CSAB 2026 SR1 Fee Payment — Amount, Steps & Deadline

The SR1 seat acceptance fee was not a registration fee — it was a separate payment made only after being allotted a seat in the SR1 result, declared August 6, 2026. It confirmed intent to hold that seat (whether ultimately frozen or floated) and was a mandatory step within the SR1 reporting window of August 6–11, 2026. Skipping this payment, even after completing every other step like freeze/float selection, resulted in the seat being released back into the vacant pool for SR2. Both SR1 and SR2 reporting windows are now closed, and CSAB 2026 counselling has concluded.

The fee structure — ₹30,000 for General/EWS/OBC-NCL and ₹15,000 for SC/ST/PwD — is identical across institute types. Whether your SR1 allotment is at an NIT, an IIIT, or a GFTI (see our NIT vacant seats breakdown for how allotment likelihood varies by institute type), the seat acceptance fee amount doesn't change. This differs from the institute's own tuition and hostel fees, which are entirely separate, typically much larger, and paid directly to the institute later during physical reporting — not through csab.nic.in.

A frequent point of confusion is assuming a JoSAA fee payment carries over to CSAB. It does not. CSAB is a fully separate counselling process with its own registration, choice list, and fee cycle — if you're allotted a seat via CSAB SR1, you pay this fee regardless of any fee you paid earlier during JoSAA. Note also that CSAB eligibility itself generally requires that you did not physically report to a JoSAA-allotted institute, so this scenario mainly applies to candidates who withdrew from JoSAA before reporting.

Payment timing matters more than most candidates expect. CSAB's payment gateway, like most centralized counselling portals, sees the heaviest load in the final hours before a deadline — historically, a meaningful share of candidates who lose an otherwise-secured seat do so because of last-minute gateway timeouts or failed transactions on August 10–11 rather than any eligibility issue. Paying within the first day or two of the reporting window (August 6–7) all but eliminates this risk.

Refunds, when applicable, follow a structured but not-fully-transparent-until-published policy each cycle — broadly, withdrawing before physical reporting/admission finalization typically allows a partial refund after a processing deduction, while completing physical reporting generally forfeits refund eligibility. See our CSAB fee refund policy page for the detailed breakdown once it's confirmed for 2026.