French exam fees in India: set by your centre, not nationally

Where your real fee is published

1. Find your nearest accredited exam centre — in India, normally an Alliance Française.
2. Check which certification and level you need before looking at price. DELF B2 and TCF are not interchangeable.
3. The fee and the session dates are on that centre's own pages.

Fees rise with level, because higher-level exams are longer and the oral is longer. A DALF C1 costs meaningfully more than a DELF A1, which is worth knowing before you plan to certify every level on the way up.

Pay once, or pay at every level

You can sit any level directly — there is no requirement to hold the one below. So the cost question is really a strategy question:

• Certify only the target level if a university is the only audience. Cheapest and fastest.
• Certify each level if you want milestones, a document for a visa or an employer along the way, or the motivation of a deadline every few months.

Unlike the German Goethe exams, DELF is not modular — the four papers are sat together and the result is one diploma. Fail the level and you re-sit the whole thing, which is an argument for not attempting a level early.

The real cost of the French route

• Tuition is the bill that matters — around 550 to 650 hours of instruction to reach B2, the level French-taught degrees ask for.
• One exam fee at your target level, or several if you certify along the way.
• A retake, which on DELF means the whole level again.
• Nothing, for English-taught programmes — many French institutions teach master's degrees entirely in English and require no French for admission.