REI Exam Dates 2026: Testing Windows, Deadlines & Scheduling

The Two-Stage Structure: Written QE, Then Oral CE

Before you can make sense of any date, you need to understand that Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility certification through the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ABOG) is not a single sitting. It has two separate gates. The first is the written Qualifying Examination (QE), delivered by Pearson VUE. The second is the oral Certifying Examination (CE). Each has its own scheduling logic, its own preparation demands, and its own bulletin governing the details.

This matters for planning because candidates searching for "the REI exam date" are often looking for one answer when there are really two calendars. The written stage tests recall and applied reasoning across the full blueprint. The oral stage tests how you think through clinical scenarios and defend your decisions to examiners. Treating them as interchangeable is the fastest way to misjudge your preparation window. If you are still orienting yourself on what the credential involves, our overview of REI certification and the breakdown of REI requirements, eligibility and prerequisites are good places to start.

What the 2026 Dates Tell You

An issuer presentation delivered to program directors at the 2026 SMFM meeting lists the subspecialty dates for 2026: the QE on July 20 and the CE during April 13-17. These are worth knowing, but they need to be read correctly. They are historical 2026 dates, not an upcoming booking promise. They show the general rhythm of the cycle rather than a guarantee of what the next cycle will look like.

The practical lesson is the spacing. The 2026 listing places the written exam in the summer and the oral exam in the spring. When you are building a multi-month plan, anchor it to the seasonal pattern, then confirm the live dates and application deadlines in the current ABOG bulletin. Numeric logistics for a given stage are not established by the common blueprint and remain subject to whichever QE or CE bulletin currently applies to you.

The Thesis Change and Why It Reshapes Your Timeline

The single most consequential scheduling change in the source material is where the thesis sits in the process. According to the issuer's update at the 2026 SMFM Program Directors Meeting, the thesis moves from CE eligibility to QE eligibility for fellowship graduates from 2026 onward. Graduates from earlier years retain their prior requirements.

In plain terms, if you finish fellowship in 2026 or later, your thesis work is tied to qualifying for the written exam rather than the oral one. That pulls a major deliverable earlier in your timeline. Fellows who might once have treated the thesis as something to finish in the gap between the written and oral stages now need it in hand before they can sit for the QE.

This is also a good moment to read the details of the eligibility pathway in our guide to REI requirements and how to qualify, since the thesis is only one piece of a larger eligibility picture.

Where the Exam Fits in the Training Timeline

The scheduling question cannot be separated from the training path. The professional-society summary from ASRM describes the route as medical school, followed by a four-year obstetrics and gynecology residency, followed by a three-year REI fellowship. That summary is a description of training and scope of practice, not an exam blueprint, but it frames when a candidate becomes eligible to think about the QE at all.

The sequencing looks like this:

1. Complete residency and fellowship. Three years of REI fellowship is the training anchor.
2. Satisfy the thesis requirement. For 2026-onward graduates, this is tied to QE eligibility.
3. Sit for the written QE. Delivered through Pearson VUE.
4. Proceed to the oral CE. Scheduled separately, per the applicable bulletin.
5. Maintain certification. Continuing-certification participation is required to remain certified.

For candidates weighing whether the whole path is worth the effort, our analysis in Is the REI Certification Worth It? and the REI salary guide put the long timeline in context.

Registration and Scheduling Mechanics

Here is where candidates most often get tripped up: assuming that numbers they have seen somewhere apply to their stage. The common REI blueprint does not establish stage-specific numeric logistics. That means exam length, question counts, appointment windows, and fee amounts for the QE and the CE come from the applicable current bulletin for each stage, not from the blueprint.

What the source material does establish is the delivery structure:

• The written QE is delivered through Pearson VUE, so scheduling a seat follows a test-center appointment model.
• The oral CE is a separate event and is not scheduled the way a computer-based test is.
• The two stages are administered on different parts of the annual calendar, as the 2026 listing illustrates.

Build a buffer into everything. Because the specific booking mechanics live in the bulletin and can change from cycle to cycle, the safest habit is to read the current bulletin early, note every deadline in your own calendar, and re-check it a few months before you intend to apply.

Mapping the Six Domains onto a Calendar

The current ABOG REI blueprint organizes content into six primary categories and 27 subcategories, with no percentage weights published. Because no domain is officially weighted, you cannot allocate study time by an official percentage. Instead, allocate by breadth of subcategories and by your own gaps. The six domains are laid out below with the high-yield subcategories that live under each.

For a deeper walk through how each area is organized, see REI Exam Domains: Complete Guide to All 6 Content Areas. One transcription note worth knowing: in the current PDF, a task under the ovarian and adrenal subcategory visibly reads "PMOS." No expansion or silent correction should be assumed, so if that spelling matters to your preparation, consult the issuer for clarification rather than guessing.

A Domain-Ordered Study Sequence

This is the one place to bring in scheduling method, and it is tied directly to the blueprint. Foundational material comes first because Domains 2 through 5 depend on it. A compact sequence might look like this:

For a fuller study framework, our REI study guide goes deeper, and the REI cheat sheet is useful for last-pass review. You can also work through timed questions on the main practice test site to see which domains need more time before you commit to a window.

Readiness Signals Before You Commit to a Window

Choosing a testing window is partly a question of calendar and partly a question of honest self-assessment. Because there are two stages, you can think about readiness in two different ways.

For the Written QE

• You can interpret laboratory assays and reason through pharmacology without looking things up.
• You can move across subcategories, for example from thyroid disorders to recurrent pregnancy loss to male infertility, without losing the thread.
• You are consistently scoring where you want to on mixed-domain practice sets from the practice test platform, not just on your strongest domain.

For the Oral CE

• You can talk through a case out loud, from presentation to workup to management, in an organized way.
• You can defend a treatment choice and explain what you would do if a finding changes.
• You have practiced under conversational pressure, since the oral format rewards clear, structured reasoning rather than memorized lists.

If you are unsure how demanding the whole sequence will be, our piece on how hard the REI exam is lays out the difficulty picture, and REI pass rate: what the data shows covers the results in more detail.

After the Exams: Continuing Certification

Passing both stages is not the end of the calendar. The issuer's presentation notes that participation in continuing certification is required to remain certified. That means the dates you plan around do not stop once you pass the oral exam. Build the expectation of ongoing participation into your long-term plan from the start, so that certification does not lapse after the hard part is behind you.

For readers curious about the career side, see REI jobs and REI training for how certification connects to practice settings and the path that precedes it. And if you are new to the terminology altogether, what REI is and what REI stands for cover the basics.

Frequently Asked Questions