The steps
Create or sign in to a College Board account, making sure the name on the account matches the photo ID you will bring. Pick a test date, pick a test center, upload a photo if one is required for your registration type, pay or apply a fee waiver, and save or print the admission ticket.
Test centers fill up. Registering early is how you get one near home instead of one an hour away, and it is the only real argument for not waiting until the deadline week.
If your school runs an SAT School Day administration, you may be registered by the school instead, on a separate calendar. Ask your counselor before you pay for a weekend date you do not need.
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Dates and deadlines
For the 2026 to 2027 cycle the test dates are October 3, November 7, and December 5 of 2026, and March 6, May 1, and June 5 of 2027. The matching registration deadlines are September 18, October 23, and November 20, then February 19, April 16, and May 21.
Deadlines close at 11:59pm Eastern on the day listed. There is a late registration window after that, which costs an extra fee and is subject to seats still being available.
Dates and deadlines can change. Confirm on collegeboard.org before you plan anything around them.
There is a registration fee, plus additional fees for late registration, for changing your test date or center, and for sending extra score reports beyond the free ones.
Fees and fee waivers
There is a registration fee, plus additional fees for late registration, for changing your test date or center, and for sending extra score reports beyond the free ones. We are not quoting the amounts here, because they are revised periodically and a stale number is worse than no number. The current fee table is on collegeboard.org.
Fee waivers exist for eligible students and cover the registration fee and typically the change and score send fees as well. Eligibility is based on household income and participation in programs like free or reduced price lunch, and it is your school counselor who issues the waiver.
Ask rather than assuming you do not qualify. Counselors report that eligible students routinely pay full price because nobody told them to ask.
After you register
Registration is not the last step. Install Bluebook on the device you will test with, sign in, and complete exam setup in the days before the test. The exam has to be downloaded in advance, and doing it on test morning over a crowded test center network is a bad plan.
Check that your admission ticket, your registration name, and your photo ID all match. A name mismatch is one of the few things that can get you turned away at the door.
Confirm the test center address and how long it takes to get there. Reporting time is on the ticket, and centers do not wait for late arrivals.
Changing or cancelling
You can change your test date or test center up to a deadline, for a fee. This is cheaper than registering a second time, so if you know in advance that the date will not work, change it rather than skipping it.
If you simply do not show up, you lose the fee. Cancelling has its own deadline and refund rules, which are on collegeboard.org.