CA Foundation September 2026 result: 18.93% pass, Kansika and Mahek Gupta top

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) declared the result of the CA Foundation examination of September 2026 on Friday, 6 November 2026. Of 1,04,240 candidates who appeared, 19,736 qualified, a pass rate of 18.93%. Kansika from Hisar and Mahek Gupta from Hyderabad jointly hold All India Rank 1 with 361 marks out of 400 each (90.25%). Candidates can see their marks on the ICAI results website, caresults.icai.org.

The CA Foundation is the entry test of the chartered accountancy course run by ICAI. A student who clears it can move to the Intermediate level, and then to articleship and the Final examination. Because ICAI now holds the Foundation exam three times a year, in January, May and September, a candidate who misses the mark in one session can try again within about four months.

The figures show again how demanding the first step is. Fewer than one in five candidates passed, and the share has stayed in a narrow band across sessions: in January 2026 the Foundation pass rate was 19.23%. The ranks at the top were extremely close, with five candidates separated by just three marks, and the toppers come from smaller cities such as Hisar, Ajmer and Gwalior as well as metros such as Hyderabad and Chennai.

The gap between male and female pass rates in this session, about three percentage points, is worth noting, though one session is not enough to show a trend.

The Foundation result follows the CA Intermediate result of the same September session, declared earlier, in which Neel Rajesh Shah of Mumbai and Chandak Sakshi of Nashik shared the first rank with 502 marks. Together the two results complete ICAI's September cycle for the first two levels of the course, and students who cleared Foundation this week are the ones who will sit the Intermediate papers in future sessions.

Peepals calculation: The pass rate checks out: 19,736 ÷ 1,04,240 ≈ 0.1893, or 18.93%. That means about 84,504 candidates (1,04,240 − 19,736) did not clear this session, and many of them may sit the January 2027 exam. Compared with January 2026, when 19.23% passed, the rate fell by 0.30 percentage points (19.23 − 18.93). The male-female gap is 3.15 points (20.47 − 17.32). Our calculation from the reported figures.

What students should do next: Check the scorecard on caresults.icai.org with the roll number or registration number. Those who passed can register for the CA Intermediate course on the ICAI portal; those who did not can plan for the January 2027 session and check ICAI's notices for the application window.

Short-term: Nearly 20,000 students move to the Intermediate stage, while more than 84,000 must decide whether to retry in January 2027, about two months away.

Long-term: Pass rates that stay below one in five at the entry stage mean that only a small share of those who start the course reach the later levels, which keeps the flow of new chartered accountants limited.

Who is affected: CA aspirants who sat the September 2026 exam, their coaching institutes and colleges, and students planning to enter the course after Class 12.

What to watch next: ICAI's notice on the application window for the January 2027 Foundation exam, scheduled for 3, 5, 7 and 9 January.

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