Jharkhand NEET counselling process 2026

The Jharkhand NEET counselling process 2026 is run by the Jharkhand Combined Entrance Competitive Examination Board (JCECEB), through its online portal at jceceb.jharkhand.gov.in. JCECEB prepares the state merit list and conducts counselling for the 85% state quota in MBBS, BDS and BHMS seats across government and private medical colleges in Jharkhand. The 15% All India Quota in government colleges is handled separately by the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC). The two run on different calendars, so a Jharkhand candidate can take part in both.

Authority: Jharkhand Combined Entrance Competitive Examination Board (JCECEB), Science & Technology Campus, Sirkha Toli, Namkum-Tupudana Road, Namkum, Ranchi. Portal: jceceb.jharkhand.gov.in. The figures and rules below reflect the NEET UG 2025 cycle notice (Advt. 28/25), the latest published when this page was prepared. The 2026 notice updates the dates; the structure has held steady. Read the live notice before you file any choices.

Who is eligible

The first gate is residence, and it is a hard one. To take part in the Jharkhand NEET counselling process 2026 you must be a citizen of India and a Local or Permanent Resident of Jharkhand. There is no non-domicile route into the state quota; this is not a preference you can waive. The “Local Resident of Jharkhand” status is the one defined in the state’s Personnel Department resolution of 18 April 2016, and you prove it with a residential certificate from the competent authority, the Circle Officer, the Sub-Divisional Officer (Civil) or the Deputy Commissioner. A provisional certificate from the CO or SDO is accepted at the counselling stage.

The other conditions:

1. NEET UG 2025 qualified. You must have qualified NEET (UG) 2025 and uploading your NEET scorecard is mandatory.
2. Age: completed 17 years on or before 31 December of the admission year. There is no upper age limit.
3. Academics: passed Physics, Chemistry, Biology/Biotechnology and English individually, with at least 50% marks taken together in Physics, Chemistry and Biology/Biotechnology in the qualifying exam (40% for SC/ST/OBC, 40% for General-EWS, 45% for General PwD), per NMC and DCI regulations.

How the Jharkhand state merit list works

JCECEB does not allot state-quota seats off your raw All India Rank. It draws up a separate State Merit List from the NEET scores of all registered Jharkhand-resident candidates, and that list sets your place in the counselling queue. The board publishes a fresh State Merit List for each round before choice filling begins. A claim made in the online application form is what gets you onto that list, so the form has to be filled correctly the first time.

Candidates already included in the State Merit List for an earlier round do not refill the online application form for later rounds; they carry forward.

Registration and fees

Registration is entirely online on the JCECEB portal. You fill the application form, upload your documents, and pay two distinct fees through the payment gateway by card, net banking or UPI.

Beyond the fees sits a refundable security deposit, paid at counselling and tiered by the type of college you are placed in. This is the money that controls whether you can walk away from a seat, so it matters more than the headline fee.

The deposit comes back. JCECEB refunds it within three months after the last round of counselling, provided you either took a valid admission or were not allotted a seat at a later stage. The counselling fee does not come back at all.

The four rounds and the schedule

JCECEB runs four online rounds: Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, and a Stray Vacancy (mop-up) round. Each round follows the same shape. New candidates submit the application form, the board publishes that round’s State Merit List, the vacant seat matrix is displayed, choice filling opens, the provisional seat allotment letter is issued, and you report to the allotted institute for document verification and admission. The 2025 cycle ran like this:

Treat the 2025 dates as a template for sequencing, not as 2026 dates. Read the current notice for the live calendar.

Choice filling and how allotment works

You fill fresh preferences in every round, and there is no cap on how many institutes and courses you can list. JCECEB advises you to list as many as you genuinely want, because the seat is given on merit-cum-choice: the board takes your State Merit Rank and walks down your preference order until a seat is available. A short list narrows your own odds. You can also edit your filled choices on the specified date by logging in again, so you can refine the order right up to that round’s deadline.

Have you set your unreserved fallback deliberately? This is the trap that costs Jharkhand candidates seats. If you mark a reserved-category seat as your first choice and select “None” for the unreserved option, you will not be considered for an unreserved seat when the reserved seat you wanted is unavailable. A reserved-category candidate is meant to put “Yes” so the board can place them against an unreserved seat as a second-choice fallback. Leave it as “None” and that fallback simply does not happen.

What happens after allotment, and when the deposit bites

Once a round allots you a seat, you download the provisional allotment letter from the portal and report to the allotted institute within the reporting window for document verification and admission. The behaviour of the security deposit is what separates Round 1 from the rest.

• Round 1 is forgiving. A seat you are allotted in Round 1 but choose not to take carries no penalty. You can let a low seat go and refile a longer, better-ordered preference list for Round 2.
• From Round 2 the deposit is at risk. If you are allotted a seat in Round 2 or any later round and then do not take admission, your security deposit is forfeited. The same forfeiture applies if your admission is cancelled for giving wrong information or for failing to produce your original certificates.

That single rule is the heart of strategy in Jharkhand. There is no separate freeze or float button on the portal; the only levers are your preference list and the decision to take an allotted admission. Because of the tiered deposit, a Round 2 private or deemed allotment you abandon costs ₹2 lakh, while abandoning a government allotment costs ₹20,000. Build your preference list so that anything you would actually refuse never sits ahead of something you would accept.

How Jharkhand state counselling differs from AIQ

One practical consequence: a Jharkhand BC-I or BC-II certificate is valid for the state quota only. For the 15% AIQ you need a Central OBC-NCL certificate in the central format. If you intend to use both pools, arrange both certificates before counselling opens.

The round-by-round exit rules, deposit-forfeiture decisions and refund timing are covered in more depth in our separate Jharkhand exit-rules guide, and the full certificate checklist with issuing authorities sits in our Jharkhand documents guide. JCECEB states that counselling follows MCC guidelines; where the live notice differs from anything here, the notice on the board’s website is the authority.

Related Jharkhand guides

• Jharkhand counselling exit rules: round-by-round deposits, deadlines and penalties
• Jharkhand NEET counselling: full document checklist