IB online exams 2026 are no longer a future plan. They are happening right now, and the way students sit their International Baccalaureate assessments is about to change permanently.
The International Baccalaureate has launched its first live session of digital exams for the IB Diploma Programme and Career-related Programme in May 2026, starting with a selected group of schools. It is the beginning of a transition that will, by the early 2030s, replace paper exams entirely across all IB World Schools globally.
If you are an IB student, a parent, or a school administrator trying to figure out what this actually means in practice, here is what you need to know.
What Is Actually Changing With IB Online Exams in 2026
The IB is not flipping a switch and going fully digital overnight. This is a phased rollout, and 2026 is the first real-world test of the system at scale.
May 2026 marks the first live digital exam session, open to a select number of invited schools. From November 2026, all IB World Schools will have the option to sit online exams for select subjects, starting with Language and Literature and Language Acquisition.
From there, the IB plans to bring in more subjects year by year through to 2029, adding Individuals and Societies, Sciences and Mathematics. By the early 2030s, the paper option disappears entirely.
The key milestone that already happened: in January 2026, the IB launched its Digital Examination System. Schools that were not part of the May pilot can expect to start working with this system properly from November onwards.
Paper or Screen: Students Get to Choose, For Now
For subjects where the digital option is available, students will not be forced to switch immediately. During the rollout period, the exam paper itself will be identical whether a student sits it on screen or on paper. The content does not change. The questions do not change.
What also will not change, crucially, is how results are awarded. The IB has confirmed that grade boundaries will be set to ensure a student can achieve the same result regardless of which format they choose. There is no advantage to picking one over the other on paper, though students who are comfortable typing quickly may find screen-based exams feel more natural.
This matters because the worst outcome of any digital transition is students feeling pressured to use a format they are not ready for. The IB seems aware of this and has built the early rollout to avoid it.
Why the IB Is Actually Doing This
Matt Glanville, the IB’s Director of Assessment, has been clear about the rationale. Online exams will, in his words, “massively increase the range of accessibility functions” available to students and allow them to “take control of their own engagement with the assessment.”
That is not just marketing language. Digital exams can include video footage, interactive tools and moving images in ways a printed paper never could. For subjects like sciences, this opens up genuinely different ways of testing understanding. Instead of describing a process, a student could interact with a simulation of it.
Glanville put it plainly: “Moving to digital assessments is really all about letting students engage with assessments and education in the way that’s natural to them.”
The IB Director-General, Olli-Pekka Heinonen, flagged the direction of travel back in 2023, saying the organisation had “come to the moment for the IB to move into that area.” The May 2026 launch is the follow-through on that commitment.
The IB Is Not Alone in This
It is worth understanding that the IB’s digital shift is part of a much broader movement across international education.
England’s exam regulator Ofqual is actively exploring online testing for GCSEs and A-Levels and has already removed regulations that were blocking exam boards from using digital delivery and adaptive testing. Pearson Edexcel launched onscreen assessment back in 2020, and by 2026 says 14 subjects will be available for international schools to sit on screen.
Cambridge International has announced digital exams across six subjects from June 2026, launching first in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and the United States, with plans to expand globally across its full IGCSE and A-Level curriculum.
The direction of travel across every major international exam board is the same. The IB is not ahead of the curve, but it is moving firmly in the same direction.
Can You Now Do the Full IB Diploma Online?
Yes, and this is a separate but related development worth knowing about.
The IB recently launched its first fully online delivery of the IBDP, with King’s InterHigh being among the first schools in the world to offer the complete programme remotely. Its first cohort of online IBDP students already sat their exams in May 2025, using the traditional paper format.
Alastair Summers, Head of Key Stage 5 at King’s InterHigh, explained what this means for students who previously had no IB access at all. Many of their students live in areas with no local IB school, or come from families that relocate frequently. An online IBDP gives those students stability and access they simply did not have before.
Other online schools now offering the IBDP include Dwight Global Online, SEK Education, Aoba-Japan International School, Eastwood Global, Scotch Global and Nazaret Global. For the first time, students can pursue the full IB Diploma without being tied to a physical campus anywhere in the world.
What This Means for Students Right Now
If your school is part of the May 2026 pilot, you are already sitting digital exams. Your school should have briefed you on the Digital Examination System and given you access to the sample papers the IB distributed to all IB World Schools in May 2025.
If your school is not part of the pilot, November 2026 is when the first real choice arrives, at least for Language and Literature and Language Acquisition. You have time to get familiar with the system before it affects your assessment.
For students currently in Year 4 of the IB who will sit their final exams in 2027 or 2028, more subjects will be digital by then. It is worth asking your school which subjects are going digital and when, so you are not caught off guard.
One thing that is not changing: the content of what you need to know. The syllabus is the same. The skills being assessed are the same. The format changes. The preparation does not need to change as much as you might think.
Sources: IBO, WSA
