The National Testing Agency (NTA) declared the result of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Undergraduate) NEET (UG) 2026 on 16 July 2026 in New Delhi. Over 20 lakh candidates had appeared for the examination at 5,440 centres across 551 cities in India and 14 cities abroad, and 11.21 lakh of them have qualified for admission to undergraduate medical, dental, AYUSH, and allied healthcare programmes. NTA said the result was declared on schedule to keep the medical admission and counselling calendar on track.
According to the press release, the timely declaration was made possible by re-engineering the result process, running several stages in parallel instead of in sequence, and delinking the OMR sheet challenge from the answer key release. The provisional answer key was published on 25 June 2026, with a challenge window open from 25 to 28 June
NTA reported that 138 candidates scored above 690 out of 720 marks, of whom more than 93 per cent were appearing for NEET (UG) for the first time and 99 per cent were between 17 and 19 years old. The highest score of 715 out of 720 was achieved by two candidates- Aryan Gupta of Punjab and Panshul Bansal of Haryana.
Qualified candidates were recorded from every one of the 36 States and Union Territories, ranging from over 1.7 lakh in Uttar Pradesh to 43 in Lakshadweep. State Toppers named by NTA include Jigmet Yangchan Lamo of Ladakh (530 marks), Dhruv Tripathi of Andaman and Nicobar Islands (606 marks), and Fahmida Anees of Lakshadweep (573 marks), with toppers recorded across every North-Eastern State as well. Seventeen State Toppers scored 700 or above, the 138 top rankers came from 66 cities, and the top 17 rankers who scored above 705 span eight States: Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana.
Category-wise, 2.91 lakh candidates qualified from the General category, 5.12 lakh from OBC-NCL, 1.59 lakh from SC, 63,716 from ST, 95,026 from Gen-EWS, 3,666 from PwBD and 303 from PwD. Women made up more than 58 per cent of all qualified candidates and also qualified at a marginally higher rate, 56.8 per cent of women who appeared qualified, against 55.1 per cent of men. NEET (UG) 2026 was conducted in 13 languages: Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu and English.
NTA conducts NEET (UG) under Section 14 of the NMC Act, 2019, and Section 14 of the NCISM Act, 2020, and for BHMS under the National Commission for Homoeopathy, on the direction of the Hon’ble Supreme Court and with the approval of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Ministry of Education. The agency clarified that its mandate covers conducting the examination, declaring the result based on eligibility criteria set by the NMC, and issuing the All-India Rank; merit lists, category lists, domicile determination and counselling remain the responsibility of the admitting and State authorities.
Counselling for the All-India Quota in MBBS and BDS courses will be conducted by the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC), while State quota counselling will be handled by the respective State authorities. NEET (UG) 2026 scores will also be used for admission to B.Sc. (H) Nursing and BVSc and AH under the 15 per cent VCI quota, with AACCC serving as the counselling authority for the All-India Quota in BAMS, BUMS, BSMS and BHMS. NTA has cautioned candidates and parents against fraudulent calls, messages or websites offering admission, seat-blocking or score-improvement services, clarifying that it never contacts candidates seeking money or credentials; suspicious communication can be reported to neetug2026@nta.ac.in or 011-40759000.
Candidates can view their scorecards on the official website, neet.nta.nic.in, where the complete list of Top Rankers, State and category-wise toppers, cut-off marks, and language-wise participation data have also been published. For further updates, candidates and parents are advised to rely only on official sources neet.nta.nic.in, mcc.nic.in and the respective State counselling portals.
