CUET

Overview

CUET (UG) — the Common University Entrance Test — is conducted by the National Testing Agency for admission to undergraduate programmes at Central Universities and a large number of participating State, Deemed and Private universities across India. It gives applicants from anywhere in the country, including rural and remote areas, a common platform to apply to these universities without sitting separate institution-level entrance tests.

Who can apply

Candidates who have passed, or are appearing in, the Class 12 (or equivalent) examination from any recognised board can apply. For 2026, candidates can choose any CUET subject regardless of what they studied in Class 12, removing the earlier requirement to match CUET subjects to Class 12 subjects.

Exam pattern

CUET (UG) 2026 is held as a computer-based test (CBT) across multiple days and shifts.

For 2026, every paper has a fixed 60-minute duration and all questions are compulsory — the earlier option to skip some questions within a paper has been removed. Each correct answer earns 5 marks, each wrong answer loses 1 mark, and unattempted questions are not penalised.

Syllabus

For 2026, CUET covers 37 subjects in total: 13 languages and 23 domain (subject-specific) papers, plus the General Test. The General Test covers General Knowledge, General Mental Ability, Current Affairs, Quantitative Reasoning, Numerical Ability, and Logical & Analytical Reasoning. A few domain subjects offered in earlier cycles — including Entrepreneurship, Teaching Aptitude, Fashion Studies, Tourism, Legal Studies and Engineering Graphics — have been discontinued for 2026.

Marking and results

NTA releases raw scores along with normalised scores (since candidates sit the same subject in different shifts across different days), which participating universities use for their own admission processes.

Important dates

For the 2026 cycle, the exam window ran from 11 to 31 May 2026 (tentative, computer-based, across multiple days and shifts), with some candidates rescheduled to early June. Registration, syllabus release and admit-card dates are announced separately each year on the CUET portal.

Fees

For 2026, the application fee was ₹1,000 for General candidates, ₹900 for OBC-NCL and EWS candidates, and ₹800 for SC, ST, PwD and third-gender candidates, for up to a set number of subjects; the fee for exam centres outside India was ₹4,500. An additional ₹375 was charged per extra subject chosen beyond the included limit.

How to apply

Applications are submitted online at cuet.nta.nic.in, where candidates register, select the subjects and universities/programmes they wish to apply to, upload documents, and pay the fee.

After the exam

CUET does not run a single centralised counselling process like JoSAA. Instead, each participating university uses CUET scores in its own separate admission and counselling process, with its own cut-offs, seat matrix and timeline — so candidates need to track each university's admission portal separately after the CUET result is out.

Preparation tips

Since every paper (subject and General Test) is a strict 50-question, 60-minute, all-compulsory format, timed practice at that pace is more useful than untimed subject revision alone. Because the CUET subject no longer has to match the Class 12 subject, candidates should confirm each target university's specific subject-combination requirements before choosing which CUET papers to sit.