CUET (UG) eligibility

To sit CUET (UG) you need to have passed the Class 12 / equivalent examination, or appearing in 2026, and there is no age limit for the candidates. That is nearly the whole of NTA's test. The seat is a different decision, made by someone else: each university's own eligibility rules also apply, and Mere appearance in CUET (UG) 2026 does not entitle a candidate to be considered for admission unless the programme-wise eligibility of the university is fulfilled. The rule to hold on to is that NTA decides whether you may write the test, and the university decides whether your score gets you in — so both have to be checked, and only the second is likely to filter you.

Who can sit the test?

Anyone who has passed, or appearing in, Class 12 (or equivalent) from a recognised board. There is no upper age limit for the test itself.

On the year you took Class 12, NTA does not rule either: for the year of appearance in Class 12, the conditions of the respective University / Institution apply.

Which examinations count as qualifying?

The bulletin lists them explicitly:

• final examination of the 10+2 system by a recognised Central or State Board (such as CBSE or CISCE)
• Intermediate or two-year Pre-University examination by a recognised Board or University
• final examination of the two-year course of the Joint Services Wing of the National Defence Academy
• Senior Secondary School Examination of the National Institute of Open Schooling with a minimum of five subjects
• Higher Secondary Certificate Vocational Examination
• a Diploma recognised by AICTE or a State board of technical education of at least 3 years duration
• General Certificate Education (GCE) examination (London, Cambridge or Sri Lanka) at the Advanced (A) level
• High School Certificate Examination of Cambridge University, or the International Baccalaureate Diploma
• any Public School, Board or University examination in India or abroad recognised as equivalent to 10+2 by the AIU, UGC or an agency notified by the MoE

Two conditions sit alongside the list. For a qualification from outside India or a board not listed, Class 12 completed outside India or from a Board not listed: a UGC equivalence certificate is required. And if the Class 12 examination is not a public examination, at least one public (Board or Pre-University) examination must have been passed earlier.

What does the university decide?

Everything that actually narrows the field: each university's own eligibility rules also apply — a minimum percentage in Class 12, a specific subject at school, a specific set of CUET papers, and candidates must fulfil the age criteria, if any, of the University / Institution they seek admission to. None of that is NTA's, and none of it is in the bulletin.

Those rules are published by each university in its own document. This site reads them programme by programme from NTA's course-mapping PDFs and says so where a mapping is silent: browse the universities, or work backwards from your papers with the matcher.

Do your Class 12 subjects limit which papers you can take?

Not for registration. You may choose your papers irrespective of the subjects opted in Class XII. They may limit your seat, though, because Candidates may select the subjects based on the eligibility criteria for a programme of a desired university — a programme is free to require a school subject, and some do.

What this page does not settle

Whether a particular programme will take you, and reservation, seat matrices or quotas — all set per university, per programme and per round. The eligibility quiz walks through the common cases; the university's own bulletin settles the rest.