The National Testing Agency has announced the JEE Main 2026 cutoff alongside the release of the session 2 results. All the candidates can check their results and cutoff scores on the official website at https://jeemain.nta.nic.in/.
As compared to the last year, the JEE Main 2026 cutoff has risen across all categories. The candidates are required to either meet or exceed these cutoffs in order to become eligible for the JEE Advanced.
The JEE Main cutoff is determined by several factors such as the level of difficulty of the exam, the number of candidates and category wise seat allocation. It’s important to note that there are two types of cutoffs: the qualifying cutoff, which allows the candidates to appear for JEE Advanced, and the admission cutoff, which determines eligibility for admission to IITs, NITs, IIITs and GFTIs. The cutoff released now is specifically the qualifying cutoff for JEE Advanced.
JEE Main 2026: Cutoff and Percentiles Updates
All the candidates can check their scores on the JEE Main scorecard and see if they qualify to appear for JEE Advanced for IIT admissions. The cutoff refers to the minimum percentile required to be eligible for admission to the institutes that take admission that use the JEE scorecard for admission.
The candidates can find the JEE Main 2026 qualifying cutoffs for each category below.
Category
Percentile
UR-ALL (Unreserved)
93.4123549
UR-PwD
0.0023186
EWS-ALL
82.4164528
OBC-ALL
80.9232583
SC-ALL
63.9172792
ST-ALL
52.0174712
JEE Main 2026: Total Candidates Eligible for JEE Advanced by Category
The table below shows the number of candidates who have qualified for JEE Advanced 2026 based on their JEE Main results.
Category
Total Candidates Qualified
Unreserved (UR)
96,873
Gen-EWS
25,009
OBC-NCL
67,597
SC
37,522
ST
18,790
UR-PwD
4,391
JEE Main 2026: Factors Used to Determine Cutoff
The NTA sets the JEE Main 2026 cutoff using multiple important factors. These factors help to ensure in giving equal opportunities and selection of the deserving candidates for the JEE Advanced and engineering admissions.
Primarily, the cutoff is related to the number of students who take the exam. More candidates lead to a higher cutoff since the competition becomes tougher.
Another key factor is the difficulty level of the exam. If the paper is tougher than in the previous year, the cutoff can be lower because overall scores tend to drop.
The total number of applications is also considered. A large number of registrations results in a higher cutoff percentile.
Moreover, NTA also follows a fixed limit of around 2.5 lakh candidates who can qualify for the JEE Advanced exam. This has a direct influence on the cutoff.
Finally, the cutoffs are made for each category with different criteria being set for General (CRL), OBC-NCL, EWS, SC, ST and PwD candidates, which helps to ensure fair reservation based evaluation.
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