CSAB 2026 Special Round 2 (SR2) — Full Date Schedule

CSAB structured SR1 and SR2 as a single continuous allotment cycle built on one registration and one locked choice list, unlike JoSAA where every round has its own choice-fill window. This design exists because CSAB only has two special rounds to work with — compressing registration into two separate cycles would leave too little time for physical reporting and document verification before the academic session begins. The same ranked list, locked by August 5, 2:00 PM, fed both the SR1 algorithm run (August 6) and the SR2 algorithm run (August 12).

A frequent misunderstanding among candidates coming from JoSAA is expecting an "edit choices" option to reappear before SR2 — it doesn't. If you want to modify your preferences between SR1 and SR2, there is generally no provision to do so; your list is locked for the entire CSAB cycle from August 5 onward. This makes the initial choice-locking decision far more consequential in CSAB than any single JoSAA round, since you're committing to one order across two allotment attempts.

Category-wise, SR2 dates apply uniformly to General, EWS, OBC-NCL, SC, ST, and PwD candidates — there's no separate SR2 sub-window by category. What differs by category is typically the closing-rank movement between SR1 and SR2: reserved-category seats at under-subscribed GFTIs and newer IIITs often see more rank movement between the two rounds than General category seats at established NITs, since the reserved pools are proportionally smaller and more sensitive to individual withdrawals.

Institute-tier dynamics also matter here. Older NITs with consistently high demand (Trichy, Surathkal, Warangal, Rourkela) rarely show large SR1-to-SR2 seat count increases, while newer NITs, most IIITs, and especially GFTIs typically see their available seat count grow measurably from SR1 to SR2 as SR1-allotted candidates elsewhere decline or don't report. If your SR1 result was disappointing, it's worth checking our GFTI vacant seats analysis to see where SR2 movement is likely to be largest.

SR2 was the last centralized opportunity in the CSAB cycle. With the August 17 reporting deadline and August 13–18 physical reporting window now closed, CSAB's portal-based process for 2026 is complete; any further seat filling happens, if at all, through individual institute-level spot rounds that are not coordinated through csab.nic.in.