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dMAT Test Centres in India, and How Seats Are Allotted

By Moksh Khatri · Founder, DMAT Club · Updated 20 August 2026

Exam facts verified 11 September 2026 against g.a.s.t. (d-mat.de) and APS India (aps-india.de). Answer formats checked against the official dMAT demo exam, sat 23 August 2026. The dMAT is a first-year exam and its rules move — confirm anything date-sensitive at the official source before you act on it.

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The dMAT is sat in person, at a test centre appointed by g.a.s.t., in one of ten Indian cities. There is no at-home version and no online proctored version. If you have been assuming you can sit this from your desk the way you might sit an online interview, that assumption is the thing to fix first, because it changes your travel and your budget.

The list, and the one that surprises people

Mananthavady is the one people miss. It is a town in Wayanad district, Kerala, and it is the only Kerala centre on the list. There is no Kochi centre and no Thiruvananthapuram centre. Candidates in Kerala searching for a city they recognise tend to conclude there is nothing in the state and book Bengaluru or Chennai instead, which is a longer journey than they needed to make. Check the map before you book the metro out of habit.

Equally, there is no Hyderabad centre on the list we read, and no Coimbatore, Jaipur, Lucknow, Bhubaneswar or Guwahati. If your city is not among the ten above, you are travelling. Budget for it now rather than on 25 September.

Why there is no at-home option

The exam is delivered digitally, but "digital" here means it runs on a screen at an appointed centre, not that it runs on yours. The official site describes the dMAT as carried out digitally in test centres appointed by g.a.s.t., and no remote administration is offered for the 2026 Indian cycle. Nothing has been announced about a future at-home format, so treat the centre as a fixed requirement rather than a temporary one.

This matters more than it sounds, because it interacts with the rule that defines the exam: you may not take notes at any point. A centre invigilates that. Practising at home with a pen beside you trains a habit the room will not allow.

How seats are allotted, and what "no waitlist" means

Seats go first come, first served. There is no waitlist, no queue you can join, and no way for a preparation provider or a consultancy to hold a seat for you — including us. Anyone offering to reserve a dMAT seat for a fee is selling something they do not have.

Practically, that means the three metros fill first and the smaller centres last. If you are registering close to the deadline, go in with two or three acceptable cities ranked in advance, because discovering your first choice is full while the form is open is how people end up picking a city they have not thought about the travel for.

If your preferred city is full

1. Take another city rather than waiting. There is no second sitting confirmed for the 2026 cycle, so a seat in a city you would rather not travel to is worth more than no seat.
2. Book travel that lands the day before. The exam runs about three hours plus a 30-minute break. Arriving off an overnight journey on the morning of 26 September is a scoring decision, not just a comfort one — see the day before the dMAT.
3. Check what your registration confirmation actually says. The exact venue address for each city is shown during registration rather than published as a list in advance, and it is the confirmation that names your room. Do not navigate to a city and expect to find the venue by searching.

Changing your centre after you have booked

The g.a.s.t. terms allow you to update your contact information until the registration deadline, but they do not set out a general procedure for moving between test centres after booking. We do not know whether a centre change is possible, and we are not going to guess. If you need one, ask g.a.s.t. through the participant portal before 15 September, because after that date the options narrow sharply — see deregistering and refunds for what does and does not remain available.

The dates around all of this

Full context on the cycle is in the 2026 dates guide, and the registration process itself — what to have ready before you open the portal — is in how to register, step by step.

Frequently asked questions