MRCEM exam withdrawal and refund policy

You’ve paid your fee, the diet is creeping up, and something has changed. Maybe you’re unwell. Maybe a family emergency has landed. Maybe your rota lead has just refused leave, or a mock has shaken your confidence and you would rather sit a later diet than burn an attempt. Whatever the trigger, knowing exactly how to withdraw from MRCEM exam sittings, and what it will cost you in money and attempts, can take some of the panic out of the next 48 hours.

TL;DR. For MRCEM Primary and MRCEM SBA, you can defer to the next diet free of charge (other than a £50 admin fee plus any sitting uplift) up to 30 days before the exam. From 29 days out you can still cancel, but RCEM only returns 50% as credit to your RCEM account. On the day, your fee is forfeited. MRCEM OSCE cannot be deferred at all; you can withdraw with a 50% credit only under exceptional circumstances with evidence, otherwise the fee is lost. Crucially, a withdrawn or cancelled exam does not count toward your six MRCEM attempts. All requests go via the RCEM portal forms or to exams@rcem.ac.uk.

flowchart TD
    Start{When are you withdrawing?} --> A[More than 30 days
before the exam]
    Start --> B[Less than 30 days
before the exam]
    Start --> C[OSCE-specific window]
    A --> R1[Higher refund, admin fee deducted]
    B --> R2[Reduced or no refund]
    C --> R3[Check OSCE-specific policy]

What is the cut-off to withdraw without losing fees?

RCEM splits the policy by exam type. For the theory exams (MRCEM Primary and MRCEM SBA), the key deadline is 30 days before the exam date. Submit a deferral request before that point and you keep your slot for the next available diet, paying only a £50 administrative fee plus any difference if the fee has gone up. After the 30-day cut-off, deferral closes; you can only cancel, and RCEM credits 50% of the exam fee back to your RCEM account rather than refunding to your card.

For more on this, see our guide to MRCEM exam fees breakdown 2026.

For the MRCEM OSCE, there is no deferral window at all. The College’s stated reason is the limited number of OSCE spaces and the difficulty of filling them at short notice. Your only options are to attend, withdraw and forfeit, or apply to withdraw under exceptional circumstances with documentary evidence and recover 50% as credit.

Refund and attempt impact at a glance

The table below summarises the current RCEM policy, which applies to exams booked after 11 December 2025. If your exam was booked before that date, older terms may apply, so contact the exams team to check.

Source: RCEM Exam Cancellation Policy (active for exams booked after 11 December 2025).

For more on this, see our guide to MRCEM Primary exam dates 2026.

Does a withdrawn attempt count toward my six?

No. RCEM is explicit that neither a deferral, a cancellation nor a withdrawal under the current policy is recorded as an attempt at the exam. The maximum of six attempts per MRCEM component only ticks down when you actually sit and a result is issued. A no-show on exam day costs you the fee, but it does not consume a sit either, because no result is produced.

If you have already reached six attempts, that is a separate process: you would need to apply for an additional attempt at least four weeks before the next application window opens, with a reflective plan and educational supervisor support. Withdrawing from a future sitting does not, by itself, help or hurt that application.

How do I withdraw for medical reasons?

For the theory exams, the deferral and cancellation routes do not require supporting evidence at all, so for most medical issues you simply submit the appropriate form on the RCEM portal. You do not need a GP letter to defer a theory exam more than 30 days out.

For the OSCE, exceptional circumstances is the only route to recover any of your fee, and that does require documentary evidence. RCEM lists illness, bereavement, unplanned surgery, military deployment and certain geopolitical events as examples. Acceptable evidence includes a doctor’s letter, a fitness-to-work assessment, a death certificate or a court summons. The document must be on official letterhead, signed or stamped, dated, clearly display your name, and be submitted in English (or as a verified English translation).

If you are unwell in the final days before any exam, contact the exams team as early as you reasonably can on exams@rcem.ac.uk. Even where the policy is firm, getting your evidence in front of them quickly is your best lever.

What if work refuses to release me?

This is one of the most common panic-scenarios on r/JuniorDoctorsUK. The honest answer is that RCEM does not treat a refused study leave request as exceptional circumstances on its own, because it is foreseeable and is between you and your employer rather than between you and the College. Your routes are:

For more on this, see our guide to maximum number of MRCEM Primary attempts.

• If you are more than 30 days out (theory exams), defer through the standard form. No evidence needed.
• If you are inside 30 days (theory), you can cancel for a 50% credit, then apply for the next diet.
• If it is the OSCE, escalate the leave issue urgently to your Educational Supervisor, College Tutor and rota lead. Document everything in writing. Study leave is part of your contract; an unreasonable refusal close to a booked exam is grievable.
• If escalation fails and you genuinely cannot attend, you will likely forfeit the fee unless your supervisor can frame the circumstances as exceptional with appropriate evidence.

What about family emergencies and bereavement?

Bereavement is explicitly listed by RCEM as an example of exceptional circumstances for OSCE cancellation. A death certificate, funeral director’s letter or similar will normally be accepted. For theory exams the process is administratively simpler: defer or cancel through the form, no evidence needed, and contact the exams team if the timing falls inside the 30-day window and you want the case considered sympathetically.

I just had a bad mock. Should I withdraw and resit next diet?

One bad mock is not a reason to withdraw, but a consistent pattern of failing mocks two to three weeks out is. Because deferral and cancellation do not count against your six attempts, and because the financial cost of deferral is small (£50 plus any uplift) compared to burning a real sit and the months of remediation that often follows, the maths often favours deferral if you are realistically below the pass mark with little time to close the gap. Decide deliberately though, not in the panic of one bad evening. See our piece on managing FRCEM revision burnout for a framework on whether to push through or step back.

How do I actually submit a withdrawal request?

RCEM uses two separate online forms hosted on the candidate portal, plus the exams team inbox for everything else:

• Deferral form: for theory exams, requested 30 or more days before the exam. account.rcem.ac.uk/RCEMPortal/Exam-Admin-Fee-Form.aspx
• Cancellation form: for theory exams inside the 30-day window, or for OSCE withdrawals. account.rcem.ac.uk/RCEMPortal/Exam-Cancellation-form.aspx
• Email: exams@rcem.ac.uk for exceptional circumstances applications, evidence submission and anything the forms do not cover. Use the same email address you applied with and quote your candidate number.

Submit the form before the deadline, not on the deadline. Late submissions are not accepted and the cut-off is firm.

How long does the 50% credit take to appear?

RCEM does not publish a specific turnaround time for credits to appear on your account. Candidates typically report it within a few weeks of the request being processed, but if you are reapplying for the next diet you should not assume the credit will be visible in time to offset the new fee. Pay the new fee in full when you reapply and reconcile the credit afterwards if needed.

What happens if I just do not turn up?

You will be marked as a non-attendance, the fee is fully forfeited, and the slot is gone. The non-attendance is not recorded as a failed sit, so it does not count against your six attempts, but the financial loss is total. If illness or an emergency on the day prevents you attending, email exams@rcem.ac.uk before the start of the exam where humanly possible and follow up with evidence within a few working days. RCEM may, exceptionally, treat a day-of incident as exceptional circumstances, but the published default is forfeit.

Will withdrawing affect my ROC or ARCP?

Withdrawing from an exam is not, by itself, an ARCP concern. ROC (Run of Curriculum) progression is based on whether you have passed the required exam components by the relevant ARCP, not on whether every booked sitting was attended. That said, repeated late withdrawals can prompt conversations at ARCP about exam strategy and engagement, so it is worth keeping your Educational Supervisor in the loop and documenting the reason in your portfolio reflection. If you are at the point where exam progress is threatening your training number, the how to bounce back after failing FRCEM SBA piece walks through the conversation to have with your TPD.

Can I get a full refund to my card?

Outside of the narrow exceptional-circumstances OSCE route (50% credit, not a card refund) and the deferral route (slot moves; no refund), the policy is that no full card refund is issued for an MRCEM exam once an application has been submitted. Where a refund is genuinely owed (for example a duplicate payment, or a candidate found ineligible after applying), RCEM will refund to the original payment method, unless the card has expired or the account has been closed.

What about Pearson VUE or Surpass on the day?

Theory exams are delivered through the Surpass network of test centres. Day-of issues at a Surpass centre (technical failure, centre closure, no entry due to ID problems) are handled in the first instance by the centre invigilators and escalated to RCEM. Surpass and RCEM, not Pearson VUE, are the relevant parties for MRCEM theory. For tactics on managing the centre experience itself, see our Pearson VUE and Surpass test centre noise playbook.

Facts last verified 30 May 2026

The figures and process above are based on the RCEM Exam Cancellation Policy active for exams booked after 11 December 2025 and the published 2026 diet dates. RCEM occasionally updates its policy, so always cross-check against rcem.ac.uk/exam-cancellation-policy/ before submitting your request, and email exams@rcem.ac.uk if your situation does not fit cleanly into the published categories.

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