"No categories available" when you try to register

I clicked Register on a competition and it says there are no categories available, what now?

That message means the competition has no registration window the system can sell you a place in right now. The list you are looking at is built from the competition's registration schedule, and when nothing in that schedule is open or booked to open, the list comes back empty. Retrying will not change it, and neither will signing in or out.

What the list is built from

When you press Register, UNI looks at the competition's schedule for a registration period, in this order.

  1. A registration period open right now, one that has started and has not ended. If it finds one, you get its categories.
  2. The next registration period due to start, if none is currently open. This is what lets a competition take early registrations before its window formally opens.

If neither exists, the list is empty and you see the message. So the empty state has one meaning: no registration period is open, and none is scheduled ahead.

The three situations that produce it

What to do

  1. Open the Schedule section on the competition and read the registration dates. If the closing date has passed, registration is over and the answer is settled.
  2. If the dates say registration should be open, or if there are no registration dates at all, tell the UNI team. Include the competition address. That is the only path that fixes a mis-set schedule. See Contacting competition organizers and the UNI team.
  3. If the competition has genuinely closed, look for the next edition. Many competitions on UNI run annually, and Upcoming lists competitions whose registration has not opened yet.

It is not about your account

Nothing about your plan, your country or your entry history is checked when this list is built, so this message never means you personally are ineligible. A signed-out visitor and an Institutional member see the same empty list on the same competition. If you were being stopped for a reason connected to your account, you would be told what that reason was.

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