Central Applications Office

Welcome to the CAO web site.

Please select the section you want from the menu on the left.

The higher education institutions in the Republic of Ireland have delegated to CAO the task of processing centrally applications to their first year undergraduate courses.

The participating institutions retain the function of making decisions on admissions.
CAO is required to deal with applications in an efficient and fair manner.
CAO is a not-for-profit company registered in Ireland (mission and values).

Please Note: Office contact hours are 09:30 to 13:00, and 14:00 to 17:15, Monday to Friday (the CAO website is monitored outside these hours to ensure continuity of online services).

Please read the following regarding fake e-mails or SMS text messages.

Cookie Notice: This site uses cookies to enable users to obtain the best experience from the website. In particular, secure encrypted cookies are necessary to allow secure progression through the various elements of the online 'apply' and 'my application' services. We never use cookies to track your site usage for the purpose of marketing and advertising. Session cookies are deleted automatically when the browser is closed. For more details please see our privacy statement.