The National Testing Agency (NTA) today, February 16, 2026, formally released the Final Answer Key for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main 2026 Session 1. Candidates who stood for the entrance test between January 21 and January 29 can now access the final key at jeemain.nta.nic.in’s official website.
That release of the final answer key cleans up the field so a report of the Session 1 results is in due course for later this evening.
- Key Adjustments: 9 questions dropped. One exciting development of aspirants has been the deletion of 9 questions from different shifts by the NTA in addition to the review of student challenges submitted in the provisional window (February 4–6).
- Bonus Marks: Under the NTA’s policies, any MCQ that is dropped will award +4 marks to candidates who appeared in that shift regardless if they tried the question.
- Numerical Value Questions: If one of the questions in the numerical section is dropped, marks will only be awarded to those who tried it or as specified in the PDF. After dropping questions, there were 5 in Physics, 2 in Mathematics, and 2 in Chemistry, over the different dates, including the January 22 and 23 shifts.
Download JEE Main 2026 Final Answer Key
Candidates do not usually login to get access to the final answer key as it is generally released as a public PDF file.
Follow these steps:
- Go to official portal: go to jeemain.nta.nic.in.
- Locate the link: then click on link "JEE (Main) - 2026 Session 1 Final Answer Key" in the homepage.
- Open the PDF: A shift-wise PDF file will start in a new tab.
- Verify Replies: Check in with your recorded response sheet, matching the "Question ID" and "Correct Option ID".
- Keep for reference Download and print the PDF that will be used in the subsequent result phase.
What’s next: Result and Scorecard
The final answer key is the link document that is used for the determination of the final NTA percentile. No more challenges will be entertained against this final version than we have done for the provisional key.
- Details of the scorecard: Subject-wise percentile scores and aggregate NTA score will be available in the upcoming results.
- AIR: All India Ranks will not be released today. The final AIR, category rank data will not be released until a later point in the period (April 2026), following Session 2.
- JEE Advanced Eligibility: The top 2,50,000 candidates in all categories will qualify to join the JEE Advanced 2026. As of 11:00 AM IST, the result link has been created on the server and should soon be “Active” for student login.
