CS Executive December 2026 Time Table and Exam Day Guide

ICSI will hold the CS Executive exams for the December 2026 session from Monday, 21 December to Monday, 28 December. That is seven papers, one a day, every afternoon, with Christmas Day as the only gap. If you are writing both groups, you get no rest day in between, which changes how you should revise in the weeks before.

CS Executive December 2026 time table (2022 syllabus)

• Monday, 21 December: Jurisprudence, Interpretation and General Laws (Group 1)
• Tuesday, 22 December: Capital Market and Securities Laws (Group 2)
• Wednesday, 23 December: Company Law and Practice (Group 1)
• Thursday, 24 December: Economic, Commercial and Intellectual Property Laws (Group 2)
• Friday, 25 December: no exam
• Saturday, 26 December: Setting Up of Business, Industrial and Labour Laws (Group 1)
• Sunday, 27 December: Tax Laws and Practice (Group 2)
• Monday, 28 December: Corporate Accounting and Financial Management (Group 1)

Every paper is in the afternoon, from 2:00 PM to 5:15 PM, and the first 15 minutes are reading time. The reporting time and centre address are printed on your admit card, so go by that. If ICSI changes any date, the notice will be on icsi.edu first; check it once in early December.

What this schedule means for you

Group 1 has four papers and Group 2 has three. How hard the week feels depends on which of them you are writing.

• Group 1 only: papers on 21, 23, 26 and 28 December. You get one free day before Company Law, two (24 and 25 December) before Setting Up of Business, and one (27 December) before Corporate Accounting and Financial Management.
• Group 2 only: papers on 22, 24 and 27 December. The longest break is the two days before Tax Laws and Practice, which is useful, because it is the paper with the most computation.
• Both groups: seven papers in eight days. After each paper you have one evening, from about 6 PM, to look over the next subject. That is enough for a final read of your short notes and nothing more.

The pairing to watch for is Tax Laws and Practice on Sunday followed by Corporate Accounting and Financial Management on Monday. Both are numerical papers, and both punish slow working. If you are writing both groups, sit these two as full mocks on two days in a row at least once before December, so the back-to-back load is not new on exam week.

A plan for the ten weeks you have left

• Now to mid-November: finish the first reading of whatever is still pending and write chapter-wise tests. In law papers, one test after every two or three chapters is enough to show whether you can write the answer, not just recognise it.
• Mid-November to about 12 December: write full papers in the real slot, 2:00 PM to 5:15 PM. Aim for at least two full papers per subject, checked by someone who knows how ICSI awards marks.
• The last ten days before 21 December: revision only. No new books, no new notes. Go through your checked papers and the comments on them, because that is where your own repeated mistakes are listed.

Writing mocks in the afternoon matters more than it sounds. Students who always practise at night often find their writing speed drops after the first ninety minutes of a 2 PM paper.

How marks are lost in CS Executive answers

Law papers make up most of CS Executive, and the answers that score well follow a simple order: the relevant provision in plain words, how it applies to the facts in the question, and a one-line conclusion. The most common problem in checked copies is the opposite: a long account of everything the student knows about a section, with no clear answer to what was actually asked.

• Quote the section or rule only when you are sure of it. A wrong section number next to correct reasoning looks careless.
• For practical questions, end with a conclusion such as "the company can proceed" or "the appointment is not valid". An answer without a conclusion rarely gets full marks.
• In Corporate Accounting and Financial Management and in Tax Laws, show workings. Marks are given for steps, so a clean working note can rescue an answer with a slip in the final figure.

To pass, you need at least 40% in each paper and 50% in aggregate across the group. The rules on aggregates and on passing one group at a time are explained in our post on CS Executive passing marks.

Admit card and the exam day

• ICSI puts the admit card online on its website before the exam. It is not sent by post, so download it as soon as it is out and check your photo, name, centre and subjects.
• Carry the printed admit card and a valid photo ID. Visit the centre a day earlier if you have not been there before; December traffic in most cities is unpredictable.
• Use the reading time to pick the order of questions, not to start mentally drafting the first answer. Mark the questions you are sure of and begin with one of them.

Practise with checked papers

Gradehunt's CS Executive test series has papers set on the ICSI pattern for all seven subjects, checked by ex-examiners within 48 hours, with comments on where each answer lost marks. You can get your first paper checked free before deciding.

If you are still deciding how to choose a test series, our guide on choosing a CS test series lists what to compare.