JEE Advanced Syllabus, Exam Pattern, Eligibility

Two compulsory papers of three hours each, on the same day, each with Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics sections, in Computer Based Test mode only. In 2026: Paper 1 09:00 to 12:00, Paper 2 14:30 to 17:30.

The marking scheme is not published before the paper. The brochure says only that negative marks may be awarded for incorrect answers to some questions, with the details in the Instructions to Candidates at the time of the examination. If a question is dropped, full marks for it go to all candidates, whether or not it carried negative marking. In 2026 the two papers totalled 360 marks.

How the rank is built

Only candidates who appear for both papers are ranked. Each subject's marks are its Paper 1 part plus its Paper 2 part; the aggregate is the sum of the three. Ties are broken by higher positive marks first, so of two candidates on 250, one with 260 positive and 10 negative beats one with 250 and none; then by Mathematics, then Physics; then the same rank.

Minimum marks for a rank list

You must clear the minimum in each subject AND in the aggregate:

The CRL ranks everyone across categories. The minimum aggregate may be lowered if required, under the Ministry directive of 13 June 2018. There is no waiting list.

Login and extra time

Each terminal's welcome screen shows the photograph of the candidate allotted to it; you log in with your roll number and date of birth, and the paper ends by itself. PwD candidates with at least 40 per cent impairment, and those with less than 40 per cent disability who have difficulty writing under Section 2(s) of the RPwD Act 2016, get one hour of compensatory time and a scribe if they file the forms at registration.

The Architecture Aptitude Test

The syllabus for Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics, and separately for the Architecture Aptitude Test, is Annexure I of the Information Brochure, published by the organising IIT. It is fixed; the format is not.

It gives the topics. It does not give the number of questions, the marks per question, the question types or the negative marking, which come only in the Instructions to Candidates at the start of each paper. That is the real difference from JEE (Main), whose pattern is published months ahead. For the shape of the paper, the past question papers are the guide; see Sample papers.

A candidate must meet all five criteria at once.

A1: performance in JEE (Main)

Among the top 2,50,000 successful candidates in Paper 1 of JEE (Main), shared 10 per cent GEN-EWS, 27 per cent OBC-NCL, 15 per cent SC, 7.5 per cent ST and 40.5 per cent OPEN, with 5 per cent horizontal PwD reservation within each:

Ties can push the total slightly over 2,50,000. OCI and PIO (I) candidates get no reservation except OPEN-PwD.

A2 to A5

• Age: born on or after 1 October 2001 for 2026, or 1 October 1996 for SC, ST and PwD candidates.
• Attempts: at most two, in two consecutive years.
• Class 12: first appeared in 2025 or 2026, with Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics compulsory; 2024 or earlier is not eligible. "Appeared" means the Board declared that year's result, even if your own was withheld. Candidates of a Board that declared its 2023-24 results on or after 18 June 2024 who appeared in 2024 are eligible.
• Earlier IIT admission: anyone ever admitted to an IIT programme in the JoSAA Business Rules is out, whether or not they continued or were later cancelled. Eligible all the same: a first-time preparatory course admission, a JoSAA allotment not reported, or a seat withdrawn or cancelled before the last round.

Accepted as Class 12: the 10+2 final of an AIU-recognised Board; Intermediate or two-year Pre-University; the Joint Services Wing course of the NDA; NIOS Senior Secondary with five subjects; AIU-recognised examinations in India or abroad; H.S.C. vocational; an AICTE or State board diploma of at least three years; GCE A level, the Cambridge HSC or the IB Diploma. Boards outside India or not listed need an AIU equivalence certificate.

The Class 12 condition for an IIT seat

With Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics compulsory, either 75 per cent aggregate in five subjects (65 for SC, ST and PwD) or a place in the category-wise top 20 percentile of your board. The five subjects are Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, a language (the higher-scoring if more than one) and the highest-scoring other subject, each scaled to 100, so the aggregate is out of 500.

The percentile uses one academic year only, so an improvement candidate must either improve to 75 per cent or reappear in all subjects for the top 20 percentile; a candidate who reappears in all subjects gets the better year. Marksheets from different boards cannot be combined. Grade-only boards need an equivalent-marks certificate. Where a board aggregates across years, only the final year counts. Full rules are on the Admission Criteria page.

The certificate formats, including scribe, compensatory time, dyslexia, DS and top-20-percentile forms, are Annexure II of the brochure.

1. Be in the top 2,50,000 of JEE (Main) Paper 1.
2. Register and pay the fee in the window.
3. Sit Paper 1 and Paper 2 on the same day.
4. Review your responses and the provisional keys, and send feedback in the window.
5. Final key and results: rank lists on aggregate, with the subject and aggregate minimums under Exam pattern.
6. For B.Arch., register for and pass the Architecture Aptitude Test.
7. JoSAA allots seats over several rounds.

JoSAA

Seats are allotted by the Joint Seat Allocation Authority on josaa.nic.in, not by the organising IIT. In 2026 it ran five rounds between June and July. Registration and choice filling are mandatory for every qualified candidate. On each allotment you must submit Freeze, Float or Slide, upload documents and pay the Seat Acceptance Fee, usually within two to four days, or lose the seat. There is a withdrawal deadline after which no withdrawal is accepted.

JEE (Advanced) is an admission test, so no pay attaches to a rank. It leads to one of the twenty-three IITs through JoSAA:

Some IITs allow a B.Tech. student to add Honours, a Minor or an Interdisciplinary Dual Degree. SC, ST and PwD candidates who meet the relaxed preparatory criterion of 2.5 per cent per subject and 8.75 per cent aggregate may be offered a preparatory course.

For centres abroad: USD 200 for Indian nationals and OCI or PIO (I), USD 200 for foreign nationals in SAARC countries, USD 300 for non-SAARC. Every woman pays half, whatever her category. The fee is non-refundable and non-transferable, excludes gateway charges, and you reach the centre at your own expense.

Two registration routes

JEE (Main) qualified candidates register after the JEE (Main) result: in 2026, 23 April to 2 May, about 10 days. Foreign nationals and OCI or PIO (F) register directly, from 6 April to 2 May in 2026. The fee window closed two days after registration, on 4 May.

Scribe and compensatory time forms must be filed at registration; the scribe itself is chosen the day before the examination. Category certificate formats, and declarations in lieu of certificates not yet issued, are in Annexure II of the Information Brochure, and the rules are on the Eligibility Criteria page of jeeadv.ac.in.

All twenty-three IITs admit on JEE (Advanced). Each candidate is assigned to one of seven zones, which is administrative only: everyone competes on the same All India Rank. In 2026:

The organising institute rotates; IIT Roorkee ran 2026. B.Arch. is offered only at IIT (BHU) Varanasi, IIT Kharagpur and IIT Roorkee, through the Architecture Aptitude Test. The programmes on offer are listed under Salary structure.

Computer Based Test only. Your terminal's welcome screen shows your photograph; log in with your JEE (Advanced) roll number and date of birth. The interface has section tabs along the top and a Question Paper icon to view the whole paper, and the examination ends by itself, so you do not submit.

Both papers are on one Sunday: in 2026, Paper 1 09:00 to 12:00 and Paper 2 14:30 to 17:30, six hours with a two and a half hour gap. Miss one and you are not ranked. The Architecture Aptitude Test is held at all zonal IITs; the 2026 centre list is on jeeadv.ac.in.

Mock tests on the real interface are under Resources.

Three weeks from paper to AAT result. The AAT window opens the moment the result is declared, so decide on B.Arch. before then. JoSAA's own schedule is separate: in 2026 five rounds ran to 20 July, with a withdrawal deadline of 14 July at 5 p.m.

Downloaded from the JEE (Advanced) portal on jeeadv.ac.in within a fixed window: in 2026, from 11 May at 10:00 to 17 May at 14:30, two and a half hours into the examination day. Print it and bring it with an original photo identity card.

The same admit card serves for the Architecture Aptitude Test, where you also bring your own drawing and colouring aids. Candidates eligible for a scribe choose one on the day before the examination, having claimed it at registration.

1. A copy of your responses: 21 May in 2026, four days after the paper.
2. Provisional answer keys, with a feedback window of about 31 hours: 25 May 10:00 to 26 May 17:00 in 2026. That window is the whole of the redress.
3. The final answer key and results together: 1 June 2026.

Category-wise All India Ranks appear on the portal and a text message goes to your registered mobile. No rank cards are posted. The result press release gives the full figures; in 2026 the top ten scored between 330 and 311 out of 360, and the top-ranked woman, at CRL 77, scored 280. A seat then needs JoSAA registration.

The organising IIT publishes one cut-off: the minimum percentage for a rank list, in each subject and in aggregate (the table is under Exam pattern). For the Common Rank List it is 10 per cent per subject and 35 per cent aggregate; for SC, ST and PwD lists 5 and 17.5. It is a qualifying bar, not an admission mark: in 2026, 56,880 of 1,79,694 who sat both papers cleared it.

Upstream, the eligibility cut-off for sitting JEE (Advanced) is the 2,50,000th place in JEE (Main), published as a percentile by NTA with that result. Downstream, the closing rank for each branch and institute is published by JoSAA round by round on josaa.nic.in. Neither is published by the organising IIT.

Expect not to know the marking scheme

It is revealed only at the start of each paper. Budget real time to read the instructions: getting the scheme wrong for thirty minutes costs more than three wrong answers.

Practise on several years of past papers

The official archive goes back to 2007, with each year's papers in English and later in Hindi too. Use several years, not one, so that the fifth format you meet reads faster than the first. Time the instructions page as part of each practice. Material claiming "JEE Advanced has N questions worth M marks" is describing one past year.

Practise full days

Two three-hour papers with a two and a half hour gap. Rehearse the gap too: what you eat, whether you review, how you reset after a bad Paper 1. Missing either paper means no rank.

Know what the tie-break rewards

Higher positive marks first, then Mathematics, then Physics. Between two equal aggregates the more productive scorer wins, not the more cautious.

Score yourself against the real bar

Clear 10 per cent in every subject and 35 per cent overall for the CRL. A strong aggregate with one weak subject does not qualify.

Take the official mock tests

The interface is one of the few things you can rehearse exactly.

Do not let eligibility catch you out

• Two attempts in two consecutive years; plan which two.
• First Class 12 appearance in one of the two specified years, with PCM compulsory.
• Ever admitted to an IIT, you are out, preparatory courses excepted.
• Meet the Class 12 condition: 75 per cent (65 for SC, ST, PwD) or your board's top 20 percentile.

Decide on B.Arch. before the result

AAT registration opens with the result and closes the next evening.

The organising IIT publishes the real papers.

• 2026: Paper 1 and Paper 2 in English (also in Hindi on the home page), with final answer keys as full solutions for Paper 1 and Paper 2.
• 2007 to 2025: every JEE (Advanced) paper, and the Architecture Aptitude Test papers from 2016, on the Past Question Papers page.
• Mock tests on the real interface under Resources.

A new year's papers and keys go up between late May and the 1 June result.

Who conducts JEE (Advanced)?

One of the IITs in rotation, for all twenty-three. IIT Roorkee ran 2026.

How do I become eligible?

Be in the top 2,50,000 of JEE (Main) Paper 1, and meet the criteria on age (born on or after 1 October 2001, or 1996 for SC, ST and PwD), attempts (two, in consecutive years), Class 12 appearance (first in 2025 or 2026) and no earlier IIT admission.

What is the pattern and marking scheme?

Two compulsory three-hour papers with Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics sections, computer based, in English or Hindi. The number of questions and the marking scheme are revealed only at the start of the paper. In 2026 the papers totalled 360 marks.

How is the rank calculated, and ties broken?

Each subject is Paper 1 plus Paper 2, summed into an aggregate; only those who sit both papers are ranked. Ties go to higher positive marks, then Mathematics, then Physics.

What is the qualifying mark?

CRL: 10 per cent per subject and 35 per cent aggregate. GEN-EWS and OBC-NCL: 9 and 31.5. SC, ST and PwD lists: 5 and 17.5. Preparatory lists: 2.5 and 8.75. Both minimums must be met.

How many qualified in 2026?

56,880, of whom 10,107 were women, out of 1,79,694 who sat both papers and 1,87,389 registered. The top ranker scored 330 of 360.

What is the fee?

For centres in India, ₹1,600 for all women and for SC, ST and PwD candidates, ₹3,200 for others. Non-refundable.

Do I need 75 per cent in Class 12?

For an IIT seat, 75 per cent aggregate in five subjects (65 for SC, ST and PwD) or your board's category-wise top 20 percentile, with PCM compulsory.

Are past papers available?

Yes: every paper from 2007 onwards on jeeadv.ac.in, and the 2026 papers with final solutions.

What is the Architecture Aptitude Test?

A three-hour English paper for qualified candidates wanting B.Arch. at IIT (BHU), Kharagpur or Roorkee. Pass or fail only; seats go by the JEE (Advanced) rank. No separate admit card.

How do I get a seat?

Through JoSAA, where registration and choice filling are mandatory and each allotment must be accepted, with the fee paid, by the deadline. Rank cards are not posted.