Lebanese Bac

Overview

The Lebanese Baccalaureate (Bac Libanais), often just called "the official exam," is Lebanon's national secondary-school-leaving exam at the end of Grade 12 (Terminale). It is run by the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE) and sat by students from both public and private schools, as well as independent candidates. It is separate from the Brevet, an earlier national exam taken at the end of Grade 9 — this page covers the Baccalaureate only.

Students choose one of four academic tracks before sitting the exam: General Sciences (GS), Life Sciences (LS), Sociology and Economics (SE), and Literature and Humanities (LH). The track decides which subjects a student is examined on and how heavily each subject counts toward the final average.

Who can apply

• School-enrolled candidates: registered for the exam by their own public or private secondary school as part of their normal Grade 12 year.

• Independent (free) candidates: register themselves directly with their Regional Education Office during a published window, including students retaking the exam or coming from non-Lebanese curricula who want the Lebanese certificate.

Both groups sit the same centrally set exam and are marked by the same ministry committees, regardless of whether their school is public or private.

Exam pattern

Across all four tracks, candidates also sit common subjects such as Arabic, a foreign language, philosophy, history, geography and civics, in addition to the subjects specific to their track. Papers are written, each subject is marked out of 20, and a candidate's overall result is a weighted average out of 20, with the track's core subjects (for example mathematics and physics in General Sciences, or biology and chemistry in Life Sciences) weighted more heavily than the common subjects.

Marking and results

The standard pass mark is a weighted average of 10 out of 20 across a candidate's subjects. Results are published through the Ministry's results portal and announced publicly by MEHE each year.

As an exception, for the 2025–2026 academic year some reports describe a continuous-assessment arrangement — using in-school grades up to a set cut-off date in place of a written exam for at least part of the cohort — with a pass average of 9.5 out of 20 rather than the usual 10. Treat this as a one-year exceptional measure tied to that year's disruption, not the general rule.

Important dates

For the 2026 session, after Parliament passed a fast-track bill introducing exceptional measures for that year's official exams (covering the four Baccalaureate branches, technical diplomas and the Brevet), three Baccalaureate sitting windows were announced: a first session (29 June – 6 July 2026), a second session (27 July – 3 August 2026), and a third session (7–14 September 2026), with candidates able to sit two consecutive sessions and choose an exam centre electronically based on residence or displacement status.

In a typical, undisrupted year the Baccalaureate is a single written-exam session held over about a week in late June or early July, with results announced roughly four to six weeks later. Given the volatility noted above, treat any specific date — including the 2026 dates here — as liable to change and confirm it from MEHE's own announcement for the year in question.

How to apply

School-enrolled candidates are registered by their own school as part of normal Grade 12 enrolment; no separate action is usually needed beyond what the school asks for.

Independent (free) candidates register directly with their Regional Education Office during the published registration window and pay the applicable fee. For the 2025 session, fees were LBP 40,000 for the Baccalaureate exam itself plus a LBP 20,000 stamp duty per applicant; fees are set by the Ministry each year and should be confirmed for the current session.

After the exam

A Baccalaureate pass is the standard entry qualification for Lebanese universities, including the Lebanese University and Lebanon's private universities, which use the track and overall average to guide faculty admission (for example, Life Sciences or General Sciences results for engineering and medicine-track programmes). The 0–20 grading scale and the Baccalaureate's structure are modelled on the French system, and the certificate is recognised by many universities abroad, including in France, as broadly equivalent to the French Baccalauréat for admission purposes — applicants to a specific foreign university should still confirm that university's own equivalence and documentation requirements.

Preparation tips

• Choose your track based on your strongest subjects early: track choice determines which subjects you are examined on and how they are weighted, and switching tracks late is difficult.

• Practise with past official exam papers, where available from your school or the Ministry, since question style and format are set centrally and repeat from year to year.

• Follow MEHE's own announcements for your session rather than assuming last year's dates, format or pass mark — as the disruption history above shows, these have changed within the same academic year more than once in recent sessions.