JoSAA/CSAB 2026 Top 20 Percentile Cut-Off Marks: Board & Category Wise
If your board percentage sits under 75% (or 65% for SC/ST/PwD), the top 20 percentile route is what decides whether you can still accept an IIT, NIT, IIIT, or GFTI seat. These cut-offs are released board by board and category by category, and they move every year – below are the real, officially published 2026 figures, along with how to actually read them.
How the Top 20 Percentile Is Calculated
For each board, every student who appeared that year is ranked by total marks out of 500 (their aggregate across five subjects), separately within each category – General, EWS, OBC-NCL, SC, ST, and PwD. The mark scored by the student sitting right at the top-20% line becomes that board and category's cut-off. Score at or above it, and you clear the percentile route even if your percentage is under 75%. Two things trip candidates up here: the cut-off is specific to the exact year you passed Class 12, not just the latest year, and it's calculated out of 500 marks, not as a straight percentage – so a cut-off of "419" means 419 out of 500, or about 84%.
2026 Category-Wise Cut-Off Marks (Out of 500)
The figures below are from JoSAA's official 2026 notification, based on data boards had submitted as of early June 2026. "NR" means Not Received – that board hadn't submitted its figure by the cut-off date this list was compiled.
| Board | General | OBC-NCL | SC | ST |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CBSE | NR* | NR* | NR* | NR* |
| CISCE (ISC) | 452 | 441 | 428 | 392 |
| Andhra Pradesh Board | 479 | 469.5 | 453.5 | 442.5 |
| Maharashtra State Board | 359 | 367 | 337 | 355 |
| Rajasthan Board | 437 | 440 | 425 | 419 |
| Gujarat Board | 403 | 393 | 382 | 360 |
| Madhya Pradesh Board | 419 | 411 | 402 | 386 |
| Haryana Board | 421 | 411 | 396 | NR |
| Punjab School Education Board | 416 | 390 | 394 | 404 |
| UP Board | 352 | 345 | 334 | 332 |
| Chhattisgarh Board | 415 | 418 | 405 | 397 |
| Bihar School Examination Board | 339 | 340 | 323 | 323 |
*As of the official JoSAA notice this data is drawn from, CBSE itself hadn't submitted its 2026 figure yet, along with several other boards including Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and West Bengal. Under JoSAA's own business rules, if your board's cut-off isn't available, you can produce a certificate from your board confirming your top-20-percentile status – and if that's not possible either, CBSE's cut-off is applied in its place. Because boards often submit later in the cycle, always check the live, updated table on josaa.nic.in closer to your counselling round rather than relying on any single snapshot, including this one.
Which Route Should You Actually Use?
Look closely at the table above and a pattern emerges: for a board like Andhra Pradesh, where the General category's top-20-percentile cut-off is 479/500 (nearly 96%), almost every eligible candidate will find the flat 75% rule far easier to clear than the percentile route. For a board like Maharashtra, where the cut-off sits at 359/500 (about 72%) – below the 75% line – the percentile route can actually work in a candidate's favour even with a percentage under 75%. The rule of thumb: check both numbers for your board and category, and remember you only need to clear whichever one is lower for you.
For the full mechanics of how this eligibility rule works alongside JoSAA's admission process, see our guide to the 75%/65% Class 12 eligibility criteria.