Two sessions. Your best one counts.

What it is for

Admission to B.E./B.Tech. courses at the NITs, IIITs and other centrally funded institutes — and the qualifying round for JEE (Advanced) and the IITs.

Conducted by

The National Testing Agency (NTA), which also publishes the pattern and the syllabus in advance.

When

Two sessions a year, usually January and April. You may sit either or both; the better score counts.

How it is sat

A computer-based test at a centre. Multiple-choice answers are clicked; numerical answers are typed in.

The 2026 cycle, as announced.

• Done
• Next
• Key date

1. 31 October 2025(past)

   Information bulletin published; Session 1 registration opens.

2. 21–30 January 2026Key date(past)

   Session 1.

3. 1–15 April 2026Key date(past)

   Session 2. The better of your two scores counts.

4. After Session 2(past)

   Ranks published; the top 2,50,000 in Paper 1 may register for JEE (Advanced).

5. Late 2026Next(coming up next)

   Expected: the JEE (Main) 2027 information bulletin, with Session 1 registration.

The 2027 dates will be in the JEE (Main) 2027 information bulletin; the 2026 bulletin came out at the end of October 2025.

As the JEE (Main) 2026 information bulletin states it for Paper 1. Institutes may add their own conditions for admission, such as Class 12 marks.

• You have passed, or are appearing in, Class 12 with Physics and Mathematics, and one of Chemistry, Biology, Biotechnology or a technical vocational subject.
• There is no age limit for sitting JEE (Main); the institutes you apply to may have their own.
• You may sit both sessions in a year. You are eligible in the year you appear for Class 12 and the two years after — for 2026, if you passed in 2024 or 2025 or are appearing in 2026.
• Admission to an NIT, IIIT or CFTI needs at least 75% aggregate across five Class 12 subjects (65% for SC, ST and PwD), or a place in your category’s top 20 percentile of your board.

As published by the NTA for the most recent session. Each subject has 20 multiple-choice questions and 5 numerical-answer questions.

• Numerical answers are typed in, not chosen, and must be rounded off to the nearest integer.
• Ranks come from a percentile normalised across shifts, not from raw marks. Our mocks report raw marks and never guess your NTA percentile; in a scheduled series we show where you stand among the students who sat the same paper.
• Paper 2A (B.Arch.) and 2B (B.Planning) are separate papers with drawing and planning sections; Nikaalle prepares you for Paper 1.

1. A

   Multiple choice — Section A

   Twenty per subject: four options, one right. Marked +4 / −1.

2. B

   Numerical answer — Section B

   Five per subject: no options, you type the value, rounded off to the nearest integer. Also +4 / −1.

3. C

   Assertion–reason and matching

   Both appear inside Section A as multiple-choice questions, and are marked as such.

Both sections mark the same way — but a numerical answer that is right and unrounded is still wrong.

60 chapters, as our plans, tests and analytics hold them. The exam body publishes the official syllabus each cycle; ours follows it and is versioned, so a change never surprises you mid-year.

Fifty-two weeks, counted back from your exam date. Start late and the phases shorten; they never skip.

1. Phase 1Weeks 1–32

   Build

   Every chapter once, in the order that makes the later ones easier. A chapter test the day you finish each.

2. Phase 2Weeks 33–40

   Consolidate

   Mixed practice across chapters, so nothing depends on remembering which chapter a question is from.

3. Phase 3Weeks 41–48

   Revise

   Revision weighted by how many marks each chapter carries, and your mistake book coming back on a schedule.

4. Phase 4Weeks 49–52

   Papers

   Full papers on the real pattern, at the real time of day, until exam day feels familiar.

How Nikaalle prepares you for JEE Main

• Numericals, marked the way the paper does

  Type the value; if it is not rounded to the nearest integer, it is wrong. Practising this once a week makes it automatic.

• Two sessions, one plan

  The plan is built to the later session and treats the earlier one as the best possible full mock — with a real result to learn from.

• Mathematics that keeps up

  The subject with the widest spread of chapters gets the practice target it needs, and its weak areas surface first.

• The road to Advanced

  Choose both exams at sign-up and the plan carries the deeper chapters through, so qualifying is not a surprise you are unprepared for.

The bulletin is the authority on reporting time, identity documents and what you may carry. These are the habits that survive contact with the day.

1. 1Carry the admit card and the identity document the bulletin names, and reach the centre before the reporting time.
2. 2Use the rough sheets: a numerical answer worked in your head is the one most often entered unrounded.
3. 3Check the marked-for-review count before you submit; a question left marked and unanswered scores nothing.
4. 4For a numerical answer, enter the integer only — no units, no decimals, no working.
5. 5Your second session, if you sit one, is the best full mock you will ever get. Review it the same evening.