NEET PG 2026 Expected Cutoff & Qualifying Percentile

Most "expected cutoff" predictions circulating right now are still doing the math on the old 800-mark scale. NEET PG 2026 confirmed a pattern change — 180 questions, 720 marks — months ago, and a lot of published estimates haven't caught up. Here's the properly scaled picture, and the bigger caveat that matters more than any single number: the cutoff published on result day is rarely the one that ends up mattering by the end of counselling.

Key Takeaways

• Historical qualifying percentile: 50th (General/EWS), 40th (SC/ST/OBC), 45th (General-PwBD) — NBEMS hasn't separately re-notified this for 2026 as of this writing.
• NEET PG 2026 is scored out of 720 (180 questions), down from 800 (200 questions) — cutoff numbers from 2023–2025 need rescaling, not direct comparison.
• Trend-based estimate for 2026, scaled to 720: roughly 250–270 for General/EWS, 210–230 for SC/ST/OBC, 230–250 for General-PwBD. These are projections, not official figures.
• In 2025, the General category cutoff was revised down from the 50th percentile to as low as the 7th percentile mid-counselling, because roughly 18,000 seats sat vacant.
• Treat any "expected cutoff" — including the numbers in this article — as a planning reference. The number that counts is the one NBEMS publishes with your result.

Historical Cutoff Trend (2023–2025)

Year	General/EWS	SC/ST/OBC	General-PwBD	Scale
2023	291	257	274	/800
2025 (initial, result day)	276	235	255	/800
2025 (revised, later counselling rounds)	~103 (7th percentile)	Revised to 0 percentile — even negative raw scores became eligible	Not separately revised in available data	/800

The 2025 row is the one worth sitting with. The initial cutoff and the final effective cutoff, for the same admission cycle, were dramatically different numbers.

Why Most "Expected Cutoff" Predictions Online Are Off for 2026

A lot of cutoff-prediction content published this year extrapolates straight from the 2023–2025 trend and lands on a General/EWS estimate somewhere around 295–310 — without adjusting for the fact that NEET PG 2026 is no longer scored out of 800. That range is a reasonable estimate for the old scale, but applying it directly to 2026 overstates the number candidates should actually expect. Before measuring yourself against any of those figures, calculate your NEET PG score on the 720-mark scale so you are at least reading the same units.

Expected NEET PG 2026 Cutoff, Scaled Correctly

Category	Recent 800-scale trend range	Scaled to 720 (× 0.9)
General / EWS	~280–300	~250–270
SC / ST / OBC	~235–255	~210–230
General – PwBD	~255–275	~230–250

Methodology, plainly stated: this is the recent 800-scale qualifying range multiplied by 0.9 (720 ÷ 800) to reflect the new total. It assumes the relative difficulty and candidate pool stay roughly comparable to recent cycles — an assumption that can break in either direction. A tougher paper pulls raw cutoff marks down; a larger or better-prepared candidate pool can push them in either direction depending on where in the distribution the shift happens. Treat this range as a reasonable planning anchor, not a forecast you can bank on.

The Percentile Structure Behind the Marks

The marks above are just the current best estimate of where these percentiles land — the percentile itself is the actual rule:

Category	Qualifying percentile
General / EWS	50th percentile
SC / ST / OBC (including PwBD)	40th percentile
General – PwBD	45th percentile

As of this writing, NBEMS has not issued a separate notification changing these percentiles for 2026 — the default assumption is that they carry forward. Confirm the officially declared figures against your own result rather than any predicted number, including the ones above.

Why "Expected" and "Final" Can Be Very Different Numbers

This is the part most cutoff-prediction content glosses over. In 2025, the qualifying percentile wasn't a fixed line — it moved during counselling. With roughly 18,000 PG seats sitting vacant, the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare revised the General category cutoff downward, eventually reaching the 7th percentile in later rounds. SC/ST/OBC candidates were, at one point, made eligible even at a 0 percentile, which meant candidates with negative raw scores (a direct consequence of the −1 negative marking) still qualified for counselling.

If a similar vacancy pattern shows up in 2026, the number published on result day is a starting point, not a fixed gate. Don't read a narrow miss on the initial cutoff as a closed door — later rounds have historically moved substantially to fill empty seats.

What to Actually Do With This Number

Use the expected range above to sanity-check your position, not as a target to aim for. Qualifying is the floor for entering counselling — it says nothing about which college or course you can actually get, which depends on the separate, usually much higher, admission cutoff for that specific seat. For the full mechanics of how percentile, rank, and admission cutoffs interact, see our guide on NEET PG marks vs rank.

Official cutoffs are expected to be published alongside results, targeted for September 30, 2026, at natboard.edu.in. That's the number that actually governs your counselling eligibility — everything above is a planning reference until then.

Reflex's daily TROCAR quiz and weekly HAMMER grand test track your standing against a live, current cohort — a more useful signal heading into results than any single predicted cutoff number.