The polls are seen as an important step towards stability for a country recovering from a conflict that ended in 2003, leaving more than 5 million people dead.
“We are particularly sensitive to the opposition’s demands to hold elections within the constitutional timeframe,” Daniel Ngoy Mulunda, president of the electoral commission, told a news conference in the capital Kinshasa.
Congo’s opposition parties had requested the elections be held before President Joseph Kabila’s term ends in December.
Mulunda said provisional results would be known by December 6.
The announcement of the electoral calendar had been delayed repeatedly leading to fears that all or part of the elections would be postponed.
The vast central African country faces major challenges to organise the elections, with parliament yet to agree on an electoral law and voter registration only complete in 2 of 11 provinces.