About 1.1 million out of nearly two million candidates are eligible for nearly 1,37,000 seats in MBBS and other dental, AYUSH and allied programs after clearing the National Eligibility Entrance Test (Undergraduate) or NEET-UG 2026, according to the results announced by the National Testing Agency (NTA) on Thursday night.
The highest score of 715 out of 720 was jointly obtained by Aryan Gupta from Punjab and Panchul Bansal from Haryana. Among the top 10 NEET-UG 2026 rank holders, Punjab, Rajasthan, Bihar and Maharashtra each had two candidates, while Haryana and Uttar Pradesh each had one candidate.
Women outperform men, with 58% of qualified candidates being female. The majority of top performing candidates were between 17 and 19 years old. “Women also qualified at a higher rate than men: 56.8 percent of women seemed qualified, compared to 55.1 percent of men,” the NTA said in a statement.
The results bring down the curtain on a turbulent exam season that saw NEET-UG canceled due to leak of multiple question papers, a nationwide uproar, and a retake of the exam conducted on June 21.
A total of 138 candidates scored more than 690 marks out of 720. “Of the 138, a total of 99% are between the ages of 17-19 years and more than 93% appeared for NEET (UG) for the first time,” the NTA said, adding that the results were declared timely so that “the admission calendar and medical counseling of the candidates remain on track.”
NTA has a history of announcing NEET-UG results late at night. In 2024, it announced the original NEET-UG results at around 10 pm on June 4, released the results of the re-test conducted for 1,563 candidates on the evening of June 30, and released revised scorecards at around 8:30-9 pm on July 26 after the Supreme Court directed it to review the results by withdrawing the marks awarded for a disputed physics question. This year, the agency announced the NEET-UG 2026 results at around 10:30 pm on July 16.
19 candidates scored above 700, and 1,492 candidates scored 650 and above. “A total of 10,160 candidates scored 600 and above, and as many as 90,780 candidates scored 500 and above,” the NTA said.
NTA will publish complete category-wise data on registered, appearing and eligible candidates for General, General-EWS, OBC-NCL, SC, ST, PwBD, PwD and Third Gender categories and needs to be expanded along with separate top lists for each category. According to the agency, 291,000 General, 512,000 OBC-NCL, 159,000 SC, 63,716 ST, 95,026 General-EWS, 3,666 PwBD and 303 PwD candidates qualified.
Nearly two million medical aspirants appeared to retake the test on June 21 after taking the original test on May 3. The NTA canceled the test on May 12 and announced a re-test on May 15 after receiving an email on May 8 alleging a leak and pointing out an overlap between the rolling guess sheet and the May 3 question paper. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is investigating the alleged leak, has arrested 13 people so far and will file its chargesheet this month.
The provisional answer key for the test was released on July 13, 2026 and the objection window closed on July 15, 2026. The final answer key for the retest was released on Thursday evening.
In the final answer sheet, NTA dropped one question, while another had two correct answers – both in physics questions. “One of the disputed questions was on a Vernier caliper question that asked candidates to determine the length of a wire based on the device’s reading. This question was deleted from the final answer key. The second question on electromagnetic waves had two correct options, instead of one correct answer as originally shown,” said Keshav Agarwal, vice president of the Delhi-based Coaching Federation of India (CFI), which has a membership of 1,000 coaching institutes.
As a result, NTA has awarded a total of four marks as bonus to all NEET-UG 2026 candidates, including those who did not attempt the question. Four marks were awarded to all candidates who marked either of the two correct answers to a question about electromagnetic waves.
It accepted multiple correct answers to two questions without dropping any question in 2025, and it also dropped one question while accepting multiple correct answers to two questions in 2024.
