Kerala Engineering, Architecture, Medical (and Pharmacy) Entrance Examination(KEAM)

About the exam

About KEAM

The KEAM exam is less a single test than the front door to Kerala's professional degree admissions. One online application to the Commissioner for Entrance Examinations covers engineering, architecture, pharmacy and the medical and allied streams, yet the Commissioner sets question papers only for engineering and B.Pharm. Architecture seats are ranked on NATA, medical seats on NEET-UG, and even the engineering rank gives Class 12 marks the same weight as the entrance score.

KEAM is run by the Office of the Commissioner for Entrance Examinations (CEE), Government of Kerala, under a prospectus the state government approves for that year; the 2026 edition carries an approval order dated 1 January 2026. The KEAM 2026 Prospectus covers admission to medical, agriculture, forestry, veterinary, fisheries, engineering, architecture and pharmacy courses, and it states that a prospectus issued in an earlier year is not valid for 2026. In a dispute over any clause, only the English version counts as authentic.

The notice that opened the 2026 cycle drew the line plainly. The KEAM 2026 applications-invited notification says: "The Commissioner for Entrance Examinations will conduct Entrance Examinations for admission to Engineering/Pharmacy Courses only." Every other stream under the KEAM name takes its rank from a national test while using CEE's application, category lists and allotment, as the prospectus sets out.

The table below sets out what each stream in the KEAM 2026 prospectus is ranked on.

One pair of courses shows how fine the split is. B.Tech Food Technology under KAU is ranked on the engineering test, while B.Tech Biotechnology under the same university sits in the medical allied group and is ranked on NEET-UG. A candidate aiming at both needs both scores and a single KEAM application listing both courses.

At a glance

KEAM highlights

Calendar

Important dates

KEAM 2026 opened applications in January, held its computer-based tests in April and began allotment in July. The dates below are those CEE published for the 2026 cycle; a later cycle gets its own prospectus and notices.

The schedule moved after the prospectus was printed. The "Information at a Glance" page of the prospectus had set the engineering test window at 13 to 25 April 2026, a span clause 9.6.1 padded with buffer days, and promised the engineering and B.Pharm rank lists on or before 20 June 2026. The exam dates notice of 8 April 2026 then fixed the engineering test at 17 to 22 April, and the rank lists came out on 27 June 2026, as the rank list notice records.

The January deadline did not close every door. Candidates who had not applied could still file a fresh application for B.Arch until 18 June 2026, under the architecture applications notice, and fresh applications for medical and medical allied courses were taken from 23 to 27 July 2026, per the medical applications notice.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

Eligibility under KEAM turns on citizenship and nativity, marks in the qualifying examination, and age. Citizenship comes first: clause 6 of the prospectus admits Indian citizens unless otherwise notified, and lets OCI and PIO cardholders compete as citizens would for the seat itself, while withholding every kind of reservation and fee concession from them.

Nativity: Keralite, Non-Keralite I and Non-Keralite II

Clause 6.1 of the prospectus places every applicant in a nativity category, and the category decides which seats a rank can reach.

• Keralite. A candidate of Kerala origin. What has to be shown is that the candidate, or a parent, was born in Kerala, and the prospectus accepts that birthplace from an SSLC certificate, an Indian passport, a local body birth record or a Village Officer or Tahsildar certificate, with a relationship certificate added whenever the parent's document is used. A certificate that a parent is an All India Service officer on the Kerala cadre also works. Children of non-Keralite AIS officers on the Kerala cadre count as Keralites but get no reservation or fee concession.
• Non-Keralite Category I (NK I). Not of Kerala origin, but meeting any one of these conditions: a qualifying course in Kerala with parents in Government of India or defence service posted to Kerala; a qualifying course in Kerala with parents who serve or served the Government of Kerala for at least two years; residence in Kerala for five years within the twelve years of study; or school studies in Kerala from Standard VIII to XII. NK I candidates are considered against State Merit seats but get no reservation or fee concession, under clause 6.1(ii) of the prospectus.
• Non-Keralite Category II (NK II). Everyone else.

Clause 6.1(iii) of the prospectus shuts NK II candidates out of Government colleges in every stream, medical and medical allied, engineering, pharmacy and architecture alike, while keeping them eligible for the engineering seats CEE allots elsewhere. What stays open to them:

• Government and management quota seats in private self-financing engineering and architecture colleges.
• The same two quotas in private self-financing Siddha and Unani colleges, but only when Keralite and NK I candidates are not available.
• Up to 10% of management quota seats in private self-financing pharmacy colleges.
• Government cost-sharing engineering college seats, considered only after the second phase of allotment and only if Keralite and NK I candidates are not available.
• The 15% of MBBS, BAMS, BSMS and BUMS seats in Kerala's self-financing colleges that clause 6.1(iii) of the prospectus sets apart for allotment irrespective of domicile, from CEE's NEET-UG 2026 rank list.

Qualifying Examination Marks by Course

The minimum marks differ by course, and each is set in clause 6.2 of the prospectus.

• Engineering. Higher Secondary or equivalent with Physics and Mathematics compulsory and Chemistry as an optional subject, with at least 45% marks in the three together. Where Chemistry was not studied, Computer Science is counted, then Biotechnology, then Biology. SC, ST, SEBC and PD candidates need 40% instead of 45%, under clauses 6.2.2 and 6.2.5 of the prospectus.
• B.Pharm. A pass in 10+2 with English as one subject and Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics or Biology as optional subjects, each passed individually.
• B.Arch. Either 10+2 or a 10+3 diploma, each needing at least 45% in aggregate. Under clause 6.2.3 of the prospectus, a 10+2 candidate needs Physics and Mathematics plus a third subject from a list that stretches from Chemistry and Biology through the computing subjects to Engineering Graphics, Business Studies and technical vocational subjects, while a diploma holder needs Mathematics. The candidate must also reach the minimum NATA 2025 or 2026 score, and there is no relaxation of that score for any category.
• MBBS and BDS. Passes in Physics, Chemistry, Biology or Biotechnology and English, with at least 50% in Physics, Chemistry and Biology together, or 40% for SC, ST, SEBC and PD candidates, plus a NEET-UG 2026 score at or above the qualifying percentile, under clauses 6.2.1 and 6.2.5 of the prospectus. For BDS, a National Dental Commission circular dated 10 September 2026, which CEE posted on 15 September 2026, quotes the dental regulations with a different disability figure: 45% rather than 40% for candidates with locomotory disability of the lower limbs, beside the same 50% general bar and 40% for SC, ST and OBC candidates.

Percentages are not rounded off. The prospectus says only 45 out of 100, or 135 out of 300, counts as 45%. Candidates who have appeared for Class 12 but not yet passed may take the entrance tests provisionally, and must prove academic eligibility on the date of admission.

On age, applicants must have completed 17 years by 31 December 2026, with no relaxation, according to the prospectus. There is no upper age limit for engineering, architecture, B.Pharm, BAMS, BSMS, BHMS or BUMS, while the MBBS and BDS upper limit follows the NEET-UG 2026 information bulletin.

Reservation on Government and Aided Seats

Only Keralite candidates can claim special or mandatory reservation, and under the prospectus a claim has to be made in the online application and cannot be altered afterwards. After seats are set apart for the All India Quota, Government of India nominees, special reservation, persons with disabilities, supernumerary seats and management quota, the remaining Government seats in Government, aided, KAU, KVASU and KUFOS colleges are split as follows.

Disability seats come out before that split is made. Clause 5.3 of the prospectus holds 5% of the state's rank-list seats in Government, aided and Government cost-sharing colleges for benchmark disabilities, defined through the 2016 disabilities Act as 40% or more, and leaves the final word on whether a candidate can study the chosen course to a State Medical Board chaired by the Director of Medical Education. SEBC claims need a non-creamy layer certificate for state education purposes from the Village Officer, and the SEBC list itself changed mid-cycle: a Government order of 16 June 2026 added 28 communities to Annexure XI of the prospectus, according to the Government order amending Annexure XI of the KEAM 2026 prospectus. Claims were reopened for one group of courses in July 2026, when CEE let existing applicants add NRI, minority and category claims for medical and allied courses, per the medical applications notice.

Annexure II(2)(a) of the prospectus spreads special reservation seats in Government and aided engineering and architecture courses across these categories: Government of India nominees, reciprocal quota candidates sponsored by Karnataka or Tamil Nadu, NCC cadets, sports (individual and team events), ex-servicemen and their children, children of serving defence personnel, dependants of defence personnel killed, missing or disabled in action, children of Central Armed Police Force personnel, the Jewish community, Scouts and Guides, and candidates of Meghalaya origin. In that table the nominee seats are printed against architecture, and a note under it says B.Tech admission for Government of India nominees is made on supernumerary seats. Two seats are reserved for Rashtrapathi Scouts and Guides in engineering. Sports quota and NCC seats are filled from separate merit lists: the Kerala State Sports Council, or for NCC a state level committee, awards up to 500 marks for proficiency, and CEE adds them to the candidate's engineering rank marks rescaled to 500, giving a ceiling of 1000.

Step by step

Application process and fee

A single online application on the CEE website serves every KEAM stream, and a candidate may submit only one. Clause 7.4 of the prospectus breaks that form into five stages, none of them optional:

1. Registration, which generates the application number and asks the candidate to set a password that is needed until allotment ends.
2. Filling the application, which locks once the candidate clicks Save and Finalize.
3. Paying the application fee online.
4. Uploading the photograph, signature and certificates, with nativity proof, date-of-birth proof and the SSLC or equivalent certificate mandatory.
5. Printing the Application Acknowledgement Page, which stays with the candidate and is not posted to CEE.

Every reservation claim, and the income certificate needed for any income-based fee concession, has to be uploaded with the application itself, and clause 7.8 of the prospectus says documents furnished after submission will not be entertained.

The KEAM 2026 application fee depends on the course group and category, as the table below shows.

A candidate choosing the UAE as a test centre pays an additional Rs 16,000 online, and the application fee is not refunded once remitted, under the prospectus. In the 2026 cycle, candidates who had registered but not paid were given until 25 February 2026, 5.00 PM to remit the fee, per the fee payment notice.

Before the exam

Admit card and exam day

KEAM 2026 admit cards were released on 8 April 2026 through the candidate portal, and only to candidates who had applied for engineering or pharmacy, according to the admit card notice. CEE withheld the card where the photograph, signature or Class X certificate was defective or a balance fee was due, with defects to be fixed by 4.00 PM on 15 April 2026. The same notice recommends a colour printout.

The admit card has to be shown with one photo identity document: a school identity card, PAN card, driving licence, voter ID, Aadhaar or e-Aadhaar, passport, ration card, Class 12 hall ticket or bank passbook, each carrying a photograph. A candidate with none of these can produce an identity certificate with an attested photograph from the head of the institution where they finished Plus Two, or from a Gazetted Officer, the admit card notice says.

The engineering test ran from 2.00 PM to 5.00 PM, and candidates were told to report two hours before it began, according to the exam dates notice. Inside the hall, clause 10 of the prospectus describes the sequence:

• after a facial image is taken and verified, the candidate sits at an allotted computer and checks that the seat number displayed in the bottom left corner of the login screen is the one allotted;
• the roll number is typed on an on-screen virtual keyboard, since the physical keyboard may not be used, and a secret code, given only after the roll number is validated in the hall, completes the login;
• a familiarisation mock test opens 15 minutes before the actual test and moves to the question paper automatically, as clause 10.2 of the prospectus describes;
• only the admit card, the photo ID and a simple transparent ballpoint pen may be carried in, and sheets for rough work are handed out and returned at the end;
• when the timer ends, an exam statistics page appears and the candidate can leave without pressing any submit button.

Complaints about how the test was run go to the Chief Superintendent at the centre immediately after the paper, and complaints sent straight to CEE are not entertained, under clause 9.6.4 of the prospectus. Missing the allotted session ends that year's attempt, since clause 9.6.5 rules out a re-examination whatever the reason. The malpractice list in clause 10.3 is written for a computer lab: carrying the rough-work sheet out of the hall counts, and so does sitting more than one session on false information. The penalty in clause 10.3.2 is cancellation of the candidature and a bar from CEE's entrance examinations for not less than two years.

Structure

Exam pattern

Clause 9.4.3 of the prospectus sets the engineering paper at 75 questions in Mathematics, 45 in Physics and 30 in Chemistry, answered in 180 minutes, and clause 9.4.4 awards four marks for each correct response and deducts one for each wrong one. Each question offers five answers, of which only one is the "MOST APPROPRIATE RESPONSE", and a candidate who answers no question at all is disqualified from the rank list. The 5:3:2 weighting across Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry is stipulated by a Government order of 22 November 1999, which clause 9.2 cites.

The pharmacy test is a separate paper. For KEAM 2026, clause 9.4.3 of the prospectus sets it at 45 questions in Chemistry and 30 in Physics, to be answered in 90 minutes, and clause 9.2 gives it a 3:2 weighting of Chemistry to Physics. The marking matches the engineering paper, but no Class 12 marks enter the B.Pharm rank, which clause 9.7.4(f) builds from the normalised pharmacy score alone, out of 300.

Because the test runs over several days with a different question set in each session, raw scores are normalised before any rank is drawn. The prospectus names the method the Percentile Interpolated Average Method, approved by a normalisation committee constituted by a Government order of 16 February 2024. In outline:

1. Each candidate's raw mark is converted to a percentile within their own session, calculated to eight decimal places.
2. For every other session, CEE finds the raw mark that sits at the same percentile, interpolating between the two nearest marks where no exact match exists.
3. The candidate's normalised mark is the average of their own raw mark and those interpolated marks, taken to four decimal places.

The full formulas are printed in clause 9.4.4(i) of the prospectus, and the entrance score that feeds the engineering rank is that normalised figure computed out of 300.

What to study

Syllabus

The syllabus for the 2026 entrance examinations is Annexure I of the prospectus, and the standard is that of Higher Secondary or equivalent examinations. The Mathematics syllabus opens with an algebra unit covering sets, relations and functions, complex numbers, sequences and series, permutations, combinations and the binomial theorem, matrices and determinants, and linear inequalities, before moving to trigonometry. Physics covers topics such as rigid body motion, gravitation, properties of bulk matter, thermodynamics, oscillations and waves, electrostatics and current electricity, and the Chemistry syllabus ends with biomolecules.

The prospectus is candid about how far to rely on the list. It calls the published syllabi "only outlines of the topics that will be covered in the examination", warns that "questions of applied nature of higher order on the topics included in the published syllabi can be expected", and adds: "Questions are not based on NCERT textbooks or any other textbooks exclusively." All three lines are in clause 9.5.2 of the prospectus.

How to prepare

Preparation and books

Beyond the syllabus annexure, CEE's own website carries official material for practice. A practice test notice dated 10 April 2026 announced a Practice Test menu in the candidate portal for KEAM 2026 applicants, put there to help candidates familiarise themselves with the computer-based format.

The answer key page is the other. The final answer key files CEE posted for the KEAM 2026 engineering and pharmacy sessions reproduce each question with its five options and the keyed answer, and mark deleted questions as cancelled, as the KEAM 2026 answer keys page and its session files such as the 22 April 2026 engineering final key show. Read against the warning in clause 9.5.2 of the prospectus about applied, higher-order questions, those files are the 2026 questions themselves rather than a sample.

Where it is held

Exam centres

Clause 9.1 of the prospectus places KEAM venues in every district of Kerala and in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and the UAE, and clause 9.1.1 says no request to change a centre will be entertained. In the 2026 cycle CEE nonetheless opened windows to change centres.

Until 9.00 PM on 8 March 2026, applicants could reorder their centre preferences, per the centre priority notice. A later window followed the conflict in the Middle East: CEE arranged centres in the UAE (Sharjah), Kuwait and Bahrain, and from 4 to 7 April 2026 let candidates who had chosen the UAE move to Kuwait, Bahrain or, if they were in Kerala and facing travel difficulties, a Kerala centre, while Gulf-resident candidates who had chosen Kerala and faced travel difficulties could move to a Gulf centre, according to the Gulf centre change notice.

When admit cards came out, the test was listed at centres in Kerala and in Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru, Sharjah, Kuwait and Bahrain, per the admit card notice.

After the exam

Answer key

CEE published the provisional KEAM 2026 answer keys on 23 April 2026 and took challenges only through the candidate portal, under separate Answer Key Challenge links for engineering and pharmacy, until 5.00 PM on 26 April 2026, according to the answer key notice. Each challenged question cost Rs 200, paid online, and CEE promised to return that amount, to the account number in the online application, for any complaint it upheld; the notice ruled out challenges sent by post, email or by hand.

Complaints go to subject expert committees whose recommendations are final, and CEE sends no individual replies, according to the prospectus. The final answer key notice of 5 May 2026 deleted questions from engineering papers held on 17, 19, 20, 21 and 22 April, changed the keyed option on others, and deleted or rekeyed questions in the pharmacy papers of 18 and 19 April. A day later a revision notice deleted one more question, number 20 of the 21 April engineering paper.

A deletion did not leave a hole in the maximum mark. For each session and subject, the raw scores on the remaining questions were multiplied by a correction factor before normalisation, the scores notice explains. CEE also put each candidate's recorded responses in the candidate portal on 5 May 2026, per the candidate response notice. There is no provision for revaluation or rechecking, under clause 9.7.6 of the prospectus.

Scores

Result and scorecard

CEE published KEAM 2026 normalised scores on 12 May 2026 under the Result menu of the candidate portal, and withheld some candidates' scores over pending application defects, according to the scores notice. A score is not yet a rank. To qualify for the engineering rank list a candidate needs a minimum normalised score of 10, and the B.Pharm list sets the same floor of 10 out of 300; SC and ST candidates are exempt from the minimum on both lists, though anyone who answers no question at all is still disqualified, under clause 9.7.5 of the prospectus.

Qualified engineering candidates then had to submit their second-year Plus Two marks in Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry (or the substitute subject) online, and anyone who did not was left off the rank list. The window ran to 7 June 2026 under the marks submission notice and was extended to 14 June 2026, 6.00 PM by the extension notice. A last chance followed: citing CBSE's re-evaluation announcement and candidates who had not managed to upload, a notice of 22 June 2026 reopened verification and resubmission of qualifying marks until the night of 23 June 2026.

Qualified candidates who still missed the list got one narrower route. A Government order of 24 July 2026 let CEE publish a supplementary list of them, marked only as qualified with no rank or score, as a one-time relaxation for 2026-27; the order bars its use in CEE's allotment and confines it to management seats in self-financing engineering colleges.

When the rank lists came out on 27 June 2026, 65,438 of the 79,788 candidates who qualified in the engineering test had submitted their marks, and 26,944 of the 31,141 who appeared for the pharmacy test had qualified, according to the rank list notice.

How the Engineering Rank Is Built

The engineering rank uses an index mark out of 600, made of two halves of 300 each, under clause 9.7.4(b) of the prospectus, which cites a Government order of 26 December 2025.

• The entrance half. The normalised entrance score, computed out of 300, under clause 9.7.4(b)(v) of the prospectus.
• The Class 12 half. Final-year marks in Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry (or Computer Science, Biotechnology or Biology in that order of substitution), each normalised and then combined in the ratio 5:3:2 as Mathematics 150, Physics 90 and Chemistry 60, under clause 9.7.4(b)(ii) of the prospectus.

The Class 12 normalisation compares a candidate with their own board. Each subject mark is divided by the highest mark any student of that board scored in that subject in that year, then multiplied by 100, and the same board's examinations in different years are treated as separate. The prospectus's worked example is a student with 70 in Mathematics on a board whose top Mathematics mark was 95, as clause 9.7.4(b)(iii) of the prospectus shows. For CBSE and CISCE candidates the highest mark at the national level is used. Clause 9.7.4(b)(vii) has CEE ask the boards for these maximum marks and, where they are not available before the rank list is prepared, treats the maximum as 100%. The formula is published in the prospectus; the board-wise maximum marks CEE actually applied in 2026 are not among the files on its KEAM 2026 Highlights and Toppers page.

Ties on the index mark are broken in a fixed order: higher pre-normalised Mathematics score in the entrance test, then Physics in the entrance test, then normalised Class 12 Mathematics, then Class 12 Physics, then more correct responses in Mathematics, then in Physics, and finally the older candidate ranks higher. A rank does not by itself make a candidate eligible: the list includes everyone who qualified, irrespective of academic eligibility or category, and clause 11.4.6 of the prospectus makes the head of the admitting institution personally responsible for checking eligibility against the original documents. The same prospectus says KEAM 2026 records will be preserved only until 31 March 2027.

Scores you need

Cutoff

Beyond the minimum qualifying score, the nearest thing KEAM has to a cutoff is the last rank CEE posts once an allotment is done. Clause 11.6.6 of the prospectus defines that figure as the allotted candidate's KEAM rank, so even a figure posted for a reserved category is read against a rank on the main list, never against a place within the category. For 2026, the KEAM 2026 last rank page lists engineering tables for the trial allotment and the first and second phases, alongside architecture, B.Pharm and MBBS/BDS tables.

Seats also move between quotas as the rounds go on. Engineering seats left unfilled under the Government of India nominee and reciprocal quotas are added to the mandatory reservation pool in the third phase, and unavailed category seats are converted during the third phase, under clauses 5.5.6 and 5.5.11 of the prospectus. Each table records one phase of the 2026 allotment and is not a forecast for any later cycle.

Getting a seat

Counselling and seat allotment

The office that sets the papers also runs the allotment, through its Centralised Allotment Process (CAP), which clause 11 of the prospectus calls a system of "Allotments through Online Submission of Options", with the National Informatics Centre providing technical support. Options are registered separately for the engineering, architecture, medical, medical allied and pharmacy streams, and a candidate can register in any stream whose rank list they appear on.

Option Registration, Fees and the Rules That Bind a Choice

For the 2026 engineering allotment, options were invited from 2 July 2026, and a candidate registering had to pay a registration fee of Rs 2,000, or Rs 500 for SC, ST and OEC candidates and certain other specified groups, according to the engineering CAP notice. The notice set that Rs 2,000 against the tuition fee of a candidate who took admission, promised it back to anyone left without an allotment, and made it a penalty for an allotted candidate who did not take admission. The option deadline was later extended to 7 July 2026, 12.00 noon, per the option date extension notice.

The same engineering CAP notice set the token fee at Rs 8,000 for seats in Government cost-sharing, autonomous and self-financing colleges, reduced to Rs 500 for SC, ST and OEC candidates allotted Government seats, while an allotment in a Government, aided or aided autonomous college requires the full fee. It lists the annual fee in Government, aided and aided autonomous engineering colleges as Rs 8,650, notes that the fees are subject to change by Government order, and says the exact fee for each college is shown in the option registration portal. Candidates without internet access could register at facilitation centres set up in engineering colleges across the state, listed in the KEAM 2026 option facilitation centres list.

A few prospectus rules decide how an option list behaves once it is filed, all in clause 11 of the prospectus:

• CEE runs a trial allotment before option registration closes in the first phase, to show likely outcomes, and it guarantees nothing.
• Not paying or not joining after an allotment costs more than the seat: every option still standing in that stream goes with it, and clause 11.5.6 says options lost this way do not come back in later phases unless CEE notifies otherwise.
• An allotment wipes out every lower preference on the list: in the example in clause 11.6.4 of the prospectus, a candidate with 45 options allotted the 34th loses options 35 to 45.
• Unless CEE notifies otherwise, the candidate must press Confirm on the option page before every later phase, or the higher options for courses in that phase are deleted.
• In Government and aided colleges, a seat is first offered under State Merit even to a candidate with a reservation claim, and a reserved quota seat is used only once State Merit vacancies are exhausted across the state.

How the 2026 Engineering Phases Ran

Candidates in the first phase engineering allotment, published on 8 July 2026, paid online between 9 and 12 July 2026 and, the first phase allotment notice told them, did not yet have to join a college in person. Candidates allotted to Government engineering colleges under the Directorate of Technical Education also paid a Rs 1,000 caution deposit, except SC, ST and OEC candidates.

The second phase, published on 20 July 2026 together with the first architecture allotment, required everyone holding an engineering allotment, including those carried over from the first phase, to pay any balance by 3.00 PM and join the college before 4.00 PM on 24 July 2026, per the second phase allotment notice. Before it, candidates had to confirm their options online by 16 July 2026, under the second phase option confirmation notice.

The third phase reopened fresh option registration from 27 to 30 July 2026, according to the third phase option notice. Its allotment was published on 5 August 2026 with joining due by 10 August 2026, and the third phase allotment notice stated: "This is the last phase of allotment to Engineering Courses conducted by the Commissioner for Entrance Examinations for the academic year 2026-27." The notice said vacancies after it in Government and aided colleges would be filled through spot admission by the Director of Technical Education, and those in other colleges by the colleges themselves.

A circular from the Directorate of Technical Education, dated 12 August 2026, set a centralised B.Tech spot admission for 13 August 2026 covering nine Government engineering colleges and three Government-aided colleges (TKM, MACE and NSS CE), with registration closing at 12 noon at any of those 12 colleges, according to the DTE spot admission circular. The circular records 14 August 2026 as the last date for admission under AICTE norms.

Architecture, B.Pharm and MBBS/BDS Rounds in 2026

The other KEAM streams ran well past the engineering spot admission, and each has its own run of notices. CEE's third architecture allotment, which its notice described as the last phase of allotment to the architecture course for 2026-27, required allotted candidates to join before 4.00 PM on 19 August 2026, per the architecture third phase notice.

For B.Pharm, after its third allotment phase CEE invited options for a stray vacancy filling allotment from 11 September 2026 to 10.00 AM on 14 September 2026, and its tentative schedule set the provisional allotment for 15 September, the final allotment for 16 September and reporting from 17 September to 3.00 PM on 19 September 2026, according to the B.Pharm stray vacancy notice.

MBBS and BDS allotment follows the all India counselling schedule, according to the medical rank list notice. CEE's MBBS/BDS second phase notice, dated 14 September 2026, gave allotted candidates until 4.00 PM on 19 September 2026 to join and said the schedule for a third phase would be published later.

Where it is accepted

Participating institutes

For 2026, the engineering CAP notice sorted the colleges in which CEE allots engineering seats into these groups: Government, aided and aided autonomous colleges; the engineering college under Kerala Agricultural University; engineering colleges under Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University; engineering colleges under Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies; Government cost-sharing colleges and self-financing colleges run by universities; private self-financing colleges under the Kerala Self Financing Engineering College Management Association; and self-financing autonomous colleges.

The seat share CEE fills differs by group. In Government cost-sharing colleges under the Co-operative Academy of Professional Education, CEE allots 95% of seats as Government merit seats (50% merit lower fee and 45% merit full fee), and the other 5% are a management quota for children of co-operative sector employees; at Sree Chitra Thirunal College of Engineering it allots 35% merit full fee seats on top of the 50% Government seats, the same engineering CAP notice records. Only female candidates can register options for women's colleges, under clause 11.3(d) of the prospectus.

The college and seat lists printed in the prospectus annexures are described there as tentative and not complete, with the final list published before allotment begins, under clause 2.3.5 of the prospectus. The course list moved too: when medical allied applications reopened in July 2026, CEE named newly added KAU courses such as BSc (Hons.) Horticulture and Integrated Biology or Microbiology, per the medical applications notice.

Get help

Contact

Every channel below is as printed on the contact page of CEE's KEAM portal.

In the 2026 cycle, Class 12 marks were verified and corrected through the candidate portal, per the marks verification notice, while some complaints went by email with the application number in the message: complaints about the provisional engineering and pharmacy category list, for instance, were taken at ceekinfo.cee@kerala.gov.in until 11.59 PM on 2 July 2026, per the provisional category list notice. Neither the address nor the email is a route for paperwork: the application instructions in the prospectus tell candidates not to send the application printout or supporting documents to CEE by post, email or in person.

Source

Official links

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Disclaimer

Disclaimer

KEAM moved to CBT and revised its marking/standardization scheme in recent cycles, so pattern details can shift year to year. Exact dates, answer keys, rank lists, cutoffs, and counselling schedules 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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