JAMB UTME 2026 Cycle: Fees, Dates, Exam Format, Cut-Offs and Post-UTME Rules, From JAMB’s Own Documents

As of 15 October 2026 I found no 2027 fees or dates published. Everything below is the 2026/2027 admission cycle (exam in April 2026). Treat it as last year’s template, and check jamb.gov.ng when the 2027 advert is released.

The 2026 calendar

Source: JAMB 2026 Manual, section 13 (sale of documents), retrieved 15 Oct 2026, unless stated.

A candidate who waits for the last week of February loses room, not just time. The manual warns that your chosen examination town “may no longer have space for you” and that JAMB “does not post any candidate” to a town other than the one you chose.

What it costs, and why the numbers add up

JAMB restated the fees in its 2 March 2026 bulletin after a rumour of an increase, saying they had not changed since 2019. The manual gives the breakdown.

Check: 3,500 + 1,000 + 700 + 1,500 + 500 = 7,200, and 7,200 + 1,500 = 8,700. Direct Entry is N5,700, which is 1,500 less than the UTME-only price; that is consistent with there being no UTME centre charge, though JAMB does not itemise DE in the text I read. Foreign centres charge $30 (Abidjan, Accra, Banjul, Beau, Cotonou, Jeddah, Johannesburg, London, Malabo, Ouagadougou).

Rules that protect your money, all from the manual:

• Fees are paid once, at e-PIN purchase. “No centre is to charge candidate additional money.” Report overcharging through the ticket system at jamb.gov.ng.
• You must say which e-PIN type you want when buying: “no refund would be made”. A mock you do not want is N1,500 you cannot get back.
• The registration fee is non-refundable (section 9.1), except that JAMB refunds blind, deaf and wheelchair-using candidates who hold the required 5 credits.
• Fixing a wrong detail later costs N2,500 via Remita for a data correction (JAMB support FAQ), and for 2026 “no change will be tolerated” to biodata taken from your NIMC record.

Registration, step by step

The sequence, from sections 5.1 to 5.12 of the manual:

1. Get a NIN. Registration needs your 11-digit National Identification Number. JAMB’s rule is that it must be used on one candidate’s profile only.
2. Create a profile code. From the SIM you will keep, text NIN 00123456789 (your own number, with a space after NIN) to 55019 or 66019. A 10-character profile code comes back by SMS. Do not use a postpaid or bundle line without airtime. JAMB does not accept a change of SIM after profile creation.
3. Buy the e-PIN at a bank, mobile money operator, microfinance bank or other listed outlet. It arrives by SMS. It is “tied to individual profiles and not transferable”.
4. Register in person at an accredited CBT centre with the profile code and e-PIN. All ten fingerprints and a photo are captured on the spot; “no submission of passport photograph”. Parents may not enter the premises, and group or school registration is not allowed.
5. Enter your results (or mark awaiting), choice of institutions and course, UTME subjects, and examination town. Then review and confirm with your fingerprint. The manual states that this authentication “removes blames of error from CBT centres”. Read the screen before you touch the scanner.
6. Print the registration slip using fingerprint authentication.

If a centre or cyber cafe offers to do it for you, note that cyber cafes and tutorial centres may not take part in registration, and centres may not write down your profile code or password.

Eligibility, with the numbers

• Age: at least 16 by 30 September 2026. Younger candidates go through an evaluation: 80% in each of UTME/A-level, post-UTME, SSCE and an exceptional-candidate assessment. JAMB later said only underage candidates scoring 320 and above in the UTME would be shortlisted (bulletin of 27 April 2026).
• Degree entry (100 level): at least five credit passes in English and relevant subjects in not more than two sittings. Mathematics is mandatory for science, technology and social science programmes. ND/NCE entry: four credit passes in relevant subjects.
• Direct Entry: five SSCE credits (not more than two sittings) with at least two at principal or advanced level, or a listed alternative such as an NCE, ND, HND, IJMB, JUPEB or a first degree.
• Subject combination: four subjects, with Use of English compulsory. The manual points candidates to the IBASS eligibility checker, reached from jamb.gov.ng, for the combination required by each course. Look up your course there for every institution on your list.

Announced in May 2026 to take effect from the next admission cycle (not for the 2026 exam): candidates for Colleges of Education (NCE), OND and non-technological agricultural programmes will be exempt from taking the UTME, as reported in JAMB’s bulletin of 18 May 2026. If your first choice is one of these, check the guideline for the 2027 cycle before you buy an e-PIN.

The exam itself

180 multiple-choice questions in two hours, four options each: Use of English has 60 and each of the other three subjects has 40. That averages 40 seconds a question. Only pencils may enter the hall, and no phone, wristwatch, pen or calculator. The interface, keyboard shortcuts, penalties and system-fault procedure are in Your First Computer-Based Exam. The manual also names the 2026 English reading text, “The Lekki Headmaster” by Kabir Alabi Garba.

Your slip carries your session, and the hall time changes. In April 2026 JAMB moved the 6:30 am arrival to 7:00 am, and later set the noon and 1:00 pm sessions at 11:00 am. Lateness and missing slips each appear in JAMB’s misconduct table with the penalty “cancellation of result”.

The mock is worth the N1,500 for one reason. JAMB’s 13 April 2026 bulletin lists centres “warned for minor technical challenges” and centres “delisted” after the mock, and reports 23 centres deleted for poor performance. The mock is the test of the centre as well as of you.

Results and what a score means

Results are checked by texting UTMERESULT to 55019 or 66019 from the SIM used at registration. In 2026 JAMB released 632,752 results for 16 April, then 1,264,940 for 17 and 18 April, giving 1,897,692 of 2,243,761 candidates by 20 April; that left 346,069 not yet released on 20 April, mostly candidates still sitting (2,243,761 – 1,897,692).

JAMB prints thresholds, not a ranking formula. The 2026/2027 national minimum tolerable scores, set at the 11 May 2026 Policy Meeting, were:

Source: JAMB bulletin of 18 May 2026, p. 17. Institutions may set higher marks but not lower ones, and all admissions must go through CAPS, the Central Admissions Processing System. The manual adds that an offer not printed from e-Facility is “null and void” and that JAMB will not recognise it. News-agency coverage of the meeting also reported admission deadlines of 31 October 2026 for public universities, 30 November for private universities and 31 December for polytechnics and colleges of education, with offers to be accepted within four weeks (NAN, 11 May 2026). I did not find those dates in a JAMB document, so confirm them on CAPS before relying on the four-week figure.

Post-UTME: three universities, three sets of rules

JAMB sets no aggregate formula. On CAPS the institution sets its own “minimum scores for UTME, post UTME, aggregate, catchment and ELDS” (JAMB bulletin of 18 May 2026, affiliated-institution procedure). Here is what three universities published for 2026/2027, retrieved 15 October 2026.

Sources: UNILAG notice, UNN notice, Unilorin instructions. UNILAG also required the O’Level upload by 14 August and held its online aptitude test from 27 to 31 July. A candidate who skipped the test would “not be considered”.

Two lessons. First, a UTME score that clears JAMB’s 150 can still be below a given university’s 200 or 160 line. Second, “first choice” is a hard filter at UNILAG and UNN, so the order of your institutions on the registration slip matters more than the fourth entry does. JAMB’s FAQ says changes to your 1st to 4th choice can be made at an accredited CBT centre from the release of results until the final institution cut-off date, with a Remita fee (amount not stated on the FAQ page). The Unilorin notice adds that course changes must be made on CAPS, not on its own portal.

A worked aggregate (illustrative)

Take Unilorin’s 50/30/20 weighting. The notice does not publish how each part is scaled, so this example assumes each is already expressed out of 100.

Check: 30 + 21 + 16 = 67. A 10-point gain in the UTME component adds 5 to the aggregate, a 10-point gain in post-UTME adds 3, and in O’Level adds 2. The UTME still carries the most weight, but a strong screening test is not trivial. This is arithmetic on one university’s published weights, not a prediction for any course.

Related guides

If you are weighing JAMB against other countries’ routes, see UNEB explained and applying to a university in another African country. For preparing when the cut-off is unknown, see preparing when you do not know the cut-off.