The National Testing Agency (NTA) is expected to release the JEE Main 2026 cutoffs along with the results today, April 20 . Students can check the official cutoffs on the website jeemain.nta.nic.in . The cutoff scores are important for students to know if they can get into engineering colleges and for qualifying for JEE Advanced.
The JEE Main cutoff is decided by the NTA based on how students performed in the exam. There are two main types of cutoffs: the qualifying cutoff and the admission cutoff .
The qualifying cutoff is the minimum score a student needs to be eligible for JEE Advanced. Based on last year's trends, the expected qualifying cutoff marks for 2026 are:
| Category | Expected Cutoff Percentile |
| General | 93.3 |
| EWS | 81.4 |
| SC | 61.3 |
| ST | 48.2 |
| OBC-NCL | 80.74 |
Students must score above these marks to be able to appear for the JEE Advanced exam.
The admission cutoff is what determines a student's chances of getting a seat in engineering colleges like IITs, NITs, IIITs, and GFTIs. This cutoff is also released with the final results.
Factors Affecting JEE Main Cutoff
The NTA considers several factors to set the JEE Main 2026 cutoff:
- Number of students appearing for the exam: If more students take the exam, the cutoff might be higher.
- Difficulty level of the exam: A harder exam usually leads to a lower cutoff score because students might not perform as well overall.
- Number of seats available: A fixed number of students, around 2.5 lakh, are allowed to qualify for JEE Advanced.
- Total number of applications: More applications can sometimes mean a higher cutoff.
- Candidate category: Separate cutoffs are set for different categories, including General (CRL), OBC-NCL, EWS, SC, ST, and PwD.
