In the past ielts.org, the official IELTS website, used to publish a list of official IELTS dates. Those dates had a pattern: 4 dates a month for Academic exam and 2 dates a month for General Training.
However, they have changed this system, and now there are common IELTS dates and these change from country to country. The availability is, of course, different too – sometimes you will find that many exam dates ahead are booked and the first available date is months from today.
I’ve looked through most of the countries and compiled a list of IELTS dates for the first 6 months of 2010:
January 2010:
General Training test: 09/01, 23/01.
Academic test: 09/01, 14/01, 23/01, 30/01.
February 2010:
General Training test: 11/02, 20/02.
Academic test: 06/02, 11/02, 20/02.
March 2010:
General Training test: 27/03.
Academic test: 06/03, 20/03, 27/03.
General Training test: 17/04.
Academic test: 10/04, 17/04.
May 2010:
General Training test: 08/05, 20/05.
Academic test: 08/05, 15/05, 20/05, 29/05.
June 2010:
General Training test: 05/06, 26/09.
Academic test: 05/06, 19/06.
This list will help you get an idea of possible dates, but I would still recommend that you visit ielts.org and get the available dates in your country and your city, before you start planning. They keep changing their website, so the location of the dates search can move – right now it’s in the right upper corner on the homepage, where it says “Search Test Date”.
Good luck, everybody!