The National Testing Agency (NTA) has announced the results for JEE Main 2026, showing record-breaking participation. A total of 15.38 lakh unique candidates appeared for the exam across both sessions, which is the highest number ever recorded for JEE Main. The cutoff marks for qualifying have also increased, reaching their highest point in eight years. This means competition for engineering seats in top colleges like NITs, IIITs, and GFTIs is tougher this year.
Record Number of Students Take JEE Main 2026
This year, the JEE Main exam saw an overwhelming number of students. Here are the details:
- Total Appearances: 15,38,474 unique candidates appeared for the exam.
- Session 1 (January): 13,04,653 students appeared.
- Session 2 (April): 10,34,330 students appeared.
| Year | Candidates Appeared (Session 1) | Candidates Appeared (Session 2) |
| 2026 | 13,04,653 | 10,34,330 |
| 2025 | 12,58,136 | 9,92,350 |
| 2024 | 11,70,036 | 10,67,959 |
| 2023 | 8,23,967 | 8,83,367 |
| 2022 | 7,69,604 | 5,40,242 |
| 2021 | 6,21,033 (Feb) + 5,56,248 (Mar) + 5,43,553 (Jul) + 4,81,419 (Aug) | (Multiple sessions) |
| 2020 | 8,00,532 | (Single session) |
Higher Cutoff Marks
The cutoff marks are used to decide which students are eligible for the next stage, JEE Advanced, and for admission into engineering colleges. This year, the cutoff has gone up for most categories. Experts believe this is because more students took the exam, many students performed better, and the question papers were balanced across the sessions.
The cutoff for the Unreserved (UR) category is at a high of 93.41 percent. For Other Backward Classes (OBC-NCL), the cutoff is 80.92, for Scheduled Castes (SC) it is 63.92, and for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) it is 82.42. These marks are higher than in previous years.
| Category | Cutoff 2026 | Cutoff 2025 | Cutoff 2024 | Cutoff 2023 | Cutoff 2022 | Cutoff 2021 | Cutoff 2020 | Cutoff 2019 |
| Unreserved (UR) | 93.41 | 93.10 | 93.23 | 90.77 | 88.41 | 87.89 | 90.37 | 89.75 |
| Gen-EWS | 82.41 | 80.38 | 81.32 | 75.62 | 63.11 | 68.02 | 72.88 | 74.31 |
| OBC-NCL | 80.92 | 79.43 | 79.67 | 73.61 | 67.00 | 46.88 | 50.17 | 54.01 |
| SC | 63.91 | 61.15 | 60.09 | 51.97 | 43.08 | 34.67 | 39.06 | 44.33 |
| ST | 52.01 | 47.90 | 46.69 | 37.23 | 26.77 | 66.22 | 70.24 | 78.21 |
| UR-PwD | 0.002 | 0.007 | 0.001 | 0.001 | 0.003 | 0.009 | 0.061 | 0.113 |
What's Next: JoSAA Counselling
Students can check their JEE Main 2026 results on the official website,jeemain.nta.nic.in. The results include subject-wise scores, total scores, and All India Rank. Those who meet the cutoff can now prepare for JEE Advanced, which is the exam for admission to IITs.
For admission to NITs, IIITs, and other government-funded engineering colleges, students need to participate in the JoSAA counselling. This process will begin on June 2, 2026, atjosaa.nic.in. Students should keep all their important documents ready and carefully choose their preferred colleges and branches. With the increased competition and higher cutoffs this year, students will need higher ranks to get into top engineering courses like Computer Science.
