Checked 26 September 2026. From the GATE 2023–2026 statistical reports and cut-off pages. Scores for chosen marks and “candidates at or above” are our arithmetic from the official formula and mark tables.
GATE EC has changed shape faster than any other large paper: registrations went from 58,342 in 2023 to 1,15,448 in 2026, roughly double in three years, while it stayed a single-session paper. The same marks therefore mean very different ranks from year to year. In 2024, 50 marks placed a candidate among the top 241 of 63,092; in 2026, 1,430 of 95,752 scored that much. This guide sets out the official EC figures from four statistical reports and has a calculator that applies GATE’s own score formula to each year.
GATE 2023–2026 statistical reports; counts summed from the official mark tables.
Where other pages get this wrong
The GATE EC general qualifying mark was 29.9 (2023), 25 (2024), 25 (2025) and 26.4 (2026).
Commonly published instead: “The EC cut-off is 25 every year.”
GATE statistical reports 2023–2026: the qualifying mark is the larger of 25 and the mean plus one standard deviation (capped at 40) — 17.36 + 12.60 = 29.96 → 29.9 in 2023; 14.68 + 11.81 = 26.49 → 26.4 in 2026 (truncated, our check).
What the qualifying mark is — and is not
The qualifying mark is a floor for a GATE score, not a target. It is the larger of 25 and the paper’s mean plus one standard deviation, capped at 40 — so it rises when a year’s field does well and falls when the paper is hard. OBC-NCL and EWS candidates qualify at 90% of it, SC, ST and PwD candidates at two-thirds. Passing it earns a qualifying score — 350 at the general mark, 317 for OBC-NCL/EWS and 242 for SC/ST/PwD in 2026 — and a place on the rank list; on its own it is far below the PSU call lists and M.Tech closing scores in the other guides in this series. For reference, the official 2022 toppers page shows the EC topper at 78 marks (score 1000); we could not retrieve the official 2022 report with that year’s qualifying marks.
| Category | Qualifying mark rule | 2026 EC |
|---|---|---|
| GEN | max(25, min(40, mean + SD)) | 26.4 |
| OBC-NCL / EWS | 0.9 × GEN | 23.7 |
| SC / ST / PwD | 2/3 × GEN | 17.5 |
GATE 2027 Information Brochure (score formula); GATE 2026 statistical report and cut-off page. The official category marks are truncated (0.9 × 26.4 = 23.76 is printed as 23.7; two-thirds is 17.6, printed 17.5).
Four years of official EC results
| 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | Item |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 58,342 | 78,157 | 97,394 | 1,15,448 | Registered |
| 45,833 | 63,092 | 81,475 | 95,752 | Appeared |
| 8,817 | 13,260 | 14,112 | 17,392 | Qualified |
| 19.2% | 21.0% | 17.3% | 18.2% | Qualified / appeared (ours) |
| 29.9 / 26.9 / 19.9 | 25 / 22.5 / 16.6 | 25 / 22.5 / 16.6 | 26.4 / 23.7 / 17.5 | Qualifying marks GEN / OBC-EWS / SC-ST-PwD |
| 17.36 / 12.60 | 16.02 / 8.97 | 14.99 / 10.05 | 14.68 / 11.81 | Mean / standard deviation |
| 74.09 | 61.95 | 71.92 | 71.59 | Mean of top 0.1% or top 10 (M̄t) |
| 90 (1000) | 84.67 (1000) | 82.67 (1000) | 95.67 (1000) | Highest marks (score) |
GATE statistical reports 2023 (IIT Kanpur), 2024 (IISc), 2025 (IIT Roorkee) and 2026 (IIT Guwahati). The 2023 report’s summary table prints EC registered as 70,361, but its category table sums to 58,342 and prints 70,361 for EE — a swap between the EC and EE rows; we use 58,342.
From the table above.
How marks become a score
GATE converts marks to a score out of 1,000 with one formula: score = 350 + 550 × (M − Mq) ÷ (M̄t − Mq), where M is your mark, Mq the general qualifying mark and M̄t the average of the top 0.1% (or top 10) candidates; the qualifying mark scores 350, the topper average 900, and anything above 1,000 is capped. EC has been a single-session paper in every year from 2023 to 2026 — each year’s final answer key is for one session, and the 2026 schedule lists only CS and CE as multi-session papers — so raw marks were not normalised. 2024 was the hard year: the topper average fell to 61.95, so every mark was worth more score.
GATE EC score and rank calculator
Enter your expected marks out of 100 (after negative marking). The calculator applies the official GATE score formula using the real qualifying mark and topper average of the year you pick, and estimates a rank from that year's official mark distribution.
Estimates only. Your real score depends on the 2027 field, which is not known until the result on 19 March 2027. Qualifying marks by category are the official figures for that year. Rank is interpolated between official mark bands and is approximate.
Use a mark you have actually scored in a full timed mock after penalties, and read it against all four years rather than the kindest one. The spread is the honest uncertainty: the 2027 field, its qualifying mark and its topper average are unknown until the result on 19 March 2027, and the rank shown is interpolated between official mark bands.
| Marks | Score on 2026 field | Score on 2025 field | Score on 2024 field | Score on 2023 field |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 | 394 | 409 | 424 | 351 |
| 40 | 516 | 526 | 573 | 476 |
| 50 | 637 | 643 | 722 | 600 |
| 60 | 759 | 760 | 871 | 725 |
| 70 | 881 | 877 | 1000 | 849 |
Scores from the official formula with each year’s qualifying mark and topper average (our arithmetic). In 2024, 70 marks reached the 1,000 cap.
| 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | Target score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50.0 | 41.8 | 46.3 | 46.9 | 600 |
| 58.0 | 48.5 | 54.9 | 55.2 | 700 |
Marks needed for a score of 600 and 700 in each year, from the formula (our arithmetic).
How many scored at least that
| 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | Marks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6,686 | 4,429 | 6,689 | 10,423 | 30 |
| 2,981 | 1,138 | 2,646 | 4,415 | 40 |
| 1,076 | 241 | 874 | 1,430 | 50 |
| 243 | 35 | 225 | 318 | 60 |
| 39 | 3 | 53 | 49 | 70 |
Appeared candidates at or above each mark (for 2023, strictly above, because that report’s bands are “above a, up to b”), summed from the official mark-distribution tables. Our arithmetic.
Our sums of the official GATE EC mark tables.
Never compare raw marks across years. 2024’s paper was so hard that only 35 candidates reached 60 marks; in 2026, 318 did. At the same time the field grew, so a given rank is also a smaller share of candidates each year. The two effects together are why the 50-mark candidate of 2024 (about rank 240) and of 2026 (about rank 1,430) had very different outcomes.
Score bands and ranks
| 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | Score band |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1–16 | 1–26 | 1–33 | 1–33 | 900–1000 |
| 17–78 | 28–87 | 34–125 | 34–149 | 800–900 |
| 81–322 | 98–289 | 135–453 | 163–653 | 700–800 |
| 337–1,028 | 305–817 | 469–1,275 | 681–2,060 | 600–700 |
| 1,077–2,450 | 849–2,085 | 1,312–3,103 | 2,132–4,697 | 500–600 |
| 2,528–4,879 | 2,162–5,377 | 3,214–6,905 | 4,835–9,636 | 400–500 |
| 5,022–9,172 | 5,643–13,809 | 7,103–15,390 | 9,890–19,164 | 300–400 |
Official score-band to rank tables for EC, GATE statistical reports 2023–2026 (2023 bands printed closed at the top, 1000–901 etc.).
Score bands are steadier than marks, but in EC even they have moved: a score of 600 was about rank 1,000 in 2023 and about rank 2,060 in 2026, because twice as many candidates now sit the paper. The two official tables agree with each other — in 2026, 50 marks converts to a score of about 637, the 600–700 band is ranks 681–2,060, and 1,430 candidates scored 50 or more. The lowest ranks in a band can exceed the number who qualified (28,668 against 17,392 in 2026): reserved-category candidates who qualify at lower scores are ranked behind everyone above them.
The full mark distribution
| 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | Marks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,360 (≤0) | 742 | 1,627 | 3,776 | Below 0 |
| 13,270 | 15,034 | 26,889 | 34,650 | 0–10 |
| 16,199 | 29,356 | 35,239 | 33,227 | 10–20 |
| 8,318 | 13,531 | 11,031 | 13,676 | 20–30 |
| 3,705 | 3,291 | 4,043 | 6,008 | 30–40 |
| 1,905 | 897 | 1,772 | 2,985 | 40–50 |
| 833 | 206 | 649 | 1,112 | 50–60 |
| 204 | 32 | 172 | 269 | 60–70 |
| 37 | 2 | 49 | 41 | 70–80 |
| 2 | 1 | 4 | 8 | 80–100 |
Appeared candidates by marks, GATE statistical reports 2023–2026 (2023 bins are “above a, up to b”). In 2026, 3,776 candidates — 3.9% — finished below zero because of negative marking.
Qualified 17,392 (all categories, official); the rest is 95,752 − 17,392 (our subtraction).
Category and gender
| Category (2026) | Registered | Appeared | Qualified |
|---|---|---|---|
| GEN | 37,368 | 29,652 | 5,790 |
| GEN-EWS | 11,209 | 9,786 | 1,996 |
| OBC-NCL | 47,131 | 40,281 | 6,420 |
| SC | 15,175 | 12,272 | 2,488 |
| ST | 4,565 | 3,761 | 698 |
| Female | 46,956 | 38,387 | 3,868 |
| Male | 68,486 | 57,362 | 13,524 |
GATE 2026 statistical report (category and gender tables). Women were 40.7% of EC registrations but 22.2% of those who qualified (our shares).
Practise it, don't just read it
Marks at the top of the EC distribution come from the core subjects. The GATE EC quizzes cover diodes, digital logic, transfer functions, signals, Maxwell’s equations and antennas.
The ProSyllabus GATE EC library has topic quizzes on diode circuits and clippers, Boolean algebra and Karnaugh maps, transfer functions and block diagrams, signals and systems, Maxwell’s equations, and antennas and propagation — the first quiz is free.
What was the GATE EC cut-off in 2026?
26.4 marks (general), 23.7 (OBC-NCL/EWS), 17.5 (SC/ST/PwD).
What rank does 50 marks get in GATE EC?
About 1,430 in 2026, about 874 in 2025 and about 241 in 2024 (candidates at or above 50).
How is the GATE EC score calculated?
350 + 550 × (M − Mq) ÷ (M̄t − Mq), capped at 1,000.
Is GATE EC normalised?
No — it has been a single-session paper every year since 2023.
How many students appeared for GATE EC 2026?
95,752 of 1,15,448 registered.
Why was the GATE EC cut-off 29.9 in 2023?
The mean plus one standard deviation was 29.96, above the floor of 25.
How many marks for a GATE EC score of 600?
46.9 marks in 2026, 46.3 in 2025, 41.8 in 2024 and 50.0 in 2023 (our arithmetic).
How many qualified GATE EC 2026?
17,392.
When is the GATE 2027 result?
19 March 2027.
More in this series
- GATE EC 2027 syllabus changes: FIR/IIR, PID, Miller and more
- GATE EC previous papers 2024–2026, counted question by question
- PSUs through GATE EC: POWERGRID, NTPC, NPCIL and their cut-offs
- M.Tech after GATE EC: CCMT and IIT cut-offs for VLSI and communication
- GATE EC vs EE vs IN (and RA): which paper to write in 2027
- GATE EC notice board — official updates
Sources
- official — GATE 2026 Statistical and Performance Report (IIT Guwahati, PDF)
- official — GATE 2026 — cut-off marks
- official — GATE 2025 Statistical and Performance Report (IIT Roorkee, PDF)
- official — GATE 2025 — cut-off marks
- official — GATE 2024 Statistical and Performance Report (IISc, PDF; archived copy)
- official — GATE 2023 Statistical Report (IIT Kanpur, PDF)
- official — GATE 2027 Information Brochure, IIT Madras (revised 27 Sep 2026)
- official — GATE 2026 EC final answer key (PDF)
- official — GATE 2025 EC final answer key (PDF)
- official — GATE 2024 EC final answer key (PDF)
- official — GATE 2023 EC final answer key (PDF)
- reported — PW — GATE ECE cut off 2026 (reported)
official = a document published by the conducting body. reported = a news or coaching site we could not check against an original. Where sources disagree this page says so rather than picking one.
