NEST

Candidates must know that the allotment of an examination centre by the NEST Committee has to be regarded as final, and the request for a change of centre will, in general, not be entertained. The address of the test venue allotted to the applicant will be mentioned on the NEST admit card.

Candidates need not send any document to the NEST office in the entire application process. Please refer to the instruction sheet by visiting the official NEST website for details regarding the application process.

The Application fee for the NEST Exam for the upcoming academic session 2026 is notified. The NEST 2026 Application fee for male candidates of the General and OBC categories is INR 1,400. The application fee for candidates in the SC/ST/Divyangjan categories and for all female candidates is INR 700. Payments can be made using credit card/debit card/Netbanking, and UPI modes.

Applications can be submitted only through the NEST 2026 website only. There is no other mode of application submission. Login credentials for logging into the application submission and fee payment portals will be provided upon online registration.

Applicants are encouraged to practise by using a mock test link that will be made available on the NEST 2025 website several days before the exam date. Practice sessions on the computer-based test will be available for all applicants on the application portal after online registration and complete submission of the online application. The application portal will be accessible with the correct login credentials only. 

The mode of the NEST exam is computer-based. On the day of the exam, invigilators will sign in the candidates to the assigned computers. They will have to read the instructions before starting the test. The questions will appear on screen. Select the correct option and click on Save. They can also mark questions for review. Here, they can return to the question to recheck it. The test will be deactivated on the screen once the exam timing is over. The total duration of the exam is three hours. There is no sectional timing. No break will be allowed in between. Students can leave the centre only after the exam is over. 

The merit list for both institutes will be prepared using the best three scores out of the four sections, and the section with the worst score will not be considered. That is, scores out of 180 marks will be considered for preparing the merit list. For NEST question papers of the last few years, refer to the NEST 2024 official website. The language of the question paper will be Hindi and English. In the case of any confusion/discrepancy due to language, the question paper in English will be considered to be the standard one. 

The question paper will consist of 4 (four) sections of objective (MCQ) type questions. Each section is of 60 marks and will contain subject-specific questions from Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, and Physics. Each section will have 20 questions, with exactly one correct answer. Marking a correct answer will fetch 3 marks, choosing an incorrect answer will lead to a deduction of 1 mark and no marks will be deducted for not answering a question. It is in the interest of the candidate to attempt all sections. 

There are 140 exam cities proposed for the NEST 2026 exam. Students can check the list of NEST exam centres here. Candidates must choose 3 centres in order of their preference while filling out the NEST 2026 application form.