GATE 2026: New sectional paper under engineering sciences, hike in application fee; what changes this year?

For the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) 2026, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati has introduced a new sectional paper – energy science – under the engineering sciences subject, giving greater flexibility to the aspirants. The GATE exam 2026 will be conducted for 30 test papers on February 7, 8, 14, and 15 for admissions to postgraduate engineering programmes and recruitment by Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs).

With the introduction of the new GATE 2026 XE paper section, candidates will now get to choose any two options from eight sections. As per the GATE 2026 exam format, the engineering sciences paper will comprise the following sections:

• Fluid mechanics
• Materials science
• Solid mechanics
• Thermodynamics
• Polymer science and engineering
• Food technology
• Atmospheric and oceanic sciences
• Energy science

The GATE 2026 exam pattern for XE paper gives a weightage of 15 marks to engineering mathematics and 70 marks to the two optional papers (35 marks each).

The addition of a new sectional paper may increase the number of candidates applying for GATE exam 2026 and will impact the GATE cut-off 2026. While the paper will be less competitive, for being new, there will be a lack of exam preparation resources such as previous year question papers.

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A total of 14,937 candidates registered for the XE paper in the GATE exam held last year, of which; 11,156 attempted the questions. GATE cut-off 2025 for XE dropped to 35.4 for the general category. Anant Prakash Pandey secured the All India Rank (AIR) 1 in the paper with fluid mechanics and solid mechanics as his two sectional paper options.

Among the changes this year, the GATE application fee 2026 has been increased for all categories. While there has been a hike of Rs 100 in the application fee for female and reserved applicants, the fee has gone by Rs 200 for the other candidates including the foreign nationals.

GATE 2026 registrations will start from August 25 on the official website, gate2026.iitg.ac.in. The last date to apply is September 25.

GATE 2026: Sectional papers

Rest of the sectional papers in the GATE exam remain the same as last year.