The Rashtriya Military Schools entrance test is now 48 hours from closing its regular window — and this is the weekend where procrastination gets expensive. The RMS CET 2026 regular application window closes Tuesday, 20 October at 5 PM. Miss it, and you don’t lose your chance — you lose Rs. 500 and five extra days.
If you have already submitted, this article is still for you: what happens after you hit submit matters just as much. Read to the end.
Last verified: 18 October 2026 · Window closes 20 Oct, 5 PM ✅ (multiple education portals citing NTA notification, re-checked today) · Fee payment till 11:50 PM, 20 Oct ✅ · Late window 21–25 Oct, +Rs. 500 ✅ · Exam 13 December 2026 (Sunday) ✅
The NTA RMS CET portal has two deadlines that people constantly confuse — the form submission deadline and the fee transaction deadline. They are six hours apart, and both are hard stops:
| Event | Date and time |
|---|---|
| Regular application window closes | 20 Oct 2026, 5:00 PM |
| Last successful fee transaction | 20 Oct 2026, 11:50 PM |
| Late application window | 21–25 Oct 2026, up to 5:00 PM |
| Late fee payment closes | 25 Oct 2026, up to 11:50 PM |
| Written exam (pen-paper, OMR) | 13 Dec 2026, Sunday |
The dangerous scenario is this: you submit the form at 5 PM on 20 October, tell yourself you’ll pay tomorrow, and wake up to discover the payment link for the regular window closed at 11:50 PM. Finish the payment the same day you submit. A form without a successful fee transaction is an incomplete application.
If you apply between 21 and 25 October, every part of the process is identical — except the fee. Here is the honest price of waiting:
| Category | Regular fee | Late-window fee |
|---|---|---|
| General / OBC / OBC-NCL | Rs. 1,000 | Rs. 1,500 |
| SC / ST / wards of Armed Forces personnel killed in action | Rs. 750 | Rs. 1,250 |
Fees are paid online through credit card, debit card, net banking or UPI. The Rs. 500 late fee is not refundable — it is simply the price of the extra five days. If your documents are ready this weekend, there is no reason to pay it.
Rashtriya Military Schools are English-medium residential schools under the Ministry of Defence, and the eligibility is narrow. Check the birth-date window before you start the form:
Wards of Armed Forces personnel killed in action get a six-month relaxation in the upper age limit. Class 6 candidates must have passed Class 5 (or be studying in it and pass before admission); Class 9 needs Class 8 from a recognised school.
One form, five schools: Chail (Himachal Pradesh), Ajmer and Dholpur (Rajasthan), Belgaum and Bengaluru (Karnataka). One thing worth knowing about how the process works: NTA handles the application process, the written examination, evaluation and the Stage-1 result. Everything after Stage-1 — the subsequent selection stages — is handled by the Rashtriya Military Schools themselves.
Submitting the form is only step one. Here is what the calendar looks like from here — CONFIRMED items are per the notification; the rest is EXPECTED from the pattern:
Parents filling both RMS CET and AISSEE forms should remember: RMS CET (13 Dec) and AISSEE (31 Jan 2027, tentative) are separate exams with separate portals. One does not substitute for the other — yesterday’s final-weekend checklist covered the document side; this piece covers the mechanics.
Every year, the heaviest server load hits between 5 PM and 11:50 PM on the closing day. Uploads fail, payments time out, and OTPs arrive late. If you are reading this on Sunday: do not plan to fill the form on Tuesday. Do it today or Monday morning, pay immediately, and download the confirmation page. A screenshot is not a confirmation — the downloaded PDF from the portal is.
When does the RMS CET 2026 regular application window close? 20 October 2026 at 5 PM. The application fee can be paid until 11:50 PM the same night on the NTA RMS CET portal.
What happens if I apply after 20 October 2026? You enter the late window (21 to 25 October, 5 PM) and pay an extra Rs. 500: Rs. 1,500 for General/OBC or Rs. 1,250 for SC/ST and KIA wards.
What is the RMS CET 2026 exam date? 13 December 2026 (Sunday). It is a pen-and-paper OMR exam with multiple-choice questions, held in 63 cities across India.
Which Rashtriya Military Schools can I get into through RMS CET? Five schools: Chail (Himachal Pradesh), Ajmer and Dholpur (Rajasthan), and Belgaum and Bengaluru (Karnataka). NTA handles the application, exam, evaluation and Stage-1 result; the schools handle the later selection stages.
Photo: Pexels
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