Islamabad: The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) has announced reopening of the MDCAT 2026 online registration portal for five days, allowing remaining candidates to apply for the medical and dental entrance test now scheduled for September 20.
According to a public notice issued by the PMDC on Thursday, the registration portal will reopen on August 17 and remain available until August 21, 2026. Candidates will be able to register during this period by paying the prescribed fee.
The council said the additional registration opportunity was being provided to facilitate candidates who had not registered during the earlier registration period. It, however, reserved the right to cancel incomplete applications.
MDCAT 2026 was originally scheduled to be held on August 16 but was postponed earlier this month on the directives of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. The PMDC subsequently announced September 20 as the new date for the examination.
The postponement gave candidates more than a month of additional preparation time and also prompted the council to provide another opportunity to those who had missed the original registration deadline.
More than 136,000 candidates had registered for this year’s MDCAT before its postponement. They will compete for over 22,000 MBBS and BDS seats available in public and private medical and dental colleges across the country.
The MDCAT 2026 paper will comprise 180 multiple-choice questions, including 68 questions from Biology, 54 from Chemistry, 40 from Physics and 18 from English.
Under the existing criteria, candidates require at least 60 per cent marks in MDCAT to qualify for MBBS admissions, while the qualifying threshold for BDS is 50 per cent.
The MBBS eligibility threshold also came under discussion at a meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee on National Health Services earlier this week amid concerns over vacant seats in private medical and dental colleges.
Committee chairman Dr Mahesh Kumar Malani questioned why the MDCAT passing requirement for MBBS could not be reduced from 60 to 50 per cent and also suggested reducing the proportion of difficult questions in the entrance test.
However, representatives of the federal health ministry and PMDC opposed lowering the eligibility threshold, while the committee made no formal decision to change the existing requirement.
The PMDC has advised candidates seeking to use the fresh registration window to complete their applications within the five-day period and keep checking the council’s website for further information about MDCAT 2026.