NTA NEET Exam Set for June 21st, 2026.
NEET UG is the only entrance examination for undergraduate medical courses in India. Students who wish to study MBBS, BDS, BSc Nursing, or BVSc at any government or private college in the country must clear it. There is no other route in, no college-level alternative, and no state examination that can substitute for it. Every medical seat in the country, government or private, is filled based on this single score.
The NTA opened the registration portal on February 8. The original deadline was March 8, but the agency extended it once, to March 11. Officials stated clearly that no further extension would be granted, and none was.
Now Re-NEET is occurring on 21st June, 2026, and students will get a fresh admit card along with the centre names.
Students are requested to add bank account details or cancel the cheque and get the refund of the application fee.
Who Could Apply For NEET 2026
The NTA set out clear eligibility conditions before the registration cycle began. Candidates must be at least 17 years old by December 31, 2026. There is no upper age limit for appearing in NEET. This was a contested issue for several years, with multiple legal challenges filed in different courts arguing both for and against an age cap. The matter has now been settled, and candidates of any age above the minimum are free to apply.
On the academic side, students must have passed, or be currently appearing in, Class 12 with Physics, Chemistry, and Biology or Biotechnology as subjects. The minimum marks required in these subjects vary by category. Students who are still in Class 12 and awaiting their board results are also eligible to apply, provided they meet the subject and category requirements.
Minimum percentage required in Physics, Chemistry, and Biology or Biotechnology:
General category — 50 per cent
OBC, SC, and ST candidates — 40 per cent
PwD candidates — 45 per cent
The examination is not limited to students within India. Indian citizens, Non-Resident Indians, Persons of Indian Origin, Overseas Citizens of India, and foreign nationals are all eligible to register and sit the paper. For foreign nationals, additional documentation may be required during the counselling stage if they qualify.
What the Fee Was And Who Paid Less
The registration fee for NEET UG 2026 was not uniform across all applicants. The NTA applies a tiered fee structure based on the candidate's category, in recognition of the fact that students from different economic backgrounds are applying for the same examination.
Registration fees by category:
General — ₹1,700
EWS / OBC Non-Creamy Layer — ₹1,600
SC, ST, PwD, and Transgender candidates — ₹1,000
On top of the base fee, a processing charge and applicable GST were added at the time of payment. The total fee, once paid, is entirely non-refundable. This applies without exception — including in situations where a candidate withdraws, where the exam is rescheduled, or where unforeseen circumstances prevent a candidate from appearing. Payment was accepted exclusively through online methods, including debit cards, credit cards, net banking, and UPI. No cash payments or demand drafts were accepted.
A New Step This Year: Aadhaar Verification
For the first time in the history of NEET UG, candidates were required to complete an Aadhaar-based e-KYC as part of the registration process. In addition to this, they were asked to take a real-time live photograph through the portal at the time of filling out the application form. Both steps were mandatory and could not be skipped.
The NTA introduced these requirements directly in response to the impersonation problem that has affected the examination in past years. There have been documented cases of candidates arranging for other individuals, often with stronger academic preparation, to sit the examination in their place. By linking the registration to an Aadhaar identity verification and capturing a live photograph at the point of application, the NTA is attempting to create a clearer chain of identity from registration to the examination hall. Whether the measure will prove effective in practice remains to be seen, but it represents the most significant change to the registration process in recent years.
Details of the Examination
The Re-NEET UG 2026 exam will be held on June 21st, 2026, from 2:00 PM to 5:15 PM. The duration is 180 minutes. The exam will be conducted in pen-and-paper format, with candidates marking their answers on an OMR sheet that is scanned and evaluated after the exam. Unlike most other major national entrance examinations in India, NEET has not transitioned to computer-based testing. The NTA has maintained the pen-and-paper format because it provides equal access to students from all parts of the country, including those in areas where reliable electricity supply or computer familiarity cannot be assumed.
The question paper will be available in 13 languages: Assamese, Bengali, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu. Candidates select their preferred language during the registration process itself, and the choice cannot be changed afterwards. The availability of the paper in regional languages is intended to ensure that students who studied the sciences in their mother tongue are not disadvantaged compared to those who studied in English or Hindi.
The admit card is expected to be released around 14th June, 2026, 7 days before the examination. Candidates will need to download it from the NTA portal using their application number and password. The admit card is mandatory for entry to the examination centre. Candidates who arrive without it will not be permitted inside, regardless of the circumstances.
What NEET Controls
NEET UG determines admission to undergraduate medical and allied health courses across India. This includes MBBS and BDS degrees at government and private medical colleges, BSc Nursing programmes, and BVSc degrees for veterinary sciences. Every seat, in every institution, in every state, is filled based on NEET scores alone.
Before NEET was established as the single national entrance test, students had to appear for multiple separate examinations. Each state ran its own test, and many private medical colleges held their own entrance exams as well. A student applying to colleges in several states would have to prepare for and sit for multiple papers on different dates. NEET replaced all of these with a single examination and a single score. The change was intended to reduce the burden on students and to bring greater uniformity to medical admissions across the country.
The number of students who appear for NEET has grown every year since it was introduced. In 2026, registrations crossed 20 lakh. The number of available MBBS seats in government medical colleges, by contrast, stands at roughly 60,000. The competition for government seats in particular is extremely intense, and even a few marks can determine whether a student receives an offer or not.
The Controversy That Has Not Gone Away
NEET does not enter 2026 with a clean record, and the agency conducting it is aware of that fact. In 2025, the examination became the centre of one of the most serious controversies in the history of Indian competitive examinations. Shortly after the results were declared, allegations emerged that the question paper had been leaked before the exam. Separately, the NTA faced criticism for the manner in which it awarded grace marks to a large number of candidates, a decision that many educators and legal experts said was irregular and lacked a consistent basis. Reports also emerged of procedural failures at examination centres in several states, raising questions about the uniformity and integrity of the exam environment.
The Supreme Court of India took up the matter. Students protested in cities across the country, calling for a re-examination and for accountability within the NTA. Parliamentary committees questioned officials. An independent review committee was constituted to examine the agency's processes. Several individuals were arrested in connection with the alleged paper leak. The NTA's public standing, already under strain, took a significant blow from which it has not yet fully recovered.
This year, the agency has taken visible steps to demonstrate that it is responding to the criticism. The Aadhaar e-KYC verification and the requirement for a live photograph are the most prominent of these. The NTA has also issued formal public notices warning students against rumours of a NEET UG 2026 paper leak that began circulating on social media platforms in the weeks before the exam, stating that such claims are false and urging candidates to disregard them and rely only on official communications. Whether these measures are sufficient to restore the confidence of students, parents, and the wider public will depend entirely on how the examination itself is conducted on May 3.
What Happens After the Exam
Results for NEET UG 2026 are expected to be declared in June 2026, and for Re-NEET, results are expected to be declared in Jul, 2026, though the NTA has not yet published an official date for the announcement. Once the results are out, the counselling process begins. Students are allotted seats in medical colleges based on their NEET score, their declared category, and their preference for institution and course.
How seats are allotted after the results:
15 per cent All India Quota seats in government colleges are filled through centralised counselling conducted by the Medical Counselling Committee
The remaining 85 per cent of government seats are filled through state-level counselling processes
All private college seats are filled through the respective state counselling authorities
A NEET score is valid only for the year in which the exam is taken and cannot be carried forward to the next cycle
Students who are not satisfied with their score, or who do not receive a seat through counselling, have the option of appearing for NEET again in the following year. Students who choose to reappear must go through the full registration and examination process again from the beginning.
For the Students Waiting
Across the country, the students who registered are now in the final 3 weeks before the exam. For many, this stretch, between the closing of the application portal and the morning of June 21st, is the most pressured period of the entire preparation cycle. Coaching centres are running their final revision batches. Students in smaller towns and villages are working through past papers without access to the same resources as those in larger cities. Parents are making arrangements for travel to examination centres, some of which may be in districts far from a candidate's home.
Some of these students are appearing for NEET for the first time, having just completed Class 12. Others are on their second, third, or fourth attempt, having spent one or more additional years preparing after falling short in a previous cycle. The examination does not distinguish between first-time and repeat candidates. Everyone sits for the same paper, answers the same questions, and is judged by the same marking scheme during the same 180-minute window on the same afternoon.
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