The Medical Counselling Committee has published the full allotment schedule for the 50% All India Quota and 100% of deemed, central university and AFMS dental PG seats. Three rounds and an online stray vacancy round, running from 17 August to 24 October 2026. Every date below — plus the Karnataka window that closes before MCC even opens.
Last verified · 14 August 2026 · against the MCC and KEA notifications
Read this first if you are unsure which page you need. NEET MDS is a separate postgraduate exam and a separate counselling process from NEET UG. MBBS, BDS and BAMS — the bachelor's degrees — are all admitted through NEET UG 2026 counselling, run by MCC and each state authority on the schedule at that link. MDS (Master of Dental Surgery) is a postgraduate degree you can only pursue after completing a BDS, and it runs on its own exam (NEET MDS, conducted by NBEMS), its own MCC schedule, and its own state notifications — entirely separate portals, separate registrations, separate dates from the ones on the NEET UG page. This page covers MDS only. If you are looking for MBBS, BDS or BAMS admission, use the NEET UG 2026 page instead.
The short answer. MCC NEET MDS 2026 Round 1: participating institutes verify the tentative seat matrix on 17 August; registration and payment run 18 to 23 August (registration closes 3:00 PM, payment 6:00 PM on the 23rd); choice filling runs 19 to 23 August to 11:00 PM, with locking open from 4:00 PM on 22 August; allotment processes 24–25 August; the result is 26 August; reporting runs 27 August to 1 September. Round 2 result lands 11 September, Round 3 on 30 September, and the online stray vacancy round result on 16 October 2026. All timings are server time. Register only at mcc.nic.in. Separately, Karnataka's KEA opened PG Dental registration for PGET-2026 at 11:00 AM on 14 August, closing 17 August, 11:59 PM, with the fee payable by 6:00 PM on 18 August.
Open now · KEA notification 13 August 2026
Karnataka closes one day before MCC opens. Read that sentence twice. KEA's PGET-2026 registration for PG Dental courses runs from 11:00 AM on 14 August to 11:59 PM on 17 August 2026. MCC's own MDS Round 1 registration does not open until 18 August. If you are waiting for MCC to start before deciding whether Karnataka is worth applying to, the Karnataka window will already have shut. These are two separate registrations, on two separate portals, with two separate fees, and neither one carries over into the other.
The practical instruction is simple: if there is any realistic chance you would take a Karnataka MDS seat — government, government quota in a private or minority college, or a private seat — register with KEA in the next three days and pay by 6:00 PM on 18 August. Registering does not commit you to anything. Not registering removes the option entirely.
All timings are as per MCC server time, not your phone clock. MCC has historically enforced these to the minute.
| Stage | Dates and cut-off time | Duration | What you actually do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Verification of tentative seat matrix | 17 August 2026 | 1 day | Nothing — participating institutes do this |
| Registration and payment | 18 – 23 August 2026 Registration closes 3:00 PM on 23 Aug Payment open until 6:00 PM on 23 Aug | 6 days | Register and pay at mcc.nic.in |
| Choice filling | 19 – 23 August 2026 Available until 11:00 PM on 23 Aug | 5 days | Fill and order your college and specialisation choices |
| Choice locking | 4:00 PM, 22 August to 11:00 PM, 23 August 2026 | Overlaps filling | Lock your final list |
| Processing of seat allotment | 24 – 25 August 2026 | 2 days | Wait |
| Result | 26 August 2026 | 1 day | Download your allotment letter |
| Reporting and joining | 27 August – 1 September 2026 | 6 days | Report at the allotted institute with originals |
| Verification of joined candidate data | 2 September 2026 | 1 day | Nothing — institutes report to MCC |
The locking window is more generous here than in the UG schedule, and that is worth using. MDS choice locking opens at 4:00 PM on 22 August while filling is still running, and both close together at 11:00 PM on 23 August. So you can build your list, lock it, and still have most of a day in hand — unlike NEET UG 2026, where filling and locking were compressed into the same closing hour. Use that gap deliberately: lock on the evening of the 22nd, sleep on it, and only revisit if something material changes. Do not leave locking to the last hour of the 23rd; the portal is at its slowest exactly then.
Registration, choice filling, result and reporting for each round of the MCC MDS 2026 process.
| Round | Seat matrix | Registration & payment | Choice filling / locking | Result | Reporting |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Round 1 | 17 Aug 2026 | 18 – 23 Aug Reg to 3 PM, pay to 6 PM on 23 Aug |
19 – 23 Aug to 11 PM Locking 4 PM 22 Aug – 11 PM 23 Aug |
26 Aug 2026 | 27 Aug – 1 Sept |
| Round 2 | 3 Sept 2026 | 3 – 8 Sept Reg to 3 PM, pay to 6 PM on 8 Sept |
5 – 9 Sept to 10 AM Locking 4 PM 8 Sept – 10 AM 9 Sept |
11 Sept 2026 | 12 – 18 Sept |
| Round 3 | 21 Sept 2026 | 22 – 27 Sept Reg to 3 PM, pay to 6 PM on 27 Sept |
23 – 28 Sept to 10 AM Locking 4 PM 27 Sept – 10 AM 28 Sept |
30 Sept 2026 | 1 – 8 Oct |
| Online Stray Vacancy | — | 12 – 14 Oct Reg to 3 PM, pay to 6 PM on 14 Oct |
12 – 15 Oct to 10 AM Locking 4 PM 14 Oct – 10 AM 15 Oct |
16 Oct 2026 | 17 – 24 Oct |
Three things stand out when you read the whole cycle rather than one round at a time. First, the reporting windows get longer as the process goes on — six days in Round 1, seven in Round 2, eight in Round 3 and the stray round. That is not generosity; it reflects how far candidates typically have to travel by the later rounds, and how much harder the paperwork gets when a seat is accepted late.
Second, the gap between Round 1 reporting closing (1 September) and Round 2 registration closing (8 September) is a single week. If you take a Round 1 seat and want to upgrade, you have to complete joining formalities and then re-register inside that week. Plan the travel for it now, not on 2 September.
Third, MCC has explicitly directed all participating institutes to treat Saturdays, Sundays and gazetted holidays as working days for this schedule. Do not assume a college office will be shut on a weekend during a reporting window, and equally, do not assume you can use a weekend as slack in your own travel plan.
Half of every government dental college's MDS intake goes to the national pool, allotted on NEET MDS rank with no domicile bar at all. At undergraduate level the equivalent figure is 15%. For a BDS graduate from Assam, Manipur or Nagaland, this is the single biggest structural advantage the PG dental process offers over the UG one.
Every MDS seat in a participating deemed university is filled through MCC. Fees here run far above government colleges and vary sharply by specialisation, so establish the full three-year cost before a single choice goes into your list.
Central university dental seats and Armed Forces Medical Services institutions run through the same MCC schedule. AFMS admission carries service obligations that no other route does — read those terms before you fill the choice, not after allotment.
The remaining half of government college seats, and most private dental college seats, are counselled by each state's own authority on its own calendar. Karnataka's is open right now. Tamil Nadu's closed in July. Assam's runs through DME. See the MDS branch and fee guide →
Notification No. ED/KEA/ADMN/CR-12/2026, dated 13 August 2026, signed by the Executive Director, Karnataka Examinations Authority.
| Activity | Date and time |
|---|---|
| Online registration and application opens | 14 August 2026, 11:00 AM |
| Online registration and application closes | 17 August 2026, 11:59 PM |
| Last date to pay the registration fee | 18 August 2026, 6:00 PM |
| Document verification slot booking, fee amount, list of originals | To be hosted on the KEA website |
KEA states that non-Karnataka candidates are not eligible for reservation. In consequence, they may register only if they scored the 50th percentile or above fixed for the General (UR) category in NEET MDS 2026. SC, ST and OBC eligibility criteria apply to Karnataka SC/ST/OBC candidates only. A candidate from Assam holding an OBC certificate is assessed against the General threshold here.
Government Order SKE 08 SLP 2024 dated 25 August 2025, read with DPAR 02 SeHiMa 2026 dated 27 April 2026, introduced internal reservation within the Scheduled Caste category as SCA, SCB and SCC. KEA's notification is explicit: Scheduled Caste candidates must obtain a caste certificate printed with that internal category and enter the RD number while applying. Fail to do so and you are not eligible to select SC-reserved seats at all.
The notification directs candidates to read the conditions hosted on the KEA website before appearing for verification, and states that those claiming clause 'a' or clause 'y' need not appear for verification. Establish which clause, if any, applies to you before you book a slot and buy a ticket to Bengaluru.
KEA states plainly that merely qualifying NEET MDS 2026 confers no right on a candidate for admission unless eligibility conditions are met and documents submitted, and that only candidates who complete registration including document verification are eligible for PG dental seats in government or private colleges in Karnataka. Registration alone is not enough.
All rounds are KEA's, and all rounds are online. The notification records that per the NMC letter of 24 July 2023, every round of counselling including the stray vacancy round is conducted only by KEA in online mode. There is no separate college-level admission process to chase in Karnataka, and any consultant or college office telling you otherwise is describing something that does not legally exist. Register with KEA and complete document verification, or you are not in the running. Full eligibility rules are in Information Bulletin PGNEET-2026 on the KEA portal at cetonline.karnataka.gov.in/kea/.
Position as verified on 14 August 2026. State MDS calendars are set independently of MCC and of each other.
| Counselling | Authority | Status on 14 August 2026 | Next deadline |
|---|---|---|---|
| All India Quota + Deemed + AFMS | MCC, DGHS | Seat matrix verification 17 Aug · registration opens 18 Aug | Registration closes 23 August, 3:00 PM |
| Karnataka — PG Dental | KEA, PGET-2026 | Registration open · opened 11:00 AM, 14 Aug | Closes 17 August 2026, 11:59 PM · fee by 18 Aug, 6:00 PM |
| Tamil Nadu — MDS | Selection Committee, DME | Application closed 22 July, 11:00 AM | Rank list and counselling dates not yet notified |
| Assam — MDS state quota | DME Assam | No 2026 MDS notice published at the time of writing | Watch dme.assam.gov.in |
What we do not have, stated plainly. This page carries only what the issuing authority has actually published. MCC has released the schedule but not, at the time of writing, the MDS seat matrix — institutes verify it on 17 August, so college-wise and specialisation-wise seat counts follow after that. Tamil Nadu's July notification left rank declaration, counselling dates, course commencement and closure of admission all as “will be notified later”, and those remain unannounced. We have not found a 2026 MDS counselling notice from DME Assam. Where a state is missing from the table above, it is because nothing has been issued that we can read, not because nothing exists — call us and we will check the specific state you need.
Regional Dental College, Guwahati — established 1982 by the North Eastern Council, the first dental college in the Northeast, now affiliated to Srimanta Sankaradeva University of Health Sciences — runs roughly ten MDS seats a year, spread two apiece across Prosthodontics, Periodontics, Conservative Dentistry and Endodontics, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, and Orthodontics. That is the anchor of dental postgraduate training in the region. It is also, on any realistic reading, nowhere near enough for the number of BDS graduates the region produces each year.
Which is why the arithmetic of the All India Quota matters so much more at MDS than it did at BDS. Half of every government dental college seat in the country is in a pool where your Assam or Manipur address is neither an advantage nor a handicap — only your NEET MDS rank counts. A candidate who treats MCC as an afterthought and pins everything on the state quota is competing for a handful of seats when a national pool was open to them on the same score.
The practical shape of a Northeast candidate's 2026 plan, then, is usually three-legged: register with MCC for the national pool, register with the state authorities whose windows are open and whose colleges you would genuinely accept — Karnataka is open this week — and keep the Assam DME route live if and when a notice appears. Running one and skipping the others is the most common and most expensive mistake we see.
Medical Counselling Committee, Directorate General of Health Services. “Schedule for Online Counseling (Allotment Process) for NEET 50% AIQ and 100% Deemed/Central Universities/AFMS — for MDS Course for the Academic Year 2026”, covering Round 1, Round 2, Round 3 and the Online Stray Vacancy Round, published at mcc.nic.in.
Government of Karnataka, Karnataka Examinations Authority. Notification No. ED/KEA/ADMN/CR-12/2026 dated 13 August 2026, “PGET-2026 — Admission to Post Graduate Dental courses for the year 2026-27 in the state of Karnataka”, signed by H. Prasanna, IAS, Executive Director. Portal: cetonline.karnataka.gov.in/kea/.
Tamil Nadu MDS admission 2026-27, Important Dates schedule: notification dated 11 July 2026, online application from 12 noon on 13 July 2026, closing 11:00 AM on 22 July 2026; rank declaration, counselling dates, commencement of courses and closure of admission all recorded as “will be notified later”. Portal: tnmedicalselection.net. Verify every date on the issuing authority's own portal before you register or pay any fee — these schedules are revised mid-cycle and without warning.
How to use this page. Every date here is read from the issuing authority's own notification and was checked on 14 August 2026. Authorities extend and revise deadlines at short notice, sometimes with only a few hours' warning, so treat this page as a starting point and confirm the current date on the official portal before you pay any fee. Orchid Education Foundation is an independent admission guidance firm. We are not an agent of MCC, KEA, or any state counselling authority, we cannot influence any allotment, and no MDS seat in India can be obtained without a valid NEET MDS 2026 score.
18 August 2026. Registration and payment run 18 to 23 August 2026, with registration closing at 3:00 PM on 23 August and the payment facility open until 6:00 PM the same day, both as per server time. Participating institutes verify the tentative seat matrix a day earlier, on 17 August 2026. Registration is at mcc.nic.in and nowhere else.
For Round 1, choice filling runs 19 to 23 August 2026 and stays available until 11:00 PM on 23 August. Choice locking opens earlier, at 4:00 PM on 22 August, and closes at 11:00 PM on 23 August. Both are server time. Unlike the NEET UG schedule, MDS locking opens a full day before filling closes, so you can lock and still have time to reconsider before the window shuts.
26 August 2026. Seat allotment processing runs 24 to 25 August, the result is declared on 26 August, and reporting or joining at the allotted institute runs 27 August to 1 September 2026. Institutes verify joined candidate data on 2 September. Round 2's result follows on 11 September, Round 3's on 30 September, and the online stray vacancy round result on 16 October 2026.
Fifty per cent of MDS seats in government dental colleges go to the All India Quota counselled by MCC, plus 100 per cent of seats in deemed universities, central universities and Armed Forces Medical Services institutions. This is a much larger national pool than NEET UG, where the All India Quota is only 15 per cent. The remaining 50 per cent state quota is counselled by each state authority separately, on its own calendar.
Yes. The Karnataka Examinations Authority issued its PGET-2026 notification for PG Dental courses on 13 August 2026. Online registration runs from 11:00 AM on 14 August 2026 to 11:59 PM on 17 August 2026, with the fee payable on or before 6:00 PM on 18 August 2026. It covers government dental colleges, government quota seats in private and minority dental colleges, and private seats in private dental colleges and private universities in Karnataka. Note that this window closes a day before MCC's own MDS registration opens.
Yes, but without reservation. KEA's PGET-2026 notification states that non-Karnataka candidates are not eligible for reservation, and that they may register only if they have scored the 50th percentile or above fixed for the General (UR) category in NEET MDS 2026. SC, ST and OBC eligibility criteria apply to Karnataka SC/ST/OBC candidates only. For a BDS graduate from Assam or elsewhere in the Northeast, that means the General cut-off applies regardless of the category certificate you hold at home.
No. The Tamil Nadu MDS application window for the 2026-27 session opened at 12 noon on 13 July 2026 and closed at 11:00 AM on 22 July 2026, under a notification dated 11 July 2026. The rank declaration date, counselling dates, course commencement and closure of admission were all left as "will be notified later" in that notification and had not been announced when this page was last verified. If you did not apply by 22 July, the Tamil Nadu state quota route is shut for this cycle — but the MCC All India Quota still reaches Tamil Nadu government dental colleges.
Yes, always. MCC registration gives you nothing in any state, and a state registration gives you nothing at MCC. Separate portals, separate fees, separate deadlines, and in 2026 they do not run in a convenient order — Karnataka's PG dental window closes on 17 August, the day before MCC MDS registration opens on 18 August. Decide now which states you would genuinely accept a seat in and register with each of them within their own window.
Send us your NEET MDS 2026 rank, category and the specialisations you would actually practise, and we will build the choice order with you — MCC and state, together, not one at a time. Free first consultation, as always.