Twenty-six candidates have bagged a perfect 100 NTA score in the engineering entrance exam JEE-Main, the National Testing Agency (NTA) announced on Monday.

Twenty-four candidates had achieved the feat in 2025.

While over 13 lakh candidates had appeared in the first edition of the crucial exam in January, more than 10 lakh candidates appeared in the second edition in April. Over eight lakh common candidates appeared in both sessions.

Among the candidates who have secured an NTA score of 100, five each are from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana followed by four from Rajasthan, three from Delhi and two each from Maharashtra and Haryana.

One candidate each from Chandigarh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Odisha and Gujarat have achieved the feat.

According to officials, the NTA score is not the same as the percentage of marks obtained but normalised scores.

"The NTA scores are normalised scores across multi-shift papers and are based on the relative performance of all those who appeared for the examination in one shift. The marks obtained are transformed into a scale ranging from 100 to 0 for each shift of examinees.

"The NTA score is not the same as the percentage of marks obtained," a senior official explained.

This year, 96,873 candidates from the general category qualified for JEE (Advanced), followed by 67,597 Other Backward Classes (OBC) candidates, 37,522 SC, 25,009 Economically Weaker Section (EWS) and 18,790 ST candidates, taking the total to 2,50,182.

The Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main is India's largest engineering entrance test and serves as the gateway to undergraduate programmes in institutions such as the National Institutes of Technology (NITs), Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) and other centrally funded technical institutions.

The exam is held in two sessions each year in a computer-based format, with candidates allowed to appear in one or both sessions and their best score considered for ranking.

Published on April 21, 2026