What is the cutoff of JEE Main?
JEE Main cutoff score varies category wise. JEE Main cutoff for General, OBC, SC-ST and EWS candidates is the minimum score required for admission to NITs, IIITs and other engineering colleges in India. It changes every year depending on factors like number of candidates, difficulty and category of the exam. As per last year’s trends, JEE Main cutoff is above 90-92 for General category, between 75-80 for OBC, 45 to 60 for SC and around 45 to 50 for ST.
Why is it important to understand the cutoff?
Analyzing past cutoff data helps candidates set score targets and understand the level of the upcoming exams. The JEE Main cutoff will decide who can sit for JEE Advanced 2026 and who can sit for NITs, IIITs and other Government Funded Technical Institutes (GFTIs). Admission in engineering institutes Will be eligible for.
On what basis is the cutoff decided?
JEE Main The cutoff is released as a qualifying percentile and is different for each category. It depends on factors like number of candidates, difficulty level of the exam, shift-wise normalization and overall performance of the students-
- Number of candidates appearing in the examination
- Difficulty level of question paper
- Equality in performance in every shift
- Availability of seats in the institutes.
JEE Main cutoff trend of last 5 years
JEE Main cutoff marks are different category wise for General, OBC, SC-ST. Here in the table you can understand the trends from the data of last 5 years-
| category | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
| General (UR) | 87.90 | 88.41 | 90.77 | 93.23 | 93.10 |
| OBC-NCL | 68.02 | 67.01 | 73.61 | 79.68 | 79.67 |
| SC | 46.86 | 43.07 | 51.98 | 60.10 | 60.9 |
| ST | 34.66 | 26.75 | 37.23 | 46.70 | 46.70 |
| EWS | 66.21 | 63.10 | 75.61 | 81.30 | 80.36 |
What should candidates do?
Candidates can only get an idea of the possibilities from the cutoff but they should completely rely on the official cutoff released by NTA. Candidates are advised to check the official website of NTA only and start further preparation based on their expected percentile rather than their raw marks. Let us tell you that JEE Mains Session 1 is going on right now. As per the schedule, these examinations will end on January 29, 2026. Only after the completion of the examination, the candidates’ eyes will be focused on the result. However, before the result of JEE Main 2026 result, NTA will release the provisional answer key.
