All candidates who belong to the following categories are eligible for this examination.

• The candidate has passed or has appeared for 10+2 or equivalent examination.
• There is no upper age limit but the candidate can appear only for the exam for 2 consecutive years or 3 consecutive attempts (considering 2 attempts in one year).
• The minimum required score in 10+2 or equivalent exam is 75% or to be in the top 20 percentile for the candidates belonging to General category while for candidates belonging to SC/ST/PWD categories, it is 65% aggregate.
• Candidates must have completed their 12th standard or any equivalent exam with Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics/Bio-Technology with English or any other language from CBSE or any other state board.

Seats are reserved for the candidates based on their categories and family income in the following way

• 15% seats are reserved for candidates belonging to Scheduled Castes.
• 27% seats are reserved for the OBC – NCL candidates.
• 10% seats are reserved for General – EWS candidates.
• 7.5% seats are reserved for candidates belonging to Scheduled Tribes.
• 5% seats are reserved for the Physically Handicapped Candidates

Since 2019, the exam is conducted twice a year, once in January and once in April in multiple shifts. The results are then normalized in the form of percentile and rank is calculated on the basis of percentile. The exam is offered in English, Hindi and Gujarati. From January 2021, it will be offered in eleven languages, namely Assamese, Bengali, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Oriya, Tamil, Urdu and Telugu.

The examination consists of only two papers: Paper 1 for B.E./BTech courses and Paper 2 for BArch and B. Planning courses. A candidate can opt for any or both the papers. Paper 1 is mandatorily a computer-based test (called Online mode) from 2019. Paper 1 has 90 multiple choice questions with only ONE correct option out of four, with 30 questions each from Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. Each correct response fetches 4 marks and each incorrect response gets -1 negative marking. The exam is of 360 marks.

The results are usually declared about one month after the examinations are over. The results show the percentile of the candidate in each subject, the overall percentile, the all-India rank (AIR) and the cut off marks for various categories in the candidate's paper. The rank is calculated on the basis of the best score after the two sessions. Those who qualify JEE Mains are eligible to appear for JEE Advanced that is exclusively for admission to IITs.

All the IITs and NITs participate in the centralized seat allocation process. Some GFTIs Government Funded Technical Institutes) including the schools of Planning and Architecture also participate. Several self-financed institutes also consider the JEE score for admissions.