GRE, IELTS & TOEFL Test Centres in Hyderabad, AP & Telangana (2026): Booking, Dates & Home Testing

Where the live centre list actually lives

The honest summary is that the booking system is the source of truth and it takes about ten minutes to consult. Any page claiming a definitive current list of centres — this one included — is at best a snapshot of a moving thing.

• GRE and TOEFL: create an account on the official ETS site and start the registration flow. Enter your city and a date range, and it returns the centres with seats actually available to you — which is different from the list of centres that exist.
• IELTS: the IDP IELTS India and British Council booking pages let you filter by city and month, showing computer-delivered and paper dates separately. Computer-delivered generally has far more dates.
• Do this before you finish preparing, not after. Seeing real dates and real distances changes your plan — students routinely discover that their preferred week has nothing within reach, and that is information you want early.
• Treat any centre list on a coaching site, a forum or a YouTube description as out of date by default, including the city list on this page. Cross-check every one against the official booking flow.

Which cities have commonly had centres

Read this as a rough map of where to look first, not as a guarantee. Availability shifts between cities and between months, and a centre listed in a city may have no seats in the window you need — which is the constraint that actually matters.

If you are in a district town, run the search for two or three cities at once before deciding. The difference between a centre 60 km away with a morning slot next month and one 300 km away with a slot next week is a real trade-off, and it is easier to make deliberately than under deadline pressure.

The passport rule that catches students out

For international tests taken in India, a valid passport is the standard identity document, and this single requirement derails more test plans in the Telugu states than any other logistical detail. Students book a date, prepare for eight weeks, and then discover that an Aadhaar card or a college ID will not get them into the room — and that a fresh passport takes weeks to obtain.

If you do not hold a passport, start that application before you book a test date. You need the passport for the university applications and the visa anyway, so it is not extra work — it is work you were going to do, brought forward to where it stops being a blocker.

Two details worth checking carefully on the official site for your test: the name on your booking must match the name on your ID, and the passport must be valid and unexpired on the test day itself. A mismatch between "Bhargav" on the booking and an expanded name on the passport is the kind of thing that gets resolved at a service desk, not at the test centre door.

• Confirm the exact ID requirement on the official site for your specific test and location — requirements differ between tests and can be revised.
• Carry the original document, not a photocopy or a digital scan.
• Book in the name exactly as it appears on the ID you will carry, including initials and expansions.
• For home-based testing, the same identity verification applies through the proctoring check — a passport requirement does not disappear because you are testing from your bedroom.

When to book: seats disappear before you expect

Two things compound during peak season: weekend and morning slots go first, and the nearest centre fills before the distant one. Students who book late end up with a Tuesday afternoon slot in a different city, which is a worse test day for reasons that have nothing to do with preparation.

Booking early is also cheap insurance in a way students underrate. A date on the calendar is what converts open-ended preparation into a schedule, and if the date turns out to be wrong you can usually move it for a fee that is smaller than the cost of drifting for two months.

Centre or home — how to choose

• The GRE General Test and TOEFL iBT both offer proctored at-home versions with the same content and scoring as their centre-based tests.
• IELTS has an online option for the Academic test in some circumstances, but it is not accepted everywhere — notably for many immigration purposes — so check acceptance for your specific universities and visa route before choosing it over a centre booking.
• A power cut or a dropped connection mid-test is a genuinely bad outcome, so be honest about your home setup. In much of AP and Telangana, an inverter and a mobile hotspot as backup are the difference between a viable home test and a gamble.
• If you share a room, home testing is usually the wrong choice regardless of your internet. The proctoring rules require a private space, and an interruption can end the session.

Test-day logistics if you are travelling in

• Travel the previous evening for a morning slot. An overnight bus arriving at 6 a.m. for a 9 a.m. test is a preparation decision, and a bad one.
• Do a dry run of the last stretch. Test centres are often in office parks and IT buildings that look nothing like their map pin, and ten minutes of confusion at the gate costs you the composure you spent weeks building.
• Arrive well before the reporting time. Late arrivals are commonly refused entry with no refund, and this is not a rule that gets bent.
• Carry the original ID and your booking confirmation. Keep a photo of the confirmation on your phone as a backup, but do not rely on it as your document.
• Assume personal items go into a locker — phone, watch, notes, bag. Plan for a test day where you have no access to your phone for several hours, including for the trip home.
• Eat properly beforehand. The shorter formats still run around two hours with limited or no breaks, and hunger and dehydration show up in the last section, which is the one you least want to fade in.

Rescheduling, cancelling and retaking

A practical sequencing note for students applying abroad: take the English test first. It needs less preparation, every destination requires it, and an early result tells you whether you need more runway. Add the GRE afterwards only if your target list actually rewards it.

• GRE: retakes are commonly permitted once every 21 days, up to five times in a rolling 12-month period. Rescheduling carries a fee and must be done a set number of days before the test date — verify both the fee and the deadline on the official site, since they are revised.
• IELTS: policies on transfers, cancellations and refunds vary by test operator and by how much notice you give, and typically involve an administrative deduction. Where One Skill Retake is offered and your university accepts it, re-sitting a single module is far cheaper than a full retake.
• TOEFL: rescheduling and retake policies are set by ETS and revised periodically. Check the current window and fee before assuming you can move a booking cheaply.
• Scores are typically valid for five years for the GRE and two years for IELTS and TOEFL, so factor validity into when you book rather than testing as early as possible.
• Budget for one retake from the beginning. A student who has planned financially for a second attempt makes calmer decisions on test day than one for whom this sitting has to work.

Frequently asked questions