ARB or RIAI: what the UK and Irish architect registers actually ask an overseas-qualified applicant for

People ask which register is easier to join. That question has no honest answer, because the two bodies are not testing the same thing and neither publishes outcome rates. What can be answered, from the regulators’ own pages, is what each one asks you to produce, what it costs, and when it happens.

Reduced to a sentence each:

ARB treats an unrecognised overseas qualification as an academic problem. Its route is an examination against UK qualification criteria, taken part by part, followed by a UK Part 3 obtained from a UK school of architecture.

The RIAI treats it as an experience problem. Its route is an evaluation of the qualification plus a documentary assessment and an interview, gated on practical experience obtained in Ireland and on familiarity with Irish building legislation and contract administration.

If your strength is your degree, those are very different tests. If your strength is years of practice, they are different again — in the other direction.

What each one asks for

ARB. Its current page for people in this position:

“Currently if you hold overseas qualifications obtained outside the EU or hold non-recognised UK qualifications, you will need to pass ARB’s Examination for Equivalence to Prescribed Qualifications (also known as the ‘Prescribed Examination’) to progress towards registering as an architect in the UK. Once you have satisfied Part 1 and Part 2 requirements, either by obtaining qualifications or by passing the Prescribed Examination, you will then need to obtain a UK Part 3 qualification from a UK school of architecture.”

The eligibility conditions for the examination itself are academic: “For Part 1 Examination you must have successfully completed a three-year course of study; for Part 2 you must already hold Part 1 and have completed two further years of postgraduate study in architecture.”

ARB also flags a limit that catches a particular group: “If you hold qualifications that are not principally in architecture, for example, you have a degree in Interior Architecture, Interior Design or Architectural Technology, it is unlikely you will be eligible to sit the examination unless you fall under the current transitional arrangements.”

Before applying, ARB tells you to check its agreement routes first: “We have a growing number of mutual recognition agreements and memoranda of understanding. Before applying for the Prescribed Examination please check your eligibility against these routes.” Its published MRAs are with NCARB, with AACA and NZRAB jointly, and with ROAC in Canada; it has a memorandum of understanding with the Hong Kong Institute of Architects, and a separate arrangement for EEA EFTA states.

The RIAI. Route B2 for someone who holds “the relevant post graduate professional licencing examination for admission to the profession in that state”, Route C2 for someone who does not but has “seven or more years post-graduate practical experience, four of which have been in Ireland”. Both routes carry the same condition: the applicant must “have obtained practical experience in Ireland and … demonstrate that they are familiar with Irish building legislation, standards, statutory obligations and contract administration.”

A Qualification Evaluation of the non-Irish qualification is part of that process, and the RIAI says it is “required to access the postgraduate examination in Professional Practice”. Applicants who meet neither the licensing nor the experience condition “must complete an RIAI accredited and specified professional practice examination”.

The Irish routes for overseas degrees are covered in full at how Ireland recognises an overseas architecture qualification.

What each one charges

Every figure below was read from the regulator’s own fee page on 3 September 2026. Neither list is complete — these are the items an overseas-qualified applicant hits.

ARB

• Prescribed Examination: £1,950 per part, plus £300 for referral to the lead examiner.
• Registration fee for 2026, set at ARB’s October 2025 Board meeting: £225.00.
• Application fee on first registration: £40 within two years of passing a Part 3 examination, £124 if more than two years have passed.
• ARB publishes the registration fee pro rata by quarter within the year, and marks periods after October 2026 as to be confirmed.

RIAI

• Route B: Stage 1 €145.00, Stage 2 documentary assessment €325.00, Stage 3 evidence interview €465.00.
• Route C: Stage 1 €145.00, Stage 2 assessment and interview €800.00, deferral €65.00.
• Qualification Evaluation, architecture: €205.00 non-EU, €25.00 EU.
• Annual charge once eligible: €602.00 for the Register, or €301.00 at the half-yearly reduced rate for anyone joining after 1 June.
• Non-statutory appeal: €405.00.

Two things the numbers do not show. The ARB figures exclude the cost of the UK Part 3 qualification that follows the examination, which is a university course with its own fee. The RIAI figures exclude the cost of obtaining practical experience in Ireland, which is a job, not a purchase — but it is a condition, and it is not one you can satisfy from outside the country.

When each one happens

This is the difference nobody prices in, and it is the one that reorganises a plan.

The RIAI runs on a published calendar. Routes B2 and C2 operate on a twice-yearly cycle with Stage 1 submission deadlines that the RIAI publishes years ahead — 23 March 2026, 5 October 2026, 24 March 2027, 6 October 2027, and onward — with eligibility for Stage 2 determined about four weeks later and the Stage 2 deadline falling a full cycle after Stage 1. Interviews sit in December/January or July. The RIAI notes: “All dates are indicative and may be subject to change.”

ARB runs on examination sittings and, on its own account, is in the middle of changing them. Its overseas page states that “the Part 1 Prescribed Examination will be discontinued following final sittings in 2026.”

So the honest comparison of timing is not “which is faster”. It is that the RIAI’s calendar is published and rigid, while ARB’s is in transition — which means the ARB timeline you read anywhere older than this year is probably wrong.

The memorandum that links the two registers

ARB and the RIAI have a memorandum of understanding, and it is the most under-used fact in this area. ARB’s page:

“ARB and the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI) have signed a memorandum of understanding which became effective from 1 January 2021. The memorandum states that the both parties will agree to recognise appropriate UK and Irish qualifications for the purposes of registration until any new UK-EU mutual recognition agreement is implemented.”

On the Irish side, that arrangement appears as RIAI Route B4, for someone whose UK architecture qualification “is listed in Annex V or VI of the Directive … and you have also obtained the ARB Part 3 Examination”, and Route B4a for mixed UK/EU combinations.

The practical reading, stated as fact rather than as a plan: the two registers are connected for holders of appropriate UK and Irish qualifications, not for holders of a third country’s qualification. An overseas-qualified applicant does not get into one register by way of the other unless and until they hold a qualification the memorandum covers. Anyone told otherwise should ask to be shown the sentence that says so.

What ARB has announced, and what nobody can tell you yet

ARB has published several changes. These are its statements, with its dates, quoted so that you can distinguish what has been announced from what has happened.

On registration routes:

“In spring 2027 ARB will introduce Route P, a new route to registration for applicants who hold accredited Part 2 and Part 3 qualifications but without an accredited Part 1.”

“Applicants who do not hold an accredited Part 1 qualification may still apply for the Part 2 Prescribed Examination during 2026. Passing the Part 2 Prescribed Examination will allow you to make use of Route P once the new arrangements come into force.”

“ARB expects Route P to come into effect in spring 2027. If you wish to make an earlier application to join the Architects Register you can follow the existing routes, subject to Prescribed Examination availability.”

On the assessment attached to its recognition agreements:

“The UK Adaptation Assessment (UKAA) will be replaced by the new Readiness for Practice in the UK (RfPUK) module … UKAA will continue to operate until October 2026, with the new RfPUK module expected to be introduced in Spring 2027. Applicants can continue to apply for UKAA under current arrangements or choose to wait for the new route.”

And on the standard itself: “The standard required for registration as an architect will not change. Route P provides an alternative way for applicants to demonstrate that they meet the required standard of competence.”

We are reporting these as published announcements and nothing more. ARB says further guidance on eligibility and evidence “will be published ahead of implementation”, which means the detail does not exist yet. Anyone describing the requirements of a route that has not been published is inventing them. What is already usable, today, is the discontinuation notice: if you were planning to sit the Part 1 Prescribed Examination, ARB itself says “you may wish to review whether this will still be necessary”.

If you are refused

Ireland has two systems and they are separate. Statutory appeals, against a decision of the Admissions Board, the Technical Assessment Board or the Professional Conduct Committee, go to the Appeals Board under section 25 of the Building Control Act 2007, “in writing and lodged with the Appeals Board within 3 months after the date of the decision being appealed against”, on procedural or substantive grounds. Decisions the RIAI makes as a professional body — it names Route C assessments — go through its own non-statutory appeals policy at a €405.00 fee.

The UK publishes an appeals procedure for the Prescribed Examination and an Appeals Committee for first registration; both sit on ARB’s site under the routes they belong to. We have not reproduced their conditions here because ARB is currently changing the surrounding rules.

What we could not verify

Which register is easier. Neither body publishes success rates by route or by country, and we will not construct one from anecdote. The regulator decides, on its own criteria, on the file in front of it.

How long either process takes end to end. The RIAI publishes stages and months; ARB publishes examination availability. Neither publishes an elapsed-time service standard for this population.

Whether a specific overseas licensing examination satisfies RIAI Route B2. That is a question for RIAI Admissions in writing, before any fee is paid.

What Route P and RfPUK will require. Not published. ARB says guidance is to come.

Any fee not printed above, including the UK Adaptation Assessment fee, which we did not read from ARB’s own page today and therefore do not quote.

What to do

1. Check the agreement routes before anything else. ARB tells you to, and holding a qualification covered by an MRA or MOU changes the entire calculation.
2. Ask yourself where your evidence actually is. A strong academic record with little Irish practice points at the UK examination route; long practice with four or more years in Ireland points at the Irish routes. Neither converts into the other.
3. Do not treat the two registers as alternatives for the same file. They ask for different evidence, and the memorandum between them covers UK and Irish qualifications, not third-country ones.
4. If Ireland is in play, work backwards from the March or October Stage 1 deadline, and order the Qualification Evaluation early.
5. If the UK is in play, read ARB’s own change notices before booking anything, particularly the Part 1 discontinuation after the final sittings in 2026.
6. Get any country-specific eligibility answer in writing from ARB or RIAI Admissions before paying a stage fee. Both charge for processing, not for outcomes.

This site summarises published rules. It is neither ARB nor the RIAI, does not assess qualifications, does not decide eligibility, and makes no prediction about any application or about rules that have been announced but not yet published in full.