New Delhi: Punjab’s Aryan Gupta and Haryana’s Panshul Bansal emerged as the joint toppers in NEET-UG 2026, scoring 715 out of 720, as more than 11.21 lakh candidates qualified for undergraduate medical admissions this year, the National Testing Agency (NTA) announced on Thursday.
The two toppers scored 29 marks more than last year’s highest score of 686, when an unusually difficult question paper prevented any candidate from crossing the 700-mark threshold. This year, 19 candidates scored 700 or above, while 138 secured 690 or more. More than 93% of those scoring above 690 were first-time NEET candidates. Overall, 1,492 candidates scored at least 650 marks and 10,160 secured 600 or above. Women accounted for more than 58% of the successful candidates.
Among Malayalis, the highest rank was secured by Johan Job, a native of Changanassery in Kottayam, who appeared for the examination from Karnataka and secured 69th rank. He is the son of Job K Joseph and Ann Neethu Mathew, and is a student of Presidency School, Bengaluru.
B Neeraj, a native of Karunagappally in Kollam, emerged as the Kerala topper, securing 89th rank. He is the son of G Bijoy and Rekha, and is a student of KE School, Mannanam. There were no other Malayali candidates in the top 100 ranks.
The examination, originally held on May 9, was cancelled three days later following allegations of a paper leak. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is probing the case. A re-examination was conducted on June 21.
The NTA said the results were announced on schedule despite the re-test, ensuring that the medical admissions and counselling process would not be delayed.
“The results were declared within time through re-engineering of the process, with stages designed to run in parallel rather than in sequence, and with the de-linking of the OMR sheet challenge from answer key release,” the agency said.
Although the number of qualified candidates dropped from 12.36 lakh in 2025 to 11.21 lakh this year, the number of candidates taking the exam also declined from 22.09 lakh to nearly 20 lakh. The overall qualifying rate remained broadly stable at around 56%.
Uttar Pradesh once again recorded the highest number of successful candidates, with over 1.7 lakh qualifiers, while Lakshadweep had the fewest at 43.
The top 17 candidates, all scoring above 705, came from Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Telangana. Seventeen state toppers scored 700 or more, while 26 crossed the 690-mark.
Among Union Territories, Ladakh’s Jigmet Yangchan Lamo topped with 530 marks, followed by Dhruv Tripathi of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands with 606 and Fahmida Anees of Lakshadweep with 573. Every northeastern state also had a state topper.
Category-wise, 5.12 lakh OBC-NCL candidates qualified, followed by 2.91 lakh candidates from the general category, 1.59 lakh Scheduled Caste candidates, 95,026 from the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) category and 63,716 Scheduled Tribe candidates. The list of qualifiers also included 3,666 Persons with Benchmark Disabilities (PwBD) and 303 Persons with Disabilities (PwD).
NEET-UG is India’s largest undergraduate entrance examination for medical education. The scores are used for admission to around 1.08 lakh MBBS seats, including about 56,000 in government medical colleges and 52,000 in private institutions. The exam is also the gateway for undergraduate courses in dentistry, Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha.
Following the controversy over the paper leak, the Centre has announced that future editions of NEET-UG will be conducted as a computer-based test instead of the traditional pen-and-paper format. The 2026 examination was conducted in 13 languages.
How to check NEET UG 2026 result
- Visit the official NEET UG 2026 result portal.
- Enter your Application Number.
- Enter your Password.
- Type the CAPTCHA code exactly as displayed (case-sensitive).
- Click on the Login button.
- Your NEET UG 2026 scorecard will be displayed on the screen.
- Download and save the scorecard for future reference.
