen. The Bar Council publishes no page stating it, and the portal's own Payment of Fees tab is a dead link. The amount appears in exactly one place: the Confirm Payment screen inside the Bar Council's own application walkthrough video, where it reads Rs 2,500 on a screen labelled for AIBE XX, 2025. So Rs 2,500 is evidenced for AIBE XX and is not confirmed for AIBE XXII. Check it on your own payment screen.
One line from the portal's own instructions, because it costs people their account later:
Important: Your mobile number entered during registration will be used throughout the portal and cannot be changed later.
Where these facts come from
Every figure above is from a Bar Council of India document, not from a coaching site or an aggregator.
- Format, negative marking, English governs: the AIBE XXI question booklet, Set A, exam of 7 June 2026.
- Pen rule, reporting times, extra time: the Examination Guidelines for AIBE XXI, 20 February 2026.
- The 45% and 40% rule: the AIBE XXI schedule notice BCIT:D:0014/2026, dated 10 February 2026.
- The subject table: the Syllabus for All India Bar Exam-XXI, dated 2 March 2026.
- Candidate numbers, pass rates, cut-offs: the result press releases of 7 January 2026 and 18 July 2026, both signed by the Chairman, Bar Council of India.
- The AIBE XXII timetable: the registration portal, read 23 September 2026.
- The two year rule: Bar Council resolutions of 12 April 2013 and 31 January 2017.
- Certificate of Practice: Bar Council notifications of 14 February 2024 and 17 October 2024.
Where we could not source something we said so on the page rather than filling the gap: the exam languages, the AIBE XXII fee, and any committed timeline for the Certificate of Practice.
What to do next
If AIBE XXII is your exam, register before 27 October 2026 at aibe.digivarsity.online, not on the information site. Do it early enough that the correction window on 30 October is still open if something goes wrong.
Before that, settle two things. Whether you can sit it at all, because you very probably can even without being enrolled. And which of the three things you are right now: a law graduate, an enrolled advocate on a provisional clock, or a holder of a Certificate of Practice. The deadlines attached to each are different.
Then sit a paper. That tells you where you stand faster than any amount of reading about the exam. There are 19 real AIBE previous year question papers on munotes: 100 questions, a three hour timer, answers from the Bar Council's official keys. Lifetime access is Rs 499, paid once.