IELTS, International English Language Testing System, is nowadays widely used as a certificating device and is claimed to be a reliable and strongly accountable measure of language proficiency by the organizations and educational centers that utilize it. Irrespective of the importance IELTS has gained in the present world, the beliefs and perceptions of those who take the test have rarely been explored. Therefore, the present study aimed at investigating the Iranian IELTS candidates’ perceptions towards the IELTS test. Accordingly, a standardized perception questionnaire was administered to 40 homogeneous participants before and after taking the IELTS test. The collected data were then analyzed through a paired samples t-test to find out whether there was any significant difference between the candidates’ perception before and after taking the test. The findings indicated that the participants had significantly higher perceptions after the test. Implications can also be drawn for all the stakeholders including candidates intending to sit the test, institutes running IELTS preparation programs, teachers wishing to teach such programs, and finally, IELTS test administrators.