The Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee will conduct the JEE Advanced 2026 examination on May 17. Admit cards for all registered candidates have already been issued and can be downloaded from jeeadv.ac.in.
Following the announcement of the CBSE Class 12 results, many students who scored below 75% marks are confused about whether they are still eligible to appear for the IIT JEE Advanced 2026 examination.
What Does the JEE Advanced 2026 Eligibility Criteria State?
According to the official JEE Advanced 2026 information brochure available on the official website, candidates are not required to secure a minimum of 75% marks in Class 12 merely to appear for the JEE Advanced examination.
However, for final admission into IITs, candidates belonging to the General and OBC categories must obtain at least 75% aggregate marks in their Class 12 board examination. Candidates from SC and ST categories must secure a minimum aggregate of 65%.
The aggregate percentage is calculated based on the marks obtained in the following five subjects:
- Physics
- Chemistry
- Mathematics
- One Language subject
- One additional subject chosen by the candidate
Other Important JEE Advanced 2026 Eligibility Conditions
Apart from the Class 12 marks criteria, candidates must also satisfy the following conditions to be eligible for JEE Advanced 2026:
- The candidate should have appeared for Class 12 for the first time either in 2025 or 2026
- Candidates must rank within the top 2,50,000 qualified candidates in JEE Main 2026
- The candidate should be born on or after October 1, 2001
- For SC, ST, and PwD candidates, the birth date limit is October 1, 1996
- Candidates who have previously accepted an IIT seat through JoSAA are not eligible
Minimum JEE Main Marks Required for JEE Advanced Eligibility
The minimum qualifying cutoff for JEE Main 2026 to become eligible for JEE Advanced will be announced along with the final JEE Main 2026 Session 2 result.
Candidates can refer to previous years’ qualifying cutoff percentiles below:
JEE Main Qualifying Cutoff 2025
| Category | Percentile |
|---|---|
| Unreserved (UR) | 93.1023262 |
| Gen-EWS | 80.3830119 |
| OBC-NCL | 79.4313582 |
| SC | 61.1526933 |
| ST | 47.9026465 |
| UR-PwD | 0.0079349 |
JEE Main Qualifying Cutoff 2024
| Category | Percentile |
|---|---|
| General (UR) | 93.2362181 |
| General (UR) PWD | 0.0018700 |
| Economically Weaker Section (EWS) | 81.3266412 |
| Other Backward Classes (OBC) | 79.6757881 |
| Scheduled Caste (SC) | 60.0923182 |
| Scheduled Tribe (ST) | 46.6975840 |
JEE Main Qualifying Cutoff 2023
| Category | Percentile |
|---|---|
| General (UR) | 90.7788642 |
| OBC-NCL | 73.6114227 |
| SC | 51.9776027 |
| ST | 37.2348772 |
| GEN-EWS | 75.6229025 |
| General (UR) PWD | 0.0013527 |
Candidates seeking admission into the IITs must meet the prescribed JEE Main qualifying percentile to become eligible for JEE Advanced 2026.