IIT admissions 2026: 16 of 23 IITs allotted more seats than listed capacity
The final round of seat allocation at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) saw the number of seats allotted exceed the total seat capacity by 35, with the gap recorded across 16 of the 23 IITs, according to the Joint Implementation Committee (JIC) report on JEE Advanced 2026.
According to the JIC report 2026, the total seat capacity across the IITs stood at 18,826, while 18,861 seats were allotted in the final, fifth round of the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) process.
The institute-wise data shows that the excess was not uniform across the IITs. The largest difference was recorded at IIT ISM Dhanbad, where 1,215 seats were allotted against a total capacity of 1,210 β five more seats than the listed capacity.
IIT Bombay and IIT Kharagpur each recorded an excess of three seats, with 1,366 and 1,952 seats allotted against capacities of 1,363 and 1,949, respectively.
IIT Madras allotted 1,122 seats against 1,118 seats, while IIT Roorkee allotted 1,357 against 1,353. IIT Bhubaneswar allotted 504 seats against 502, and IIT Delhi allotted 1,251 against 1,249.
The JIC report notes that the 2026 IIT seat capacity included 3,776 female-only supernumerary seats. In the final fifth round, the 18,861 allotments included five supernumerary seats for DS candidates, 15 for foreign nationals and 16 supernumerary minimum-cut-off seats.
The report also shows that 3,814 female candidates secured IIT seats in 2026, accounting for 20.22% of the total allotments. Of these, 3,776 were female-only seats, while 37 female candidates secured seats through the gender-neutral pool.
Among individual institutes, the female share was highest at IIT Tirupati (21.26 per cent), followed by IIT Madras (21.12 per cent), IIT Dharwad (20.85 per cent), IIT Bhubaneswar (20.83 per cent) and IIT Hyderabad (20.82 per cent).
The 2026 JEE Advanced report records 1,87,389 registered candidates, of whom 1,79,694 appeared in both papers and 56,880 qualified. A total of 18,861 candidates were ultimately shown as having seats allotted in the IITs.- EndsRead | NTA releases exam calendar 2026-2027: JEE Main from Jan 22, UGC NET from Dec 14Read | JEE Main 2027 exam dates are out: When students can expect registration
