CA Foundation January 2027 Study Plan: 70 Days, Paper by Paper

Last verified: 12 October 2026 against the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI Announcement No. 13 of 23 September 2026, the Board of Studies Foundation syllabus and January 2027 study-material list, and BoS mock test announcements).

If you're reading this on Friday 23 October 2026, the first CA Foundation paper is 72 days away. The plan below uses the 70 days from Sunday 25 October to Saturday 2 January, plus the exam week itself. It's written for students registered with ICAI for the January 2027 attempt who have read at least part of the Board of Studies (BoS) study material. Spend 23 and 24 October on the chapter audit from week 1, then start the table on Sunday.

Everything here follows from one ICAI rule: you pass only if you score at least 40% in each paper and 50% in the aggregate of all four, in one sitting. A strong Accounting score can't rescue a Quantitative Aptitude paper below 40, so every week touches all four papers.

When are the CA Foundation January 2027 papers, and what's in each?

The four papers are on Sunday 3, Tuesday 5, Thursday 7 and Saturday 9 January 2027, each starting at 2 PM IST. Papers 1 and 2 are written (subjective) three-hour papers; Papers 3 and 4 are objective two-hour papers, with 0.25 marks deducted for every wrong answer.

The weightage ranges come from the BoS syllabus PDF, which applies from the May 2024 exams until ICAI changes it. Three more caveats before you build on this:

• Which paper falls on which date. Announcement No. 13 lists the four dates and the timings by paper, but not which paper is written on which date. BoS ran its January 2026 and September 2026 mock test series in number order, Paper 1 first, so this plan assumes the exam does the same: Paper 1 on 3 January through Paper 4 on 9 January. Check the order on your admit card and move the exam-week table if it differs.
• No shift for holidays. The announcement says the schedule won't change if any exam day is declared a public holiday.
• Medium. You can answer in English or Hindi (details are in the guidance notes on eservices.icai.org), and the 20–22 November correction window lets you change the medium or exam city on a form you've already filled.

How should you split the 70 days, week by week?

Use weeks 1–4 to finish a first reading of every chapter, weeks 5–6 for a full revision with written answers and timed papers, and weeks 7–10 for two full mock series with targeted revision between them. Each mock series copies the exam timetable: same weekdays, same 2 PM start.

On ordinary study days, alternate two pairs. The hours are our planning assumption of about 6 focused hours a day; scale both blocks if your day is shorter.

Over ten weeks, with one half-day off each week (also an assumption), that's roughly 390 hours: about 114 for Accounting, 98 each for Laws and Quantitative Aptitude, and 81 for Economics. Accounting gets the most time because it's a three-hour written paper in which nearly every topic has to be practised as full worked problems. Treat the split as a starting point. After each mock series, move up to an hour a day toward whichever paper is closest to 40.

Which ICAI material should sit at the centre of the plan?

The BoS study material is the core. For January 2027, BoS lists the August 2024 edition (reprint August 2025 onwards) for all four papers, with the Revision Test Paper (RTP) for January 2027 added for Accounting and Business Laws. RTPs and Mock Test Papers (MTPs) are your revision and testing material on top of it.

• Study material. Read from the BoS modules. Mark a chapter done only when you can solve its questions without the text open.
• Revision Test Papers. On 12 October 2026, the Foundation RTP list on the BoS Knowledge Portal ran up to September 2026, so the January 2027 RTP wasn't posted yet. Use September 2026 and earlier RTPs in weeks 5–6, and switch to the January 2027 one when it appears.
• Mock Test Papers. BoS hadn't announced January 2027 MTP dates by 12 October 2026. For January 2026 it ran Series I from 15 December 2025 and Series II from 29 December 2025; for September 2026, Series I from 10 August and Series II from 20 August. Both times, question papers went up on the BoS Knowledge Portal on the day, with answer keys within 48 hours. When the January 2027 dates are out, put ICAI's series in place of series A or B. If your ICAI branch runs the physical mode, you can sit them in person there; if a date clashes with something else, download that paper and sit it later at 2 PM.
• Recorded classes. BoS's live virtual classes for January 2027 Foundation students started on 16 September 2026 (Accounting and Business Laws) and 17 September (Quantitative Aptitude and Business Economics), and the announcement lists unlimited access to recorded lectures. For a chapter you can't crack from the module, use the recorded lecture rather than opening a new resource.

How do you sit and review a mock so it raises your marks?

Write every mock at 2 PM under exam conditions, then review it the next morning against both pass rules: each paper at 40 or above, and the four together at 200 of 400 or above. The review is where marks move, so give it as much time as the paper itself.

1. Copy the exam clock. For Papers 1 and 2, read for 15 minutes from 1:45 PM, then write from 2 to 5 PM. For Papers 3 and 4, start straight away at 2 PM, because there's no reading time, and stop at 4.
2. Mark against ICAI's answers. Use the BoS answer key or suggested answers, not your own sense of what's close enough. In written papers, note marks lost to missing steps, working notes or the provision you should have cited.
3. Log every lost mark under one of four causes: didn't know it, knew it but slipped, ran out of time, or guessed wrong in an objective paper.
4. Score your guesses separately. Each wrong answer in Papers 3 and 4 costs 0.25 marks, so 12 wrong guesses cost 3 marks. If your correct guesses earn more than that, keep guessing between two options; if not, leave those questions blank.
5. Pick one fix per paper for the following week, and give the extra time to the paper nearest 40.

What does the plan look like for one student?

Here's an illustration built on this plan's assumptions, not a real student. Her audit on 23–24 October finds eight chapters unread: company accounts and not-for-profit organisations (Accounting), the Companies Act and Negotiable Instruments Act (Laws), calculus and index numbers (Quantitative Aptitude), and money market and international trade (Economics). She schedules each one inside its own paper's block in weeks 1–3, heaviest weightage first.

Mock series A in week 7 gives her Accounting 58, Business Laws 44, Quantitative Aptitude 38 and Business Economics 52: a total of 192 out of 400, or 48%. That fails both rules at once, since Quantitative Aptitude is under 40 and the aggregate is under 50%.

Her review shows most Quantitative Aptitude marks went in Statistics and in wrong guesses. So in week 8 she moves one hour a day from Accounting to Quantitative Aptitude on Day A, spends it on central tendency, dispersion and probability (from Statistics' two largest sections), and stops guessing unless she has narrowed a question to two options. For Laws, at 44, she writes two timed answers a day with a fixed structure: the provision, the facts, then the conclusion.

Series B in week 9 gives Accounting 60, Laws 50, Quantitative Aptitude 46 and Economics 54: 210 out of 400, or 52.5%. Both rules are cleared, though not by much, so she keeps the extra Quantitative Aptitude hour through week 10.

How should you revise each paper in the final fortnight and exam week?

Give each paper its last full mock exactly two weeks before its exam, on the same weekday at 2 PM, then a final revision day in week 10 and a last-look day right before the paper. Spend each free day between papers only on the paper that comes next.

Friday 1 January is the spare day: a short timed set for Papers 3 and 4 in the morning, then a final pass through the Paper 1 error log. Recheck your admit card and the route to your centre that day, not on the morning of the first paper. After each paper, skip the post-mortem with friends and open the next paper's last-look sheet the same evening.

Which ICAI deadlines fall inside these 70 days?

The exam form is the deadline you can't miss: the online window on eservices.icai.org opens on Tuesday 3 November 2026 and closes on Monday 16 November without a late fee. With the ₹600 late fee, the last date is Thursday 19 November.

The examination fee for Indian centres is ₹1,500. If you need to change your exam city or answering medium after submitting, the correction window runs from Friday 20 to Sunday 22 November. Put the form on your week 2 list rather than week 4, so a payment problem doesn't eat into revision.

To keep the dates in view, our free CA Foundation January 2027 countdown counts down to 3 January. Kalnehi Daily's revision scheduler, also ours and free without a login, turns the chapters you finish in weeks 1–4 into dated review slots, so finished chapters come back before the mock series. A paper-wise topic overview is on the CA Foundation preparation hub, and once Foundation is behind you, the CA Intermediate daily routine picks up from there.