The JEE Main cutoff for JEE Advanced 2027 is not a number anybody decides in advance. It is a rank boundary with a percentile printed on it afterwards, which is why last year's figure is a guide and never a promise. Here is what the real numbers have done over four years, what they mean in marks, and the two different cutoffs that get mixed up constantly.
Every official figure on this page comes from NTA's published cutoffs and from the JEE Advanced information brochure. The JEE Main cutoff for JEE Advanced 2027 itself does not exist yet, and anyone printing an exact number for it is guessing.
Use 2026 as your working target: 93.41 percentile for General, 82.42 for GEN-EWS, 80.92 for OBC-NCL, 63.92 for SC and 52.02 for ST. Treat those as a floor rather than a goal, because the JEE Main cutoff for JEE Advanced 2027 has risen in three of the last four years.
If you want one sentence to plan with, it is this. Being inside the top 2,50,000 is the real requirement, so the JEE Main cutoff for JEE Advanced 2027 is a rank you are chasing and the percentile is just the label it wears that year.
This is the part that explains every strange thing about the JEE Main cutoff for JEE Advanced 2027, and almost nobody states it plainly.
The JEE Advanced brochure sets the rule as performance in JEE Main: candidates must be among the top 2,50,000 successful candidates across all categories in the B.E. and B.Tech paper. The number of people is fixed in advance. The marks behind the JEE Main cutoff for JEE Advanced 2027 are not.
The 2,50,000 is split by category before anybody looks at a score, which is why the JEE Main cutoff for JEE Advanced 2027 will be five different numbers rather than one common line. The brochure publishes the exact counts, and we have reproduced them further down.
Once the lists are cut, NTA publishes the percentile of the last candidate in each category. That published figure is a result of the process, not an input to it. So the JEE Main cutoff for JEE Advanced 2027 will depend on how many people sit the paper and how the normalisation falls, and neither of those is knowable today.
| Category | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Common Rank List | 90.78 | 93.24 | 93.10 | 93.4123549 |
| GEN-EWS | 75.62 | 81.33 | 80.38 | 82.4164528 |
| OBC-NCL | 73.61 | 79.68 | 79.43 | 80.9232583 |
| SC | 51.98 | 60.09 | 61.15 | 63.9172792 |
| ST | 37.23 | 46.70 | 47.90 | 52.0174712 |
| UR-PwBD | 0.0013527 | 0.0018700 | 0.0079349 | 0.0023186 |
Official NTA figures. 2026 is given in full precision because the published lists we checked agree digit for digit. The 2023 to 2025 rows are rounded to two decimals, because the lists disagree in the last decimal places and we would rather round than print a wrong digit.
Three things fall out of that table, and between them they are worth more than any prediction of the JEE Main cutoff for JEE Advanced 2027 you will read this year.
Percentiles are what gets published on the official JEE Main site, and marks are what students actually think in. The honest translation is a range rather than a number, and here is exactly why.
| Category | 2026 percentile | Roughly, in marks out of 300 |
|---|---|---|
| Common Rank List | 93.41 | About 87 to 95 |
| GEN-EWS | 82.42 | About 58 to 66 |
| OBC-NCL | 80.92 | About 55 to 62 |
| SC | 63.92 | About 37 to 44 |
| ST | 52.02 | About 29 to 36 |
The percentile column is official. The marks column is an estimate from published marks versus percentile analyses and will shift with normalisation, so treat the top of each range as your working target.
Put the General row of the JEE Main cutoff for JEE Advanced 2027 next to the actual paper and it stops feeling abstract. Around 90 marks out of 300 is roughly 30 questions right out of 75 with nothing wrong, which is why chapter selection matters more than heroics at this level. Our chapter wise weightage guide sets out which chapters pay for that.
These are the actual numbers from the JEE Advanced information brochure, and they explain why each category gets its own line.
| Category | Share | Main list | PwD within it | Category total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OPEN | 40.5% | 96,187 | 5,063 | 1,01,250 |
| OBC-NCL | 27% | 64,125 | 3,375 | 67,500 |
| SC | 15% | 35,625 | 1,875 | 37,500 |
| GEN-EWS | 10% | 23,750 | 1,250 | 25,000 |
| ST | 7.5% | 17,812 | 938 | 18,750 |
From the JEE Advanced information brochure. The five category totals add to 2,50,000, and 5% of every category is set aside for PwD candidates within it.
The counts that actually qualified under the 2026 version of the JEE Main cutoff for JEE Advanced track those quotas closely: 96,873 in the General list, 67,597 OBC-NCL, 37,522 SC, 25,009 GEN-EWS and 18,790 ST, for 2,50,182 in total. The small overshoot is the tie rule doing its job.
There is a practical point about the JEE Main cutoff for JEE Advanced 2027 hidden in that table. GEN-EWS is the smallest reserved slice at 25,000, which is part of why its cutoff sits so close to the OBC-NCL line despite OBC-NCL having nearly three times as many places. Scarcity, not difficulty, sets that gap.
This single confusion causes more panic than anything else on the topic, so it is worth being very clear. The JEE Main cutoff for JEE Advanced 2027 is only the first of two gates, and clearing it is not the same as qualifying.
| Gate | What it is | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| The JEE Main cutoff | A percentile, published by NTA, deciding who may register for JEE Advanced | After the JEE Main result, before you can even sit the paper |
| The JEE Advanced qualifying marks | A minimum percentage in each subject and in aggregate, deciding who enters a rank list | After you have sat JEE Advanced, when ranks are prepared |
Two different exams, two different mechanisms. Clearing the first says nothing about clearing the second.
The second gate is published as percentages rather than percentiles, and it is far less talked about. These are the minimums for inclusion in each rank list, taken from the rank list clause of the brochure.
| Rank list | Minimum in each subject | Minimum aggregate |
|---|---|---|
| Common Rank List | 10.0% | 35.0% |
| OBC-NCL and GEN-EWS | 9.0% | 31.5% |
| SC, ST and all PwD lists | 5.0% | 17.5% |
| Preparatory course lists | 2.5% | 8.75% |
From the JEE Advanced information brochure. The brochure also notes the aggregate minimum can be lowered later if a government directive requires it.
Read the subject column again, because it catches out people who cleared the JEE Main cutoff for JEE Advanced 2027 comfortably. A Common Rank List candidate needs 10% in every subject, so a strong physics and maths score cannot rescue a near zero in chemistry. Students who drop a subject entirely in the last month are gambling against that rule without realising it.
Since the boundary is a headcount rather than a mark, only a few things can actually shift the JEE Main cutoff for JEE Advanced 2027 once it is published. Knowing which ones they are keeps you from reading meaning into noise.
| What changes | Effect on the published percentile | How much to worry |
|---|---|---|
| More candidates sit the paper | The same 2,50,000 becomes a smaller slice of the cohort, so the percentile rises | This is the main driver. Build it into your buffer |
| A stronger or better prepared cohort | Percentile is relative, so it rises even if your own marks improve | Real, and invisible until results day |
| A harder or easier paper | Very little, because percentile is computed within each shift and normalised | Almost none. This is the thing students worry about most and it matters least |
| A change to the 2,50,000 figure itself | Direct and large, in whichever direction it moves | Rare. Check the brochure when it is released |
| Ties at the boundary | Slightly more candidates qualify than the quota | None. It can only help you |
Our reading of the published mechanism. Only the first two rows have historically moved the number by much.
The third row deserves emphasis because it contradicts what most students assume. A brutally hard paper does not lower the JEE Main cutoff for JEE Advanced 2027 in percentile terms, because everybody in that shift finds it hard and the percentile is calculated inside the shift. It lowers the marks equivalent, not the percentile. That is also why your own practice scores are a poor guide to where you sit, and why timed full length papers against a real cohort tell you more. Our guide to how many mock tests you need covers how many is enough, and how many years of past papers to solve covers the cheapest version of the same practice.
Nobody can give you the JEE Main cutoff for JEE Advanced 2027 today, so the sensible move is to set a target with a margin built into it and stop refreshing prediction pages. Here is how we would size that margin.
| Your category | 2026 actual | Sensible working target |
|---|---|---|
| Common Rank List | 93.41 | 95 percentile, because the line has been flat and a two point buffer is cheap |
| GEN-EWS | 82.42 | 85, since this line rose 2 points in a single year |
| OBC-NCL | 80.92 | 84, same reasoning |
| SC | 63.92 | 68, because this line has risen every year since 2023 |
| ST | 52.02 | 57, the fastest moving line on the chart |
Our targets, not official figures. The buffers are larger where the recent trend is steeper, which is the only defensible way to set them.
One more thing is worth knowing before you plan around a single attempt. The brochure allows a maximum of two attempts at JEE Advanced, in two consecutive years, and sets an age condition as well, so the exam is not something you can keep returning to indefinitely. If you are weighing January against April, our guide on choosing session 1 or session 2 works through which attempt should carry your weight, and the best of two rule means a weak January is not fatal. A good test series is the only way to find out where you actually sit against the JEE Main cutoff for JEE Advanced 2027 before results day.
None of the three is about ability. All three come from planning against the wrong version of the JEE Main cutoff for JEE Advanced 2027, which is the cheapest category of mistake there is, because fixing it costs nothing but a change of target.
The JEE Main cutoff for JEE Advanced 2027 has not been set and cannot be known until the JEE Main 2027 results are declared. The cutoff is decided by taking the top 2,50,000 candidates in the B.E. and B.Tech paper and then publishing whatever percentile that boundary landed on. The most recent real figures, from 2026, were 93.4123549 for General, 82.4164528 for GEN-EWS, 80.9232583 for OBC-NCL, 63.9172792 for SC and 52.0174712 for ST.
Roughly 87 to 95 out of 300 for a General candidate, based on the 2026 version of the JEE Main cutoff for JEE Advanced, which was 93.41 percentile. The spread exists because percentile is calculated within each shift and then normalised, so the same percentile corresponds to different raw scores across sessions. Treat the top of the range as your target rather than the bottom.
Because the 2,50,000 places behind the JEE Main cutoff for JEE Advanced 2027 are divided by category before any score is looked at. The JEE Advanced brochure allots 1,01,250 to OPEN, 67,500 to OBC-NCL, 37,500 to SC, 25,000 to GEN-EWS and 18,750 to ST, with 5% of each reserved for PwD candidates. Each category's cutoff is simply the percentile of the last candidate inside its own allotment.
Not uniformly, which is why the JEE Main cutoff for JEE Advanced 2027 needs a different buffer for each category. The Common Rank List has been nearly flat since 2024, moving between 93.10 and 93.41. The reserved category cutoffs have risen sharply, with ST climbing from 37.23 in 2023 to 52.02 in 2026 and SC from 51.98 to 63.92 across the same period. So the usefulness of last year's number depends heavily on which category you are in.
They are a separate gate, applied after you sit JEE Advanced. For the Common Rank List a candidate needs at least 10% in each subject and 35% in aggregate. For OBC-NCL and GEN-EWS it is 9% per subject and 31.5% aggregate, and for SC, ST and all PwD lists it is 5% and 17.5%. Preparatory course lists use 2.5% and 8.75%.
No. Qualifying in JEE Main only earns you the right to sit JEE Advanced. After that paper you still have to meet the subject wise and aggregate minimums to appear in a rank list, and then your rank has to be good enough in JoSAA counselling, which allocates seats across 23 IITs and more than a hundred other institutes. Each of those is a separate filter, and 2,50,000 candidates compete for a far smaller number of seats.
A maximum of two, and they must be in two consecutive years. The brochure also sets an age condition, with a five year relaxation for SC, ST and PwD candidates. Because the window is narrow, it is worth checking the current year's brochure for the exact birth date rule before planning a drop year around it.
It can run slightly higher. The brochure says the total may be a little above 2,50,000 if several candidates share the same score at the boundary, since all of them are included. In 2026 that produced 2,50,182 qualifiers, with 96,873 in the General list, 67,597 OBC-NCL, 37,522 SC, 25,009 GEN-EWS and 18,790 ST.
Only as a rough sanity check. Predictions for the JEE Main cutoff for JEE Advanced 2027 are being published already, and they are extrapolations from the same history shown on this page. A safer approach is to take your category's 2026 figure, add a buffer sized to how fast that line has been moving, and plan against that. The official history is a better input than anyone's forecast.
The JEE Main cutoff for JEE Advanced 2027 will be announced months from now, and when it arrives it will be a consequence rather than a decision. A fixed number of candidates go through, split by category, and the percentile printed afterwards describes where that line happened to fall.
So plan against a rank with a margin, sized to how much your category's version of the JEE Main cutoff for JEE Advanced 2027 has been moving. If you are General, 2026's number is a solid guide. If you are SC or ST, it has been a moving target for three straight years and deserves a bigger buffer.
And keep the two gates separate in your head. Clearing the JEE Main cutoff gets you a seat in the exam hall. The 10% per subject rule on the other side is what decides whether sitting there turns into a rank.
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