How to Change Your JAMB Course or Institution 2026
You registered for JAMB, picked a course and institution, and now you’ve changed your mind. Maybe your parents aren’t happy with the school. Maybe you realised the course isn’t right for you. Maybe you just want to aim higher. The good news: JAMB allows candidates to change their choices — but only within a defined window and under specific conditions. Here’s how it works.
What You Can Change on JAMB
JAMB allows you to change: your first choice institution, your second choice institution, your course of study, and your JAMB examination town (in some cases, before the exam). What you generally cannot change is your subject combination after you’ve registered — that’s locked in at registration. This matters because some courses require specific subjects, so if you’re switching to a STEM course from an arts combination, you may be stuck until the next UTME cycle.
When Can You Make Changes?
JAMB opens a “Change of Course and Institution” portal window — sometimes before the UTME, sometimes after results are out, and sometimes both. The timing varies by year. For 2026, watch the JAMB website (jamb.gov.ng) for the official announcement of when the change portal opens. These windows are typically brief — sometimes as short as one week — so don’t assume you can do it anytime you feel like it.
Step-by-Step: How to Change Your JAMB Course
Step 1: Go to the JAMB eFacility portal at efacility.jamb.gov.ng. Log in with your JAMB registration number and password.
Step 2: Click on “Change of Course/Institution.” If the portal isn’t showing this option, either the change window hasn’t opened yet or it’s already closed for the current cycle.
Step 3: Select your new first choice institution and/or new course from the dropdown menus. Check that your existing O’Level subject combination and JAMB subjects are compatible with the new course before confirming. An incompatible combination will disqualify your application at the institution level.
Step 4: Pay the change fee. JAMB charges a fee for course/institution changes — this has been around ₦2,500 in recent years, but confirm the current fee on the portal. Payment is made through Remita or the JAMB payment gateway.
Step 5: Confirm and print your updated JAMB result slip showing your new course and institution choices.
Can You Change Institution After Admission?
Once you’ve been offered admission on JAMB CAPS and you’ve accepted it, changing institutions is much harder. You’d need to reject the offer first (which has its own risks), and then hope you can secure an offer elsewhere — either through a supplementary exercise or in the next cycle. Don’t accept an offer you don’t want and assume you can swap it later; the process doesn’t work that way.
Changing Institution vs. Changing Course
These are separate decisions with different implications. Changing institution is relatively straightforward — as long as your JAMB score and O’Level combination meet the new school’s requirements. Changing course is more complex because your JAMB subjects and O’Level credits must align with the new course’s requirements. If they don’t, even a high JAMB score won’t get you in.
What If the Change Window Is Closed?
If you missed the change window, you have a few options. First, see if you can still gain admission through your originally-registered institution under a different course (some schools allow departmental rerouting during clearance). Second, accept that you may need to wait for the next UTME cycle to register fresh. Third, check if the institution you want accepts Direct Entry candidates — if you have the right qualifications, you might be able to come in through that route instead.
A Word of Caution
Don’t switch courses impulsively. Before changing from Course A to Course B, confirm three things: your JAMB subjects work for the new course, your O’Level credits meet the new course’s requirements, and your JAMB score is competitive for the new institution’s cutoff. All three need to line up — fixing one while ignoring the others is how students end up in limbo during the admission season.
