NEET Eligibility Criteria 2027: Age, Attempts, Gap Year

NEET eligibility rests on two conditions. You must have completed 17 years of age by 31 December of the year you sit the exam. You must also have passed Class 12 with Physics, Chemistry, Biology or Biotechnology, and English. There is no upper age limit and no cap on attempts.

NEET eligibility criteria 2027: key takeaways

• Age is the only hard date in NEET eligibility. You must turn 17 on or before 31 December of the exam year. The cut-off is the same for every category, with no relaxation for reserved candidates.

• There is no upper age limit. The information bulletin states this in plain words, so a candidate of any age above 17 can sit the exam.

• There is no attempt limit either. No governing document sets one. The word attempt appears in the bulletin only in relation to questions attempted and to malpractice.

• A gap year does not affect NEET eligibility. No official document restricts the year in which you passed Class 12, and several accepted qualifying examinations assume an earlier passing year.

• Biology as an additional subject is now accepted. Candidates who took the required subjects after passing Class 12 can appear, following a decision taken by the regulator in 2023.

• Nothing has been notified for 2027 yet. As of October 2026 there is no 2027 information bulletin or date, so the 2026 rules are the working baseline.

What are the NEET eligibility criteria for 2027?

The NEET eligibility rules come from two places, and it helps to keep them apart.

The regulation sets who may take the exam. That is the Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2023, notified by the National Medical Commission. It names two conditions only: age, and a Class 12 pass with the right subjects.

The information bulletin sets the operational detail. That is published each year by the National Testing Agency and covers nationality, accepted qualifying examinations, documents and percentiles. The current one is the NEET (UG) 2026 information bulletin.

Every NEET eligibility condition below is from those two documents. Our NEET hub covers the exam itself, and the NEET UG eligibility rules web story gives the short version.

NEET eligibility at a glance

NEET eligibility by age, and the date that decides it

You must have completed 17 years of age on or before 31 December of the year in which you appear for NEET. That wording matters, because it ties the cut-off to the exam year rather than to the admission year.

The rule sits in the Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2023. The regulation as first published said 31 January. A corrigendum dated 16 June 2023 replaced that with 31 December, and the December date is the one in force.

For the 2026 exam the bulletin printed the cut-off as a date of birth on or before 31 December 2009. The same cell covers every category, so there is no age relaxation for SC, ST, OBC or candidates with disabilities.

Applying the regulation's own wording, a candidate sitting NEET in 2027 would need to be born on or before 31 December 2010. That follows from the regulation rather than from a 2027 notice, because no 2027 notice exists yet.

Is there an upper age limit for NEET?

No. The bulletin says so directly, in bold, and cites a letter from the regulator's undergraduate board as the authority for it.

This has been settled for several cycles now, and it is one of the few points on which no document disagrees with another. A candidate of 25 or 40 faces exactly the same rule as one of 18.

How many attempts do you get at NEET?

There is no limit. This is an absence rather than a sentence, and it is worth being precise about why.

The regulation lists two conditions for taking the exam, and a cap is not one of them. The information bulletin never sets one either. So the honest statement is that no governing document restricts the number of attempts, not that a document grants unlimited attempts.

Our page on the NEET attempt limit goes through the history of this, and the NEET age limit and attempts web story covers it in one screen.

Which qualifying examinations count

The bulletin lists seven accepted qualifications, numbered as codes. You choose one when you apply.

• Code 01. You are appearing in the qualifying examination and the result is awaited. You may apply and sit NEET, but you must have passed by the first round of counselling to take a seat.

• Code 02. Higher or Senior Secondary, or the Indian School Certificate, after 12 years of study, with Physics, Chemistry, Biology or Biotechnology and English.

• Code 03. An Intermediate or Pre-degree examination in science of an Indian university or board, with practicals, and English as a compulsory subject.

• Code 04. A Pre-professional or Pre-medical examination with the required subjects, taken after Higher Secondary or Pre-University.

• Code 05. The first year of a three-year degree course of a recognised university, with the required subjects including practicals, provided the earlier qualifying examination also carried them.

• Code 06. A BSc of an Indian university with at least two of Physics, Chemistry, Biology or Biotechnology, provided the earlier qualifying examination carried all of them with English.

• Code 07. Any other examination equivalent in scope and standard to an Indian Intermediate science examination, covering the last two years of 10+2 study.

Candidates from foreign or international boards are told to check their qualification against code 07. Our guide to NEET UG registration, documents and fees covers what you upload at this stage.

Subjects you must have studied for NEET eligibility

Four subjects, and the list does not move.

Physics, Chemistry, Biology or Biotechnology, and English. The regulation states it in one line, and the bulletin repeats it inside every qualifying code. Mathematics does not replace Biology, and a science stream without Biology does not qualify on its own.

Can you take Biology as an additional subject?

Yes, and this is a genuine change that still catches families out.

For years, studying Biology as an additional subject after Class 12 disqualified a candidate. The regulator revisited that position in June 2023, taking account of the flexibility the National Education Policy allows in Class 12 subject choice.

You may now appear if you studied Physics, Chemistry, Biology or Biotechnology and English as additional subjects after passing Class 12. The board must be one recognised by the relevant government. Such candidates are also eligible for an eligibility certificate, on documentary proof of having passed those subjects.

The same paragraph appears in the National Testing Agency bulletin and in the Medical Counselling Committee undergraduate counselling bulletin. That second document matters, because it governs the seat rather than the exam.

NEET eligibility marks in Class 12

This is the point where most pages state a figure that the current bulletin does not contain, so read it carefully.

The NEET information bulletin sets no percentage for the qualifying examination. Neither does the 2023 regulation. What they require is a pass in the subjects, and then a NEET score at or above the qualifying percentile.

The familiar percentages come from the older Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 1997, as amended in 2012. That text requires a pass in each of Physics, Chemistry, Biology or Biotechnology and English, with 50 per cent in Physics, Chemistry and Biology taken together. It sets 40 per cent for Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and Other Backward Class candidates, and 45 per cent for candidates with locomotory disability of the lower limbs.

Parts of the 1997 regulations are still relied on, and the regulator's current index of regulations is on the National Medical Commission rules and regulations page. Treat the percentages as the board requirement to aim for, and the percentile as the rule that decides your seat.

The NEET qualifying percentile

This is the figure that actually gates admission, and it is printed in the bulletin.

The percentile is worked out against the highest marks in the all India merit list, so the mark behind it moves every year. The central government may lower it for a given year, and that lowering applies to that year only.

Our page on the marks required for MBBS in NEET and the NEET cutoffs page carry the actual numbers by year. For reserved category documents, see our guide to NEET reservation.

How many candidates actually qualify

Meeting the NEET eligibility conditions is the easy part. Clearing the percentile is where the numbers narrow, and the exam authority publishes the figures.

These are from the National Testing Agency's key data points of NEET (UG) over the years, which also splits them by category and gender.

Qualifying is not the same as holding a seat. Around 11 lakh candidates qualified in 2026 against roughly 1.2 lakh MBBS seats in the country. Our page on MBBS seats in India against NEET numbers sets that out.

Does a gap year affect NEET eligibility?

No. Nothing in the regulation or the bulletin restricts the year in which you passed Class 12.

The qualifying codes make this clear by implication. Codes 05 and 06 describe candidates already in a degree course, which can only happen a year or more after Class 12. If a gap were a bar, those codes could not exist.

What a gap year does affect is paperwork. Some state counselling authorities ask for a gap certificate covering the years between passing Class 12 and applying. Our page on the gap certificate for NEET explains what it is and who asks for it.

Open school and private candidates: what changed

This is the eligibility change worth knowing about, because it happened quietly between two bulletins.

The NEET (UG) 2025 information bulletin still carried an old proviso saying that candidates who passed Class 12 from an open school or as private candidates were not eligible. It then carried a long footnote recording that courts had struck the proviso down, and that such candidates were being allowed subject to pending appeals.

In the 2026 bulletin that proviso and its footnote are gone. The document no longer mentions open schooling or private candidates anywhere. In their place sits the affirmative wording on additional subjects described above.

So the position today is that the bar has been removed rather than replaced with a fresh permission. That is a meaningful difference if you are reading an older guide that still quotes the proviso.

Nationality: who can appear and who can take a seat

Two separate questions, and the bulletin answers them separately.

Indian nationals, non-resident Indians, Overseas Citizens of India and foreign nationals are all eligible to appear for NEET. For admission, persons of Indian origin are added to that list, subject to the rules of the state government or institution concerned.

For Overseas Citizens of India, the bulletin applies a Supreme Court order of 3 February 2023. The Medical Counselling Committee states the practical effect plainly in its own bulletin. Such candidates are treated on a par with Indian citizens. They are eligible for unreserved seats as well as NRI seats in its counselling. Our page on MCC NEET UG counselling covers how those seats are allotted.

One line matters a great deal for families looking outside India. Indian citizens and Overseas Citizens of India who intend to study an undergraduate medical course at a foreign institution also need to qualify in NEET. The exam is unavoidable either way.

Who does not meet the NEET eligibility criteria

• Anyone who turns 17 after 31 December of the exam year. This is the one date with no flexibility and no category relaxation.

• Anyone without Biology or Biotechnology. A Class 12 with Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics does not qualify unless the required subjects are added later.

• Anyone without English in the qualifying examination. It is named in the regulation alongside the three sciences.

• A code 01 candidate who has not passed by the first counselling round. You may sit the exam, but the seat is lost if the result is not in hand in time.

• Anyone whose qualification is not equivalent in scope and standard. Foreign board candidates are measured against code 07, not against their own board's description.

What to do next

1. Check your date of birth against 31 December. Work from the exam year, not the admission year. This is the only condition that can rule you out before you start.

2. Confirm your four subjects on the marksheet. Physics, Chemistry, Biology or Biotechnology, and English, each passed. Look at the certificate rather than at memory.

3. Pick your qualifying code before the form opens. Most application errors come from choosing the wrong one under time pressure.

4. Gather category and disability certificates early. They are needed at counselling rather than at application, and they take longer to obtain than families expect.

5. Arrange a gap certificate if you have a gap. Not every authority asks, but the ones that do ask late.

6. Watch for the 2027 bulletin. Every figure above is from the 2026 cycle. Our page on the NEET exam date is updated as the notification moves.

NEET eligibility criteria 2027: the bottom line

The NEET eligibility rules are narrower than most families fear and wider than most guides suggest.

Two conditions decide whether you can sit the exam: your age on 31 December, and a Class 12 pass with the four required subjects. Everything else people worry about, the gap year, the number of attempts, an age in the thirties, an open school board, is not a bar today. Check the date of birth, check the marksheet, and the rest is preparation rather than eligibility.

NEET eligibility criteria: frequently asked questions

Sources

• National Testing Agency, NEET (UG) 2026 information bulletin, with age, qualifying codes, nationality and percentiles

• National Medical Commission, Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2023

• National Medical Commission, corrigendum of 16 June 2023 substituting the age cut-off date

• National Medical Commission, Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 1997, as amended

• Medical Counselling Committee, undergraduate medical counselling bulletin

• National Testing Agency, NEET (UG) 2025 information bulletin, carrying the earlier open school proviso

• National Medical Commission, index of rules and regulations

• Medical Counselling Committee, undergraduate medical counselling