The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Tuesday announced the Class 10 board results for 2026, in which students passed with 93.70% – a slight increase from 93.66% last year.
This year, 24.72 lakh students appeared in the exam out of 24.83 lakh registered candidates – a participation rate of 99.53%, compared to 23.72 lakh students out of 23.85 lakh registered candidates (99.45%) in 2025. In absolute terms, 23.16 lakh students passed in 2026, higher than last year’s 22.22 lakh students, reflecting a rise in both Participation and number of successful candidates.
“This year, the pass percentage of students in Class 10 was 93.70%, which is better than last year’s pass percentage, i.e. 93.66% in the 2025 examination. This confirms that the students are well prepared for competency-based assessment,” said Sanyam Bhardwaj, controller of CBSE examination, in a statement.
Girls continued to outperform boys, as the success rate for girls this year reached 94.99% (95.00% in 2025), while boys scored 92.69% (92.63% in 2025). The success rate of transgender candidates fell to 87.50% in 2026, compared to 95% last year.
Among the 22 districts affiliated to CBSE, Trivandrum and Vijayawada topped with a pass rate of 99.79%, followed by Chennai (99.58%) and Bengaluru (98.91%). In Delhi, the overall pass percentage was 97.38%, with West Delhi (97.45%) slightly ahead of East Delhi (97.33%).
The number of high scores included 2.22 lakh students (8.96%) who scored above 90% marks, and 0.55 lakh students (2.24%) who crossed 95% marks. However, the number of students in cabin category increased marginally to 1.47 lakh in 2026, compared to 1.41 lakh in 2025, although the proportion remained almost unchanged at 5.95% (5.96% in 2025).
Among CBSE institutions, Kendriya Vidyalayas (99.57%) and Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas (99.42%) continued to lead the performance, significantly outperforming independent schools (93.77%) and government schools (91.43%).
Students from 27,339 schools in India and abroad appeared for exams in 84 subjects at 8,074 centres. Nearly 7 lakh residents checked 1.63 lakh answer sheets.
CBSE reiterated that no merit list has been released, in line with its policy to avoid “unhealthy competition”, and the board will not award Sections I, II or III to its students. “However, the board will issue a merit certificate to the top 0.1% of students who have secured the highest marks in the subjects. Digi-Locker merit certificate will be provided to the concerned student after the second board exams,” Bhardwaj said.
CBSE has stopped announcing merit lists or names of national toppers for the first time in 2020.
Class 10 students who appeared in the 2026 board exams are among the first batch to be assessed under CBSE’s new two-board examination system for Class 10, which is in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) that aims to reduce the “high-stakes” nature of board exams. The Class 10 Main Board Examination in 2026 was held between February 17 and March 11, with the second examination scheduled from mid-May, with final scores calculated by combining performance from both attempts.
Only those students who have appeared in the first board examination are eligible to appear for the second board examination to improve their performance in any three subjects outside Science, Mathematics, Social Science and Languages. “The final result will be announced after the second board exams are conducted,” Bhardwaj said.
