JEE Main marks vs percentile vs rank (2026)
For an average-difficulty shift, out of 300. Rank here is the Common Rank List (CRL), the rank before categories are applied. If your shift was tough, read one row up. If it was easy, read one row down.
| Marks | Percentile | Expected CRL |
|---|---|---|
| 300 | 100 | 1 |
| 280 | 99.993 | 108 |
| 260 | 99.977 | 354 |
| 240 | 99.93 | 1,077 |
| 220 | 99.81 | 2,923 |
| 200 | 99.63 | 5,692 |
| 180 | 99.27 | 11,231 |
| 160 | 98.66 | 20,615 |
| 140 | 97.77 | 34,308 |
| 120 | 96.5 | 53,846 |
| 100 | 94.4 | 86,154 |
| 90 | 92.9 | 1,09,231 |
| 80 | 90.9 | 1,40,001 |
| 70 | 88.5 | 1,76,924 |
| 60 | 84.8 | 2,33,847 |
| 50 | 79.7 | 3,12,309 |
| 40 | 69.6 | 4,67,694 |
NTA does not publish marks against percentile. This table is built from published 2026 analyses and NTA's candidate count. Your scorecard percentile is always the final word.
How your marks become a percentile
JEE Main runs in many shifts, and no two papers are equally hard. So NTA does not rank raw marks. It ranks you inside your own shift first.
Your percentile is the share of students in your shift who scored the same as you or less. If 10,000 students wrote your shift and 9,800 of them scored at or below your marks, your percentile is 98. NTA reports it to seven decimal places, which is why you see numbers like 98.4562317.
This is why marks alone cannot give an exact rank. In a tough shift fewer people score high, so your marks go further. In an easy shift the same marks land lower.
Once both sessions are done, NTA takes your better percentile and turns it into a rank across all 15,38,468 candidates: rank = (100 - percentile) / 100 x total candidates.
Worked examples
Same marks, different shifts. This is the gap most students miss.
120 marks, tough shift
About 97.11 percentile
CRL 39,132 to 49,804
120 marks, easy shift
About 95.62 percentile
CRL 59,326 to 75,506
85 marks, moderate shift
About 91.90 percentile
CRL 1,09,662 to 1,39,570
The two 120-mark students above are about 22,948 ranks apart, only because of the shift. If your friend got a different percentile for the same marks, this is why.
What your rank can usually get you
A rough guide for General category students. Exact chances depend on branch, home state and round, so check JoSAA closing ranks for the colleges you like.
| CRL | What is realistic |
|---|---|
| Under 10,000 | Most NITs are open, and popular branches at many of them. Strong IIIT options too. |
| 10,000 to 50,000 | NITs in core branches, newer NITs in better branches, and most IIITs. Home state quota matters a lot here. |
| 50,000 to 1,00,000 | Newer NITs and IIITs through home state quota, GFTIs, and top state government colleges. |
| 1,00,000 to 2,50,000 | State counselling (like UPTAC for UP), GFTIs in later rounds, and private universities that admit on JEE Main percentile. |
| Above 2,50,000 | State counselling and private universities. Many private colleges take 60 to 80 percentile, so do not skip them. |
For NITs, IIITs and GFTIs you also need 75% in Class 12 (65% for SC and ST), or a place in the top 20 percentile of your board. A good rank with low board marks does not work at these institutes.
CRL vs category rank
Your CRL counts every candidate. Your category rank counts only candidates from your category (EWS, OBC-NCL, SC or ST), so it is always lower than your CRL. Seats reserved for a category are filled on category rank, which is why a reserved-category student can get a college that looks out of reach on CRL.
You need a valid certificate in the format JoSAA asks for to use a category seat. If it is missing or invalid at document verification, you lose the category seat and only your CRL counts.
The college list in the tool uses your category, because most colleges publish separate cutoffs for each category.
After your rank: what to do next
- Register for JoSAA if you want NITs, IIITs or GFTIs. Fill as many choices as you would genuinely join, best first. Order matters more than the number of choices.
- Use the mock allotment rounds. They show where your choice list lands before the real rounds. Rearrange after them if needed.
- Keep CSAB in mind. Seats left after JoSAA go to CSAB special rounds, where cutoffs often drop.
- Register for your state counselling too. UP students, for example, go through UPTAC, which also uses JEE Main rank.
- Apply to private universities early. Many admit on JEE Main percentile with their own cutoffs, and some close applications before JoSAA ends.
- JEE Advanced: if you are in the top 2,50,000, register for it for IIT admission. Your JoSAA choices can then include IITs too.
Frequently asked questions
How accurate is this JEE Main rank predictor?
With your NTA percentile, it is close to final, because it uses the same idea NTA uses: how many candidates are above you out of 15,38,468. With marks, it is an estimate. NTA normalises scores shift by shift, so the same marks can be a different percentile in an easy shift and a tough one. That is why you get a range, not one number.
What rank will I get with 98 percentile?
About 30,769 CRL. The maths: (100 - 98) / 100 x 15,38,468 = 30,769. If you are from a reserved category, your category rank will be much lower than this.
Is 90 percentile good in JEE Main?
90 percentile is a CRL of about 1,53,847. That is outside most NIT cutoffs for General candidates, but it clears the cutoff of many private universities and puts you in the game for state counselling. For OBC, SC and ST students, 90 percentile can still lead to NITs and IIITs through category seats.
How many marks do I need for 99 percentile?
Around 171 out of 300 in an average shift. In a tough shift it can be 10 to 15 marks less, in an easy shift 10 to 15 marks more.
What percentile is 150 marks?
In an average shift, 150 marks is around 98.22 percentile, which is a CRL of roughly 24,167 to 30,757.
When does NTA give the actual rank?
After session 1 you only get a percentile. The All India Rank comes with the session 2 result, and NTA uses the better of your two percentiles for it.
What is the cutoff to qualify for JEE Advanced?
The top 2,50,000 candidates across all categories qualify. Out of 15,38,468, that works out to a CRL near 2,50,000, or about 83.8 percentile. The General category cutoff is higher than this, because seats are split by category.
Why is my category rank not shown?
NTA does not publish a fixed link between CRL and category rank, and it shifts every year. Instead of guessing, we use your category to check college cutoffs, because colleges publish category-wise cutoffs.