What is a migration certificate?
The certificate a board or university issues so a student can study under another board or university.
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What a migration certificate means
A migration certificate is issued by an examining board or a university, not by a school. It lets a student who has passed that board’s examination go on to study under another board or university. CBSE defines it as a certificate it issues “at the request of a candidate passing out” of its class 10 or class 12 examination, “for seeking admission to the examinations of another Board/University”.1
It is not a transfer certificate. The TC comes from the school a student leaves; the migration certificate comes from the board whose examination the student passed.
Where the school office meets it
- Parents of class 10 and 12 students. They may ask the school office for it after results. CBSE says it issues the migration certificate to all class 12 students, and to class 10 students who wish to have one.2
- Students who did not clear every subject. CBSE’s bye-laws allow a candidate in the compartment or improvement category to get a migration certificate that shows that status.1
- Private candidates from other boards. CBSE’s bye-laws ask private and teacher candidates who passed class 10 under another board to send that board’s migration certificate with the examination form. If it does not arrive fifteen days before the examination, the candidature is cancelled.1
What the school has to do
For a CBSE school, the job is mostly to point the family to the right place.
- Tell parents the certificate comes from CBSE and sits in the student’s DigiLocker account once results are out.2
- If a college or office insists on paper, students can request a hard copy through CBSE’s Duplicate Academic Document System. CBSE kept this route open for the transition period.2
- Make sure the student’s name, parents’ names and date of birth were correct in the board registration. The migration certificate is printed from the board’s records, not the school’s.
State boards and universities set their own process and fees, so follow your own board’s latest notice.
Common mistakes
- Saying the school issues it. Under CBSE’s bye-laws it is the board’s certificate, issued at the candidate’s request.1 The school can help with the request, but cannot issue the certificate itself.
- Asking a recent CBSE student for the paper original. Students from the 2025 examinations onwards were not given one by default.2 CBSE’s notice says the University Grants Commission has told higher education institutions to accept the board’s digital certificates.
- Mixing up two meanings of “migrate”. In CBSE’s admission bye-laws, “migrate” also means moving from one school to another. Once a student’s name has been sent to the Board for the class 10 or 12 examination, the student cannot move to another school during that session, unless the Chairman waives the rule in special circumstances.1 That rule is about changing schools, not about the migration certificate.
Sources
- CBSE, Examination Bye-Laws (2013 edition), bye-laws 2(ix), 8(v), 27 and 66. Back to the text
- CBSE, doing away with the hard copy of the migration certificate for both classes X and XII, notification of 4 September 2024. Back to the text