Common University Entrance Test (Undergraduate) – CUET (UG)(CUET UG)

About the exam

About CUET UG

The CUET UG exam is the National Testing Agency's computer-based entrance test for undergraduate places at central universities and at the state, deemed, private and other institutions that choose to use it. What NTA hands a candidate at the end is a score, not a seat: every merit list, cut-off and counselling round belongs to the university that uses the score, on that university's own calendar.

NTA conducts the Common University Entrance Test for undergraduate programmes, and under its CUET (UG) 2026 Information Bulletin the scores feed undergraduate admission in all central universities and participating universities for the 2026-27 session. That bulletin also draws a line at admission itself: letters, grievances, RTI applications and court cases about admission procedures belong with the university concerned, and NTA says it will not entertain them.

NTA's result press release for CUET (UG) 2026 names the Ministry of Education and the UGC as the bodies that entrusted NTA with CUET. NTA's CUET (UG) exam page says it took on the undergraduate entrance tests for central universities starting with academic session 2022-2023.

The 2026 sitting was large. NTA's press release of 7 June 2026 reports 15,68,867 unique registered candidates, 321 examination cities, 19 examination days and 35 shifts, with 332 question papers carrying 18,160 questions. The registration count shifted by one between documents: NTA's press release of 5 May 2026, issued before the first paper, gave 15,68,866, and the 7 June figure is the one repeated in NTA's later answer key notice and result release.

In its update stamped 2 September 2026, the CUET (UG) portal held nothing about CUET (UG) 2027: its news ticker showed only the 2026 score card, and the newest entry among its public notices was the 2026 toppers list.

At a glance

CUET UG highlights

Calendar

Important dates

The dates in the 2026 bulletin moved more than once after it was issued, and NTA's later notices set the schedule that actually ran:

When the bulletin was issued, it gave only a tentative examination window of 11 to 31 May 2026 and left the exam city, admit cards, answer keys and result as "To be announced later on the website" in its dates at a glance.

Two disruptions reshaped the last week. A public notice of 24 May 2026 postponed both shifts scheduled for 28 May 2026 after a change in the date of the Id-ul-Zuha (Bakrid) holiday. NTA's public notice listing then records a re-scheduled examination for candidates affected by a technical glitch in the first shift of 30 May 2026. The glitch notice covers candidates who had reached their centres and completed biometric registration but left before the delayed test resumed, and it says M/s TCS, NTA's technology service provider, was asked for a root cause analysis. A notice of 1 June 2026 placed those candidates in the 6 and 7 June sittings.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

Age is no bar to CUET (UG). The 2026 bulletin's eligibility chapter lets anyone who has passed Class 12 or an equivalent examination, or is appearing in it in 2026, take the test, while any age rule of the admitting university still applies.

The bulletin accepts these qualifying examinations:

• a 10+2 final examination of any recognised board, central or state, CBSE and CISCE among them;
• an intermediate examination, or a pre-university one lasting two years, held by a recognised board or university;
• the closing examination of the two-year course run by the National Defence Academy's Joint Services Wing;
• the National Institute of Open Schooling's Senior Secondary School Examination, passed with at least five subjects;
• an Indian or foreign school, board or university examination that the AIU, the UGC or a Ministry of Education-notified agency accepts as equal to 10+2;
• the Higher Secondary Certificate Vocational Examination;
• a diploma lasting three years or more, recognised by AICTE or by a state technical education board;
• GCE Advanced (A) level, from London, Cambridge or Sri Lanka;
• Cambridge University's High School Certificate Examination, or the IB Diploma of the International Baccalaureate Office, Geneva.

Two conditions sit alongside that list. A candidate whose Class 12 was taken outside India, or from a board the bulletin does not name, needs a UGC certificate of equivalence, and a candidate whose Class 12 was not a public examination must have passed at least one earlier public board or pre-university examination.

For the year in which a candidate appears in Class 12, the bulletin applies each university's own conditions, and it says appearing in CUET (UG) 2026 gives no claim to a programme unless its university-set eligibility is met. OBC in the category column is only for candidates who appear on the central OBC-NCL list, so a state-list OBC candidate missing from it has to choose General (UR).

NTA's CUET (UG) 2026 FAQ tells a candidate re-sitting Class 12 subjects to improve marks to mark the qualifying examination as "Passed", and it says the APAAR ID is not mandatory.

Step by step

Application process and fee

The 2026 form was online only, in four steps set out in the bulletin: registration, where the system issues an application number; the application form, covering educational details, university and programme choices, test papers and exam cities; fee payment; and the confirmation page, which appears only after the fee goes through. Uploads included a live photograph, taken through a webcam or by scanning a QR code with a phone, and a scanned passport-size photograph between 10 kb and 200 kb, with the signature file held between 10 kb and 50 kb.

A candidate may file one form only, and the bulletin warns that multiple forms lead to cancellation of the result. One mobile number and email address can be used for one form.

The fee depends on category and on how many subjects are chosen:

The fee could be paid only online, by card, net banking or UPI; banks and payment gateways add their own processing charges and GST, and NTA does not entertain refund requests once the money is remitted.

The correction notice of 9 February 2026 made the edit window a one-time facility. Mobile number, email address, address, emergency contact and photograph were locked. Of the three names on the form, any single one could be edited, and date of birth, gender, category, signature, Class 10 and Class 12 details, exam cities, medium and subjects were all open. Any edit that increased the fee became effective only once the extra amount was paid, and the notice warns that excess payments are not refunded.

Some candidates had registered with an identity document other than Aadhaar and their live photographs did not match UIDAI records. A notice of 7 April 2026 asked them to upload a certificate attested by their school or college principal or headmaster, or failing those a Class-I Gazetted Officer, and to bring a printed copy to the centre.

Before the exam

Admit card and exam day

Before admit cards, NTA issued an advance exam city slip with each candidate's subject-wise schedule, and the notice announcing that slip said plainly that it did not replace the admit card.

The admit card notice of 5 May 2026 explains how a sitting was built. Each shift lasted three hours and could hold one to three of a candidate's subjects; a candidate with three subjects in a shift sat the full three hours, and one with two could leave after two hours.

The bulletin lists what must come to the centre:

• a clear A4 printout of the admit card, the self-declaration (undertaking) on it filled in;
• one more copy of the photograph uploaded with the form, to paste on the attendance sheet;
• an original photo ID that is still valid, picked from the bulletin's list: a PAN card, passport, school identity card, bank passbook bearing a photograph, the Class 12 board admit card bearing a photograph, or Aadhaar or e-Aadhaar bearing a photograph;
• for anyone claiming the PwD/PwBD relaxation, the certificate from the authorised medical officer;
• a transparent ball point pen.

NTA's later messages differed from the bulletin in places. Its press briefing note of 10 May 2026, issued the day before the test began, asked for two passport-size photographs where the bulletin asks for one, and for the same photo ID that had been uploaded with the application. An advisory of 7 May 2026 went further and reversed three of the bulletin's bars: the bulletin excluded water bottles, shoes and heavy clothes with long sleeves, while the advisory allowed transparent water bottles, named normal shoes, slippers and low heels as the preferred footwear, and permitted woollens for candidates who reach the centre early enough to be frisked. On articles of faith the two agree: both let candidates wear them on that same early-reporting condition, and the advisory names kalava threads as allowed.

The bulletin wants candidates at the centre two hours ahead of the start. All rough work goes on sheets supplied in the hall, each marked with the candidate's name and application number and handed back to the invigilator for shredding. Missing the allotted date is final for the individual candidate, because the bulletin says NTA will not hold a re-test whatever the reason; the re-scheduled sittings of 2026 were for papers NTA itself postponed or that a technical glitch disrupted.

Structure

Exam pattern

The 2026 scheme offered 37 subjects, made up of 13 languages, 23 domain-specific subjects and a General Aptitude Test, and a candidate could take at most five of them, languages and the aptitude test included, according to the bulletin. All questions in a paper are compulsory, so there is no attempt-any-of choice inside a paper. Eligible PwBD candidates receive an extra 20 minutes per hour as compensatory time.

The CUET (UG) 2025 Information Bulletin printed the same scheme a year earlier: 37 subjects, a choice of up to five, and 50 compulsory questions in 60 minutes per paper.

Question papers came in 13 mediums: English, Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. Papers are bilingual, English plus the medium the candidate chose, and where the two versions disagree the English one is final; the Sanskrit paper is not translated into any other language. The 2026 FAQ confirms that a candidate can take the Hindi language test and answer other papers in English.

The bulletin also handles flawed questions. Where more than one option turns out to be correct, the five marks go to everyone who marked any correct option; if a question turns out to have no right option, is found wrong or is dropped, all candidates who sat the paper get the five marks whether or not they answered it.

Subject choice has a trap. The bulletin lets candidates pick subjects irrespective of what they studied in Class 12 and tells them to choose by the eligibility of the programme they want, but a university can be narrower: under the University of Delhi CSAS(UG)-2026 document, a college verifying an allocated seat considers only those language and domain papers in which the candidate passed Class 12.

The 5 May 2026 press release from NTA breaks down how candidates used the allowance: 8,69,959 candidates opted for five subjects, 3,63,096 for four, 2,93,660 for three, 31,011 for two and 11,140 for one, across 12,906 distinct subject combinations. Its subject table puts English at 12,64,099 candidates, Chemistry at 9,50,802, Physics at 9,13,691 and the General Aptitude Test at 9,12,406, the order in which NTA's press briefing note also ranks them.

What to study

Syllabus

The CUET (UG) 2026 syllabus page lists every subject by code, with its own syllabus document.

The bulletin describes the three strands in one line each. Language papers test reading comprehension built on factual, literary and narrative passages, plus literary aptitude and vocabulary; domain subjects follow the NCERT syllabus; and the General Aptitude Test covers general knowledge, current affairs, general mental ability, numerical ability, quantitative reasoning using basic arithmetic, algebra, geometry, mensuration and statistics, and logical and analytical reasoning. The FAQ adds that all questions are benchmarked at the level of the NCERT syllabus.

Two of the subject files add detail that summary leaves out. The General Test (501) syllabus for 2026 puts General Science and Environment Literacy on the aptitude paper's topic list, and the English (101) syllabus for 2026 divides that paper between reading comprehension, on factual, narrative and literary passages of up to 300 words, and verbal ability: rearranging parts, matching, choosing the correct word, and synonyms and antonyms.

The 23 domain subjects for 2026 are Accountancy/Book Keeping; Agriculture; Anthropology; Biology/Biological Science/Biotechnology/Biochemistry; Business Studies; Chemistry; Environmental Science; Computer Science/Information Practices; Economics/Business Economics; Fine Arts/Visual Arts/Commercial Arts; Geography/Geology; History; Home Science; Knowledge Tradition - Practices in India; Mass Media/Mass Communication; Mathematics/Applied Mathematics; Performing Arts (Dance, Drama, Music); Physical Education (Yoga, Sports); Physics; Political Science; Psychology; Sanskrit; and Sociology, per the bulletin's Appendix II. For the three central universities of Sanskrit, the same appendix says students of Shastric traditional subjects such as Sahitya, Vyakarana, Nyaya and Vastu may select Sanskrit, code 325.

How to prepare

Preparation and books

Practice on the testing software is the one preparation aid the CUET (UG) 2026 bulletin mentions: its Appendix V, the guide to computer-based testing, promises a sample or mock test on nta.ac.in for hands-on practice. Beyond tying domain papers to the NCERT syllabus, it recommends no reading.

Where it is held

Exam centres

Each candidate named up to four cities, ranked by preference, and only from the states of their permanent or present address, and the bulletin keeps NTA's right to allot a city outside those choices or to merge cities with very few candidates. Its Appendix III lists the cities, including centres outside India.

Demand in 2026 was concentrated. NTA's 5 May 2026 press release says about 6,74,352 registrations, some 43% of the total, came from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Delhi, and that 96.6% of candidates were allotted one of their preferred cities and 79% their first choice. The remaining 3.4% could take vacant slots in other cities through a first-come-first-serve re-allocation window, which a notice of 6 May 2026 then limited to a change of state and city, leaving the allotted date and shift unchanged.

For the whole sitting, the 7 June 2026 press release counts 868 examination centres in India.

After the exam

Answer key

On 9 June 2026 NTA opened the provisional keys for CUET (UG) 2026, and candidates could see the questions they had been given next to the responses the system recorded for them. The answer key notice accepted challenges until 10 pm on 11 June, and every question challenged carried a Rs 200 processing charge, not returned by NTA and payable by 11:50 pm on 11 June.

Evidence for a challenge had to be uploaded as one combined PDF. A panel of subject experts checks each challenge; where one holds, the revised key is applied to every candidate's responses, and NTA does not write to any candidate about the fate of their own challenge. NTA then posted the final answer keys as lists of question IDs and their key IDs, set out subject by subject and exam date by exam date, and the bulletin shuts out any grievance about a key after the result is declared.

Scores

Result and scorecard

NTA's score card page for CUET (UG) 2026 shows 23 June 2026 as its publish date. The result press release says the results are shared with the universities and asks candidates to stay in touch with the universities for what follows.

A candidate who doubts a CUET (UG) 2026 score has little room: the bulletin provides no re-evaluation or re-checking of any result, and its miscellaneous chapter hears a grievance arising out of the result only if it comes within 30 days of the declaration.

For a subject held in more than one shift, raw marks become an NTA Score through the equipercentile procedure in Appendix VI of the CUET (UG) 2026 bulletin, arrived at by a committee headed by a senior professor of the Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi, with senior professors from IIT Delhi and the University of Delhi. First, each candidate's percentile is worked out inside their own shift as 100 times the number of candidates in that shift scoring equal to or less than them, divided by the number who appeared. Next, the shifts' raw marks are lined up by percentile, with gaps filled by linear interpolation. Finally, the normalised score at a percentile is the average of the raw marks that correspond to it in each shift, and the procedure is run separately for every multi-shift subject.

None of this carries forward: an NTA Score earned in the 2026 sitting is good for 2026-27 admissions and lapses with them, under the bulletin's scoring chapter.

Scores you need

Cutoff

Merit lists are outside NTA's remit: the 2026 bulletin states that it plays no part in preparing them, and each university declares its own list from the CUET (UG) 2026 score and its other criteria. The University of Delhi, for example, determines merit on a programme-specific CUET score that it computes from the NTA scores, according to its CSAS(UG)-2026 document.

Getting a seat

Counselling and seat allotment

The declaration of the result is where the bulletin hands the process over: from then on each central university and participating institution announces its own counselling or admission schedule and merit list, and selection still turns on the programme's eligibility conditions, the candidate's rank in that list, a medical fitness check and a check of original documents. NTA's result release says universities decide their individual counselling based on the score card.

Delhi University shows how separate that second stage is. Its CSAS(UG)-2026 document makes its Common Seat Allocation System the only valid route into its colleges, needs the CUET (UG) 2026 application number to apply, and opens its preference-filling phase after NTA declares the result. Every other university keeps that stage in its own hands as well, and the bulletin sends each admission question to the website of the university a candidate applied to.

Where it is accepted

Participating institutes

The bulletin's Appendix I names the central universities as per the course mapping available on 3 January 2026, from Aligarh Muslim University to Visva-Bharati University, and it describes the list of participating universities as dynamic.

The participating universities page of the CUET (UG) portal groups its 2026 lists as central universities, state universities, deemed universities, private universities and other government institutions. Before applying, candidates are asked by the bulletin to go through each chosen university's prospectus for programmes, seats and eligibility.

Get help

Contact

For the 2026 cycle the bulletin named cuet-ug@nta.ac.in as the helpdesk address, with phone lines 011-40759000 and 011-69227700. A candidate who could not download the admit card, or whose admit card did not match the confirmation page, was to call between 10 am and 5 pm; in the mismatch case the candidate still sat the test on the admit card already downloaded, and NTA undertook to correct its record afterwards. Emails reach an answer only when they are not anonymous and give a name, postal address and contact number.

NTA's office has since moved. The agency's public notice of September 2026, Relocation of NTA Office, gives the new premises as the fifth floor of the Government of India Press Building, Minto Road, New Delhi, prints the full address with its PIN code, and asks for all future correspondence to go there. The Okhla Industrial Estate address at the foot of NTA's press release of 5 May 2026 predates that move.

Source

Official links

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Disclaimer

Disclaimer

Exact dates, participating-university lists, subjects offered, cutoffs, fees, answer keys and results are per-cycle. Anything per-cycle here is stated for the cycle it names and is taken from the conducting body's own notification; confirm it on the official website before acting on it. Expertie does not conduct any exam, process applications or charge fees.

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