Now that the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) held the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test Postgraduate (NEET PG) exam on August 3, medical aspirants are now wondering about the expected cut-off.
The NEET PG cut-off will be announced along with the NEET PG result 2025. Over 2.42 lakh candidates took NEET PG this year. The exam was conducted online in a single shift across 301 cities and in 1052 test centres.
According to Gaurav Tyagi, medical counsellor at Career Xpert, the cut-off marks for NEET PG 2025 are expected to be within a close range to that of the previous year. For the general and EWS category candidates, the qualifying percentile is at 50th, with an estimated cut-off score of 290 to 310 out of 800. Candidates belonging to the SC, ST and OBC categories are expected to qualify for a minimum of the 40th percentile, with the marks ranging between 270 and 290. For the UR-PwBD category, a 45th percentile is considered qualifying, with an expected score lying somewhere between 250 and 270.
| Candidate Category | Qualifying Percentile | Expected Cut-Off Marks (Out of 800) |
| General / EWS | 50th percentile | 290 – 310 |
| SC / ST / OBC | 40th percentile | 270 – 290 |
| UR-PwBD | 45th percentile | 250 – 270 |
| SC/ST/OBC-PwBD | 40th percentile | 270 – 290 |
According to admission counsellor Anubhav Garg, founder of TAB India, a very good attempt in the exam would involve answering around 160 to 170 questions, which could result in an estimated score between 170 and 180 marks. He also shared anticipated cut-offs based on percentile thresholds. For candidates in the General (UR) and EWS categories, the expected cut-off — corresponding to the 50th percentile — is likely to be in the range of 275 to 320 marks. For SC, ST, and OBC candidates, the cut-off — aligned with the 40th percentile — is expected to fall between 230 and 275 marks, although this range may vary depending on the source.
For candidates under the UR PwD category, the expected cut-off, based on the 45th percentile, is estimated to be between 250 and 290 marks.
The NEET PG paper of 2025, according to Tyagi, was of an easy-to-moderate difficulty level, thereby hinting at the possibility of a slightly higher cut-off this year in comparison to 2023 and 2024.
“However, aspirants have to connect with the fact that qualifying cut-offs only make candidates eligible for counselling. Admission cut-offs, however, wherein seats in a particular specialty or college are allotted, are far more severe for highly sought-after specialisations, especially dermatology, radiology and general medicine,” Tyagi added.
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As per Garg, the overall NEET PG paper was easy to moderate. A large proportion of the questions were clinical and case-based questions.
“Around 160 questions were identical or extremely similar to previous years’ questions and they were also adopted (normal questions). Section B was consistently the hardest section, Section A had moderate questions and section C had easy questions,” he added.
The NEET PG 2025 cut-off is the minimum marks common for qualification on the basis of the percentile fixed by the authorities. The qualifying cut-offs are different for different categories and undergo certain changes depending upon the difficulty level of the examination, the number of candidates who appeared for the exam, and the total number of postgraduate medical seats across India.
Last year, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), in consultation with the National Medical Commission (NMC), reduced the NEET PG qualifying percentile across all categories to percentile 5.
