IISER Registration Process 2026: Registration Process, Fees, Important Documents & City Preference

For Candidates seeking admission under the OBC-NCL category:

1. As per the latest guidelines of the Government of India, the OBC-NCL Certificate should have been issued on or after April 01, 2025.
2. If any OBC-NCL candidate fails to submit the OBC-NCL Certificate (issued on or after April 01, 2025) at the time of online application, the candidate has to upload a signed declaration form.
3. The candidate has to upload a fresh Certificate (issued on or after 1 April 2025) on or before July 7, 2025.
4. If the Certificate is not uploaded by the given date and time, the candidate will not be considered for admission under this category. If qualified, the category will be adjusted accordingly in the Common Rank List.

IISER Entrance Exam is conducted for admission to the 5-year BS MS programme offered at the seven Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research. Apart from that, the IISER Aptitude Test scores are also accepted by IISc Bangalore for the 4-year BS course and for the BS - Medical Sciences and Engineering programme at IIT Madras. Apart from this, other courses at IISERs for which the entrance exam scores are accepted are given below.

• 5-Year BS-MS in Computational and Data Sciences at IISER Kolkata
• 4-Year BS in Economic Sciences at IISER Bhopal
• 4-Year BS in Economic and Statistical Sciences at IISER Tirupati.

IISERs offer admission into courses leading to BSMS Dual Degree, and BS Degree (only at IISER Bhopal) Programs. Admissions are via IAT Channel, KVPY Channel and JEE Advanced Channel. Below are the programmes offered by IISERs: 1. Biological Sciences 2. Chemical Sciences 3. Earth & Climate Sciences/Earth & Environmental Sciences 4. Economic Sciences 5. Engineering Sciences (Chemical Engineering, Data Science & Engineering, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science) 6. Geological Sciences 7. Integrated & Interdisciplinary Sciences (Biological Sciences, Chemical Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, Physical Sciences) 8. Mathematical Sciences 9. Physical Sciences.

There is no age limit to apply or appear for the IISER Entrance Exam 2026. However, applicants must have appeared for their Board examination in 2024, 2025 or 2026. Based on this, applicants must apply for the exam. Apart from this, students should have studied Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Mathematics in Classes 11 and 12. They have to secure a minimum aggregate percentage of 60 (Unreserved categories) and 55 (Reserved categories) in their Class 12 Board exam or equivalent. 

The portal for document upload and freezing of IISER preferences for IISER 2026 Admissions is expected to begin in the month of July 2026, tentatively. After accepting the offer and paying the seat acceptance fee, the candidate can exercise two options:

1. Candidate can FREEZE the seat (they will not participate in further rounds of counselling),
2. Candidate can FLOAT (they will participate in further rounds of counselling to get their higher preferences). The FLOAT option is activated by default for those who pay the seat acceptance fee. A student who has chosen to FLOAT will again be considered for seat allocation in the next round. If they are eligible to secure a seat in an IISER that is higher in their preference list than the currently accepted one, they will be offered that seat.

Upon successful submission of the IISER online application form along with the exam fee, an automated email and SMS were sent to the registered email ID and mobile number of candidates. In case the application process was not submitted, but the application fee got debited, candidates were advised to contact IISER Exam conducting body or visit the official website for assistance for the application status. Even after three days if candidates did not receive the application confirmation, then they were advised to try and complete the IISER IAT 2023 application form.

Candidates are able to fill out the IISER Entrance Exam application form will start in March 2026 onwards. The application process is completely online, and candidates need to register themselves first on the IAT official website.

At the time of online application, a candidate will be shown 9 programmes across 7 IISERs or 7 programs across 7 IISERs if the candidate did not have Mathematics as a subject in class 12 or equivalent and is not eligible for BS Economic Sciences and BS Engineering Sciences. Candidate is required to make a preference list from among these programs for which the candidate wants to be considered for an admission. The preference order must be from the most preferred first preference to the least preferred or last preference. The preference list must contain at least one IISER programme. A candidate will be considered only to those IISER programs which are in the candidates preference list. Consequently, a candidate will not be considered for an admission to an IISER programme that is not mentioned in the candidates preference list.

Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research conduct an entrance exam in order to provide admission to candidates in the five year long BSMS dual degree programme offered by them. On the basis of a candidates score in the IISER Entrance Exam also known as IISER aptitude test, he/she can secure admission at IISER located in Berhampur, Bhopal, Kolkata, Mohali, Pune, Thiruvananthapuram, or Tirupati. Candidates who cleared their Class 12 in the Science stream are eligible to apply for the IISER Entrance Exam 2023. As per the IISER Entrance Exam pattern, there are a total of 60 objective questions that candidates need to complete in three hours duration.

Earlier, there were three channels through which candidates could get admissions to the courses offered at IISER institutions, IISc Bangalore and IIT Madras. From the academic session 2025, admissions are done through the IAT exam channel only, and the other two channels, including JEE Main and KVPY scores, have been discontinued. 

IISER Entrance Exam 2026 notification is expected to be released by the conducting IISER in the second week of March 2026. The exam is conducted for admission to the five-year BS-MS dual degree and four-year BS degree programmes. The IISER Entrance Exam 2025 will be conducted tentatively in the fourth week of May 2026.