How Many Students Appear for NEET Exam 2026, Last 6 Years Trend

How Many Students Appear for the NEET Exam 2026? In the latest year, a total of 22 lakhs 9 thousand and 318 students appeared in the NEET UG 2025 exam, which is less than the previous year. IN 2025, 22.76 lakhs students were registered for the exam. These candidates took the medical entrance exam in more than 552 centres across India and 14 locations in foreign countries. The National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET UG 2026) will be held in May 2026. Let us look at how many students took the previous NEET UG exam, as well as the previous year’s data.

How Many Students Appear for NEET 2026?

The number of NEET exam participants increases year after year, and we are expecting more than 23 lakhs students will appear in the 2026 exam. THE NEET UG exam is considered one of the most essential medical entrance tests in India. Every year, lakhs of students prepare for this exam to gain admission to medical schools for MBBS, BDS and other courses. Students who wish to understand the competition level and trends in NEET 2026 might look at the previous year’s data. The data on category-wise appearing students will aid in anticipating the overall competition and how much preparation is required to pass such a big exam.

NEET UG Students Appearing Trends 2026 – 2022

The NEET exam is administered by the National Testing Agency (NTA). According to official NTA data, 2,209,318 students applied for NEET 2025 and 2,333,297 took part in 2024. We can see, more students are taking the NEET each year. In 2020, over 13 lakh students appeared. By 2024, it had surpassed 24 lakh overall. By 2026, the figure is predicted to be considerably higher. This helps us understand how competitive NEET has gotten.

The table above illustrates the increase in the number of NEET aspirants over time.

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NEET Exam Participant Breakdown

Check the exam participants of last year based on the nationality, gender and category-wise. We also provided the data of last year’s PwD students who appeared in the NEET UG exam.

How Many Students Appeared for NEET 2026: Nationality Wise

Many international students take NEET UG 2026 exam. This entrance test is taken by a large number of foreign nationals, non-resident Indians (NRIs), and overseas citizens of India (OCIs). Check the last years data below:

How Many Students Appeared for NEET 2026: Gender Wise

In reality, in recent years, the number of female candidates has outnumbered male candidates. Check how many boys and girls take the NEET exam each year.

How Many Students Appeared for NEET UG 2026: Category Wise

All student categories, including General / Unreserved, OBC, SC, ST, and EWS, apply to NEET. We can use last year’s data to estimate trends.

How Many Students Appeared for NEET 2026: Disability

The number of students from the PwBD (Persons with Benchmark Disabilities) group who took the NEET UG exam has steadily increased. We updated the 2026 data soon.