JEE Main and JEE Advanced: how the two exams differ
For JEE (Main) 2026, the National Testing Agency reported 16,04,854 unique candidates registered for Paper 1 and 15,38,468 who appeared across the two sessions. Of all of them, only the top 2,50,000 successful candidates were eligible to sit JEE (Advanced). That single filter explains most of the confusion about the two exams. One is a wide gate. The other is a narrow one that you may only approach through the first.
Two exams, two organisers
JEE (Main) is conducted by the National Testing Agency, which was entrusted with it by the Ministry of Education from 2019 onwards. Paper 1 is for admission to undergraduate engineering programmes at the NITs, the IIITs, other Centrally Funded Technical Institutions and institutions funded or recognised by participating State Governments. Paper 2 is for B.Arch and B.Planning.
JEE (Advanced) is the exam for admission to the IITs. Its 2026 brochure names the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee as the Organizing Institute, and says the exam is conducted by the seven Zonal Coordinating IITs under the guidance of the Joint Admission Board 2026, whose decisions are final in all matters related to the exam. Performance in it forms the basis for admission to all the IITs in 2026-27.
A JEE Main score alone does not get anyone a seat in an IIT. It is an eligibility test for JEE (Advanced).
How JEE Main works
NTA held JEE (Main) 2026 in two sessions, one in January and one in April. A candidate may appear in one or both. If you appear in both, the better of your two NTA scores is used for the merit list and ranking. The two scores are not added, and there are not two separate ranks.
Paper 1 lasts 3 hours and has 75 questions for 300 marks: 20 multiple-choice questions and 5 numerical-value questions in each of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry. A correct answer earns 4 marks, an incorrect answer loses 1, and an unanswered question scores 0.
The session figures show that many students sit both sessions. Session 1 had 13,55,293 registered and 13,04,653 who appeared. Session 2 had 11,10,904 registered and 10,34,330 who appeared. These cannot be added together, because many candidates took both.
Who gets to sit JEE Advanced
The JEE (Advanced) 2026 brochure says candidates should be among the top 2,50,000 successful candidates, across all categories, in the B.E./B.Tech. paper of JEE (Main) 2026. The shortlist is divided by category: 10% for GEN-EWS, 27% for OBC-NCL, 15% for SC, 7.5% for ST and the remaining 40.5% open to all, with 5% horizontal reservation for PwD candidates within each category. The total can be slightly more than 2,50,000 when ranks or scores are tied.
Being on that shortlist is not an IIT seat. It is permission to sit the exam.
The attempt rule students get wrong
You can attempt JEE (Advanced) a maximum of two times, in two consecutive years. For 2026, a candidate must also have appeared for Class XII or its equivalent for the first time in either 2025 or 2026, with Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics as compulsory subjects. The brochure allows an exception for candidates of boards that declared their 2023-24 results on or after 18 June 2024.
There was real confusion about this. On 5 November 2024 it was announced that JEE Advanced 2025 would allow three attempts in three consecutive years. A Joint Admission Board news release of 18 November 2024 restored two attempts in two consecutive years. Two is the rule for 2026. A student planning a third year of preparation for the IITs needs to know that before starting it.
What the Advanced paper asks of you
JEE (Advanced) 2026 was scheduled for Sunday 17 May 2026, in computer-based mode only. It consists of two papers of three hours each, and appearing in both is compulsory. Missing either one takes you out of the running.
One counselling process for both
After the results, the two streams meet again. The Joint Seat Allocation Authority, JoSAA, was set up by the Ministry of Education to manage joint seat allocation for admissions to 138 institutes for 2026-27: 23 IITs, IISc Bengaluru, 31 NITs, IIEST Shibpur, 26 IIITs and 56 Other-Government Funded Technical Institutes. Admission to all the academic programmes at these institutes is made through this single platform.
JoSAA does not conduct either exam, and it does not cover every engineering college in India. It allocates seats at these institutes using the ranks the two exams produce.
How to plan around the difference
Treat JEE Main as the exam you must do well in first. It decides NIT, IIIT and other centrally funded seats directly, and it decides whether you sit Advanced at all. Use both sessions, since only your better score counts.
Check your own eligibility for Advanced early: the year you first appeared for Class XII, and how many attempts you have used. And read the current year's bulletin and brochure yourself. The three-attempt announcement and its reversal within a fortnight show how quickly a rule can change, and how costly it is to plan around last year's version.