NEET UG 2026 Stray Vacancy Round: Dates, Fees, Rules

The stray vacancy round is the fourth and final round of MCC's NEET UG 2026 counselling, and this year it opens on 12 October 2026. Registration and payment run from 12 to 14 October, choice filling closes at 10:00 AM on 15 October, the result comes on 17 October, and anyone allotted a seat has to join by 26 October. After that date, the All India Quota door for this academic year is shut.

Key Takeaways

• The All India Quota stray vacancy round runs from 12 October to 17 October 2026, with reporting at the allotted college between 19 and 26 October 2026.
• Fresh registration and fresh choice filling are compulsory. Nothing you filled in Round 1, Round 2 or Round 3 carries forward into this round.
• If the stray vacancy round allots you a seat and you do not join it, your security deposit is forfeited and you are out of any further counselling.
• Registration costs Rs. 1,000 plus a Rs. 10,000 refundable security for UR and EWS candidates in All India Quota seats, and Rs. 5,000 plus Rs. 2,00,000 for Deemed University seats.
• MCC's own clear vacancy list for Round 2, published on 3 September 2026, carried 11,302 unfilled seats, so seats do reach the last round, just not the ones most students want.

What is the NEET UG 2026 stray vacancy round?

The stray vacancy round is the mop up round that MCC runs after Round 3, to fill seats that are still empty once every earlier allotment, resignation and no show has been settled. The Medical Counselling Committee runs four rounds for the 15 percent All India Quota, Deemed and Central Universities, AFMC, ESIC colleges, all AIIMS and JIPMER: Round 1, Round 2, Round 3 and this one, officially called Round 4.

Two things make the stray vacancy round different from everything before it. First, it is genuinely final. There is no Round 5 waiting behind it, no mop up of the mop up, and no manual allotment. MCC states plainly in its bulletin that it does not allot any seat on a nomination basis or manually. Second, the rules get strict. Up to Round 2 you could walk away from an allotted seat and lose only your security deposit. In the stray vacancy round, walking away costs you the deposit and removes you from anything that follows.

So treat this round as a decision, not a lottery ticket. Every choice you lock is a seat you are agreeing to take.

What are the official stray round dates?

These dates come from the NEET UG 2026 counselling schedule MCC issued on 14 September 2026, and from the matching All India Quota round schedule. Every clock time below is server time, which is the only time that counts.

Round 3 sits right in front of this. Its All India Quota registration ran from 22 to 30 September 2026, and the last date to join a Round 3 seat was 9 October 2026. That three day gap between 9 and 12 October is exactly when unfilled seats fall into the stray vacancy round.

Who can register, and who is locked out?

Fresh registration is compulsory. MCC's revised information bulletin is explicit: there will be fresh registration and fresh choice filling for the stray vacancy round, so a registration from an earlier round does not carry you into this one. If you skip the 12 to 14 October window, you are simply not in it.

Three groups cannot take part in the stray vacancy round at all:

1. Candidates who did not register for this round inside the official window.
2. Candidates who have already joined or are holding any seat when the round runs.
3. Candidates who were allotted a seat in Round 3 of MCC counselling and did not report for it.

There is one more filter that surprises people every year. After Round 3, MCC shares the allotment data with the Centre and the states. If your name shows up as allotted anywhere in that list, you are removed from the All India stray vacancy round. The reverse happens too: the list of All India stray allottees is passed to the states so they can weed those names out of state stray processing. You cannot sit in two stray rounds and pick the better result afterwards.

A candidate who registered fresh in Round 3 and was not allotted a seat is eligible for the stray vacancy round. That is the clean case.

What does registration cost, and what can you lose?

Two payments go in at registration: a non refundable registration fee and a refundable security deposit. The amounts sit in MCC's revised UG counselling 2026 information bulletin.

If you want both a government seat and a Deemed University seat, you pay only the higher amount, so the Deemed figure covers everything. The security money comes back, but not quickly. MCC refunds it only after all rounds of counselling are complete and it has notified that completion on its portal. The financial custodian then starts refunds within 15 days of the notification and finishes within 30 days, sending the money back to the exact card or bank account it came from.

Now the part that stings. In the stray vacancy round, a seat you are allotted is a seat you must join. Skip it and the security deposit is forfeited and you lose eligibility for anything that follows. And once you join a seat after Round 3, resignation is not allowed at all. So the Rs. 2,05,000 is not just a deposit, it is the price of a choice you will not be able to undo.

How many seats actually reach the last round?

More than students expect, and fewer that anyone wants. MCC publishes a clear vacancy list before each round. The Round 2 clear vacancy list, published on 3 September 2026, runs to 190 pages and carries 11,302 unfilled seats across MBBS, BDS and B.Sc Nursing, listed college by college and category by category.

That is a real number of real seats, and it is also the honest answer to the hope that drives the stray vacancy round. Seats survive to the end of counselling for reasons: high fees at a Deemed University, a location far from home, a bond condition, a college nobody put in their top 20. Nothing about the last round changes a rank. It only changes which leftovers you are allowed to choose from.

Read the college information page and the fee structure before you lock anything. MCC says candidates should examine fee, stipend, bond and service conditions themselves, and that it will not entertain complaints on those grounds afterwards. For context on how many seats exist in the first place, our MBBS seat matrix for 2026-27 sets out the national picture.

How do you register for the stray round, step by step?

1. Open the MCC portal between 12 and 14 October 2026 and complete a fresh registration for the stray vacancy round.
2. Pay the registration fee and the security deposit, registration by 3:00 PM and payment by 6:00 PM on 14 October, server time.
3. Read each shortlisted college's fee structure, bond and stipend details on the MCC college information page before you touch the choice list.
4. Fill your choices from 12 October, and finish by 10:00 AM on 15 October.
5. Lock your choices in the window that opens at 4:00 PM on 14 October and closes at 10:00 AM on 15 October.
6. Wait out seat processing on 15 and 16 October and check the result on 17 October.
7. If a seat is allotted, arrange documents and travel immediately, because reporting runs only from 19 to 26 October.
8. Join by 26 October. There is no extension, and no later round to fall back on.

What changes after 26 October 2026?

On 27 October the 2026 admission year is over for All India Quota seats. The academic session for UG courses already began on 15 September 2026, so students joining through the stray vacancy round are walking into classes that started weeks ago.

If no seat arrives, you have three real options and one that is not real. A repeat NEET attempt in 2027 is real, and for many students it is the right call, especially if the score was close. A private Indian seat at Rs. 60 lakh and upward is real, if the family can carry it. A regulated medical degree abroad is real. What is not real is waiting for an unannounced extra round, because the schedule does not have one.

Our NEET hub covers the repeat attempt route. If you are weighing the third option, the rules to understand first are the Indian ones: what the National Medical Commission recognises, and the screening exam every foreign medical graduate has to clear before practising in India. Start with NMC approved medical colleges abroad and what the FMGE actually is, then look at destinations.

European deadlines that land right after the stray round

Here is a timing detail worth knowing while you sit in the stray vacancy round: European medical faculties are already taking applications for intakes you can still reach. The University of Debrecen, for one, states on its official admissions page that it has stopped accepting Medicine and Dentistry applications for the September 2026 intake because of application volume, that the September 2027 application period opens later this year, and that the final deadline for it is 15 May 2027. The same page lists 1 November 2026 as the application deadline for its January and February intake, across all programmes, which is worth checking with the faculty directly if a spring start interests you.

That is one university, and every faculty sets its own calendar. The pattern holds more widely though: EU medical universities open their main application window months before the September start, and the strong ones close early when they fill. Our application deadlines page tracks the current windows, MBBS in Europe explains how the degree and the course work, and the universities list shows which faculties are in play. If you want the shorter version of what was still open this year, European medical universities accepting 2026 applications is the post to read.

Your plan for the next four weeks

Do these in order, and the stray vacancy round stops feeling like a coin toss.

1. Before 12 October: list every college you would genuinely attend, with its real annual fee and bond condition written next to it.
2. Between 12 and 14 October: register, pay, and keep the payment receipt and transaction reference.
3. By 10:00 AM on 15 October: fill and lock only the colleges from that list. Do not add a seat you cannot afford or would not join.
4. 17 October: check the result the same day, not the next morning.
5. By 26 October: join, or accept that this cycle is done and start the 2027 plan in the first week of November, while European application windows are still open.

Parents, one line for you. The pressure to accept any seat at any price peaks in exactly these two weeks, and a Rs. 2,00,000 deposit on a Deemed seat you cannot fund for five and a half years is a worse outcome than a clear no. Decide the maximum number before the round starts, not during it.

Sources

• Medical Counselling Committee, UG Medical Counselling portal (round structure, current notices, college information): https://mcc.nic.in/ug-medical-counselling/
• Medical Counselling Committee, "NEET-UG Schedule 2026, All India Quota, Deemed, Central, State Quota", dated 14 September 2026 (Round 3 and Round 4 dates, last dates of joining, session start on 15 September 2026): https://cdnbbsr.s3waas.gov.in/s3e0f7a4d0ef9b84b83b693bbf3feb8e6e/uploads/2026/09/20260915112025817.pdf
• Medical Counselling Committee, "Schedule for Online Counselling for NEET 15% AIQ and 100% Deemed, Central Universities, AFMC, AIIMS, JIPMER, Rounds 2, 3 and Online Stray Vacancy Round", dated 14 September 2026 (registration, choice filling, locking, allotment, result and reporting windows): https://cdnbbsr.s3waas.gov.in/s3e0f7a4d0ef9b84b83b693bbf3feb8e6e/uploads/2026/09/202609151605377053.pdf
• Medical Counselling Committee, "Revised UG Counselling 2026 Information Bulletin", 20 August 2026 (fresh registration rule, eligibility exclusions, forfeiture, registration fees and security deposits, refund policy): https://cdnbbsr.s3waas.gov.in/s3e0f7a4d0ef9b84b83b693bbf3feb8e6e/uploads/2026/08/20260820667831297.pdf
• Medical Counselling Committee, "Clear Vacancy Round 2 (MBBS, BDS, B.Sc Nursing), UG Counselling 2026", published 3 September 2026 (11,302 vacant seats across 190 pages): https://cdnbbsr.s3waas.gov.in/s3e0f7a4d0ef9b84b83b693bbf3feb8e6e/uploads/2026/09/20260903254511963.pdf
• University of Debrecen, "Application and admission" (September 2026 Medicine and Dentistry applications closed, September 2027 deadline of 15 May 2027, January and February intake deadline of 1 November 2026): https://edu.unideb.hu/p/application-and-admission