The Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) has officially entered the internal processing phase for the seat allotment of the NEET PG 2025 Stray Vacancy round. This critical development follows the successful completion of the choice-filling and locking window, which remained active until 11:55 PM on February 19. This final round of the 2025-26 admission cycle is the concluding opportunity for medical aspirants to secure leftover seats in MD, MS, and DNB programs across government and private institutions nationwide.
Internal Processing of Final Seat Allotment
The National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) and the MCC are currently matching candidates against the final seat matrix based on merit-cum-preference. This round has seen an unprecedented number of applicants due to the Ministry of Health's decision to reduce the qualifying percentile. The processing phase involves verifying the updated eligibility lists against the fresh choices submitted by candidates earlier this week.
- Eligibility Expansion: Following the reduction of the qualifying cutoff to the 0th percentile, approximately 95,913 additional candidates were granted eligibility to participate in this final stage of counselling.
- Software-Driven Matching: The seat allotment is being performed by a centralized computer algorithm that evaluates candidate rank, category-wise reservation policies, and the priority of college preferences.
- Result Publication: The MCC is scheduled to release the final result of the Stray Vacancy round on February 21, 2026, on its official web portal.
- Finality of Allocation: It is important to note that seats allotted in this round are final; there is no provision for further upgrades or "Free Exit" options as the academic session has already commenced.
- Technical Verification: Data scientists at the MCC are currently cross-verifying the allocation data to ensure that no technical glitches affect the final merit-based list being prepared for tomorrow's release.
Detailed Vacancy Status and Institute Verification
Before the processing began, the MCC published a comprehensive seat matrix listing 2,980 clear vacancies across various quotas. These seats remain vacant after the completion of Round 3 and are now being filled to prevent seat wastage in specialized medical fields. To ensure transparency, the committee also released a nearly 2,000-page list of candidates already admitted up to the third round to avoid duplication and seat blocking.
| Category of Seat | Clear Vacancy Count | Total Seats Processed |
| All India Quota (AIQ) | 1,150 | 1,200 |
| Deemed Universities | 980 | 1,000 |
| DNB (Post-MBBS) | 850 | 900 |
| Total | 2,980 | 3,100 |
- Institutional Participation: Medical colleges and institutes across the country have completed the verification of their tentative seat matrix, ensuring that only genuine vacancies are included in the allotment pool.
- Specialty Breakdown: Significant vacancies remain in crucial specialties such as Anaesthesiology, Pathology, and General Medicine, providing a wide range of choices for the expanded pool of eligible candidates.
- Registration Reset: Candidates were allowed to reset their registration details until the morning of February 18, ensuring that all demographic and category data used for the allotment is accurate and up-to-date.
- Verification Protocols: Each participating college is required to confirm the availability of their listed seats in the Stray Vacancy pool to avoid any legal discrepancies post-allotment.
Conclusion
The announcement of the NEET PG stray vacancy results tomorrow will lead directly into the physical reporting phase, which is scheduled to take place from February 22 to February 28, 2026. This period is the final deadline for completing all admission formalities for the 2025-26 academic year. Candidates are reminded that non-joining of an allotted seat in this round carries significant penalties, including the forfeiture of the security deposit and debarment from appearing in the NEET PG entrance examination for the following year. All successful candidates are expected to report with their original documentation and allotment letters to their respective medical colleges immediately after the results are publicized. This round effectively closes the counselling cycle for the current year.