Your result is out and the score sits below what your course needs. Or the number is fine, but somewhere between January registration and results day you quietly went off Medicine, or Law, or Engineering. Both situations land you in the same spot. You need a JAMB change of course, and you have very little room to get it wrong.
Getting it wrong costs you twice. Every attempt is a fresh ₦2,500, and a rushed switch can drop you into a course your subjects or O’level grades still don’t qualify you for, which means you find out you’re rejected weeks later, after you’ve already paid. This guide walks through the real price, the exact portal steps, the biometric stage nobody warns you about, and the specific errors that sail through online and then collapse at the university.
Quick answer: how it works in 2026
A change of course happens in two stages. You start it and pay online through the JAMB e-Facility portal, which costs ₦2,500. Then you finish it in person with biometric thumbprint verification at an accredited CBT centre or a JAMB office. The change only lands on your CAPS profile after the biometric step, usually within 24 to 72 hours. There is no way to do the whole thing online, and there is no remote biometric option. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to take your money or your profile.
The rest of this is the detail behind that.
Work out why you’re changing before you pay
Candidates who skip this step tend to fix the wrong problem. They switch into a course they still can’t enter, burn a paid correction, and start again. Five minutes of honesty about your actual situation saves you the second ₦2,500.
Your score cleared the school but missed the department
This is the most common trigger, and the one people misread most. JAMB’s institutional minimum is 150, but each department sets its own effective aggregate far above that. Medicine at UNILAG, Law at UI, Engineering at OAU: all of them screen well past the general floor.
The numbers are where it bites. Suppose you scored 200 and your target university’s general cut-off is 180. You cleared the school, so nothing on the portal flags a problem. But once post-UTME and O’level points get folded in, that department’s effective aggregate might need the equivalent of a 270-plus UTME. You were never in range for that specific course, even though you looked fine at the school level. Moving to a related course with a gentler departmental threshold, in the same school or a different one, is usually the quickest recovery.
Your UTME subjects don’t fit the course
JAMB’s brochure fixes the subject combination for every course, and no score gets around a missing one. A candidate who didn’t sit Physics can’t enter most Engineering programmes. One who skipped Chemistry can’t do Pharmacy. Changing the course label on the portal does nothing about this. The gap travels with you into the new course and gets caught when the institution verifies your record.
You genuinely changed your mind
Interests move between registration and results, and that’s normal, especially after you’ve actually spoken to someone who does the job you were aiming for. This is the cleanest reason to switch, because nothing structural is standing in the way. As long as your subjects and O’level credits cover the new course and the window is still open, the correction is straightforward.
The school you now want has closed its post-UTME
Some schools ran short screening windows this cycle. If the university you’ve set your sights on has already closed post-UTME, updating your JAMB institution won’t reopen it for you. This is the reverse of the score problem. Your JAMB profile can point at any school you like, but you can only be admitted where screening is still running, so confirm that before you commit to the switch.
What it costs in 2026
JAMB fixes the official fee, and it’s the same at every accredited centre. The part that moves is the centre’s own service charge.
| Item | Cost | Paid to | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| JAMB correction of data fee | ₦2,500 | JAMB, through e-Facility | Fixed, non-refundable |
| CBT centre service charge | ₦700 to ₦1,000 | The centre | Varies by centre |
| Biometric verification | Free | Included at the centre | Cannot be skipped |
| Realistic total | ₦3,200 to ₦3,500 | Per attempt |
Here’s the part that saves real money. A change of course is not a one-time correction the way a name or date-of-birth fix is. JAMB lets you repeat it, and every repeat is another ₦2,500 to JAMB plus a fresh charge at the centre. Some centres and guides mention a working ceiling of around three attempts, but JAMB hasn’t published a hard public number, so treat the count as uncertain and ask at your centre if you think you’ll need more than one.
You don’t really need the exact limit, though. The practical rule is simpler: plan your first attempt as if it’s the only one you get. Say you pay ₦3,300, switch to a course, and only then discover it wants Chemistry you never sat. Now you pay another ₦3,300 to switch again, and you’ve spent nearly ₦7,000 learning something the brochure would have told you for free. Confirm the new course, the institution, the subject match, and the O’level match before you touch the pay button.
What to have ready before you start
- Your JAMB registration number
- The email and password tied to your e-Facility profile
- At least ₦3,500 on a working card or in Remita
- Your UTME result slip
- A new course and institution you’ve already checked against the brochure
- Your O’level result, so you can confirm you hold the credits the new course wants
Step by step on the JAMB portal
The online stage sets up your payment and files the request. It does not finish the job, so read this together with the biometric section that follows. One without the other leaves your change half done.
- Open the e-Facility portal at efacility.jamb.gov.ng in your browser.
- Log in with the email and password linked to your profile. If you’ve forgotten the password, use the reset link on the login page. Do not create a second profile to get around it. JAMB gives one profile per candidate, and a duplicate causes far worse trouble than a forgotten password ever will.
- Open “Correction of Data” from the dashboard sidebar.
- Select “Change of Course/Institution.” This is the exact service you want, not “Correction of Name” or any other data field.
- Choose 2026 from the year dropdown. Picking the wrong year is a common slip and throws an error message that reads like something is broken when nothing is.
- Check the details already filled in. Confirm your name, registration number, and current course and institution match your records before you change anything.
- Enter your new course and institution. This is where you say what you want to switch to. Copy the course name exactly as it appears in the JAMB brochure for that institution, because small naming differences create verification problems later.
- Pay the ₦2,500 fee by card or Remita. Don’t refresh or close the tab while it processes. When it clears, the portal produces a transaction reference number. Screenshot it straight away, because you cannot complete the next stage without it.
That reference number is both your proof of payment and your ticket to the centre. Without it, the staff there can’t pull up your request.
The stage most people underestimate
This is where most failed changes actually come apart, and it’s the stage scammers lean on hardest.
JAMB requires a biometric thumbprint capture at an accredited CBT centre or a JAMB state office before your change is processed and shows on your profile. The point of it is simple: to confirm the person making the change is really you, not an agent, a relative, or someone who bought your details off you. That’s exactly why it can’t be done from your phone, over WhatsApp, or by anyone who says they’ll “sort it remotely.” There is no remote biometric route. If someone offers you one, they are offering you a scam, full stop.
What to bring to the centre
- Your JAMB registration number
- The transaction reference from your online payment
- A valid means of identification
- Your UTME result slip
At the centre, a staff member pulls up your request using the reference number, captures your thumbprint, and confirms the correction in the system. Your CAPS dashboard should show the new course or institution within 24 to 72 hours.
Picking a centre
Any accredited JAMB CBT centre works. It doesn’t have to be the one where you registered for UTME. Before you travel, ring ahead or check that the centre is open that day, since some run reduced hours mid-cycle. If one centre keeps returning a “username not found” error even though you’ve entered the right details, don’t respond by paying again at three different centres. Go to the nearest JAMB office instead. That error usually sits on the profile-sync side, not with the centre’s equipment.
Choosing a fallback course you can actually enter
If you’re switching because your score fell short, the new course matters more than most candidates admit. Dropping from Medicine to another five-year science you’ll resent for five years is not a win. The goal is a course you can enter this year and won’t regret, so it helps to think in related families rather than random alternatives.
If Medicine is out of reach, candidates often move toward Nursing, Physiology, Anatomy, Medical Laboratory Science, Radiography, or Public Health. These keep you in the health sciences and usually screen lower than Medicine, though Nursing has climbed sharply and is no longer the soft landing it once was. If Law is off the table, related paths include Political Science, International Relations, Criminology, Public Administration, or History and International Studies. If a specific Engineering course is blocked, a sister discipline or a related physical science can keep your subjects valid, provided you sat Physics.
Two checks decide whether any of these will work for you. First, does your existing UTME subject combination still satisfy the new course in the brochure? Second, do your O’level credits cover it? A move only counts as a fallback if you clear both. Switching from Medicine to Pharmacy, for instance, looks like a small step but still demands Chemistry, so it solves nothing if Chemistry is the reason you’re stuck. Pick the new course by working backward from what you already qualify for, not from what sounds prestigious.
Mistakes that pass online and get rejected later
A change can go through cleanly on the portal, take your money, and still be dead before it reaches the university. These are the errors that do it.
The subject combination clash
This is the single most damaging mistake in the whole process. Your registered UTME subjects have to include what the new course requires. If they don’t, the portal may happily accept the switch, but the institution rejects your profile when it verifies your aggregate.
Take a candidate moving to Electrical Engineering without Physics, or to Pharmacy without Chemistry. They’ve changed the course label and nothing underneath it. The eligibility gap is still sitting there. No score overrides a missing required subject, and the only genuine fix in that situation is sitting UTME again with the right combination, which a change of course simply cannot do. Read the brochure for your new course’s required subjects before you pay, and make sure the four you sat cover them.
O’level credits you don’t hold
On top of UTME subjects, every course sets O’level credit requirements. Medicine at most schools wants Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, and English from a single sitting. Law wants a strong five-credit profile. If your O’level grades come up short for the new course, the change won’t cover for you. Line up your credits against the new course’s requirement first.
A school that has already closed post-UTME
Switching your institution to a school that has finished screening lets your profile update but leaves you with nowhere to register. Schools open and close these windows on their own timetables, and the picture shifts week to week. Around mid-July 2026, some Lagos schools had already closed 2026 post-UTME while others were still taking registrations. Rather than trust a date that may have moved by the time you read this, check the current position on our live Post-UTME 2026 portal tracker before you pick a new school.
Rushing to register before the data syncs
After biometrics, JAMB’s central database still has to sync with the individual university’s system. That sync runs anywhere from two days to a full week. Candidates who try to register on the new school’s post-UTME portal the same afternoon often hit a “JAMB Number Not Found” error, simply because the record hasn’t propagated yet. Give it three to five days after biometric confirmation before you attempt post-UTME registration. If the error is still there past five days, contact JAMB directly rather than paying for another correction to “fix” something that isn’t broken.
Handing your login to a third party
No JAMB official, centre operator, or self-styled “admission consultant” needs your e-Facility email and password to process a change. The online stage is self-service and the physical stage happens face to face at the centre. Anyone asking for your login over WhatsApp, or through any remote channel, is angling to take over your profile. Keep it to yourself.
Here’s the same set laid out for quick reference:
| Mistake | On the portal | At the university |
|---|---|---|
| Wrong UTME subjects | Change goes through | Rejected at verification |
| Missing O’level credits | Change goes through | Rejected at admission |
| Closed post-UTME window | Institution updates | Nowhere to register |
| Registering before sync | Nothing to see yet | “JAMB Number Not Found” |
| Sharing login details | Nothing at first | Profile hijack or fraud |
Change of course, change of institution, and correction of data
People mix these three up constantly, so they’re worth pulling apart.
Change of course and change of institution are the same service. Inside “Correction of Data,” the “Change of Course/Institution” option lets you switch your course, your school, or both at once, all in one paid correction. You aren’t choosing between them, and switching both together doesn’t cost extra.
Correction of Data is the wider bucket that also holds name, date of birth, gender, and state or LGA fixes. Those personal-data corrections are usually one-time changes and often need supporting documents, like an affidavit for a name change or a birth certificate for a date-of-birth correction. Course and institution changes behave differently. They can be repeated, and they turn on eligibility rather than paperwork.
Direct Entry candidates are covered too. The same correction route handles DE course and institution changes. You just select the DE data-correction option instead of the UTME one after you log in.
What happens to your admission status when you switch
A change of course does not cancel your candidature or wipe your record. It updates the course and institution attached to your JAMB profile, and admission processing continues from there against the new choice. What it cannot do is carry over any progress you’d made toward the old course. If a school had already picked up your old profile, you’re effectively starting fresh with the new school’s screening, on the new school’s timetable.
This is why timing matters as much as eligibility. If you switch late in the cycle to a school whose screening is nearly over, you can technically hold the right course on your profile and still miss admission because there was no time left to be screened. Watch your CAPS dashboard after the change lands, confirm the new course and institution are showing, and make sure your O’level results are uploaded to CAPS if you haven’t done that yet. An empty O’level slot on CAPS stalls admission even when everything else is correct.
When the portal opens and closes
The 2026 change of course service opened in late May, after the mop-up examination, and has been running since. As of this update, JAMB has not announced an official closing date.
That missing deadline is not permission to relax. In past cycles the service stayed open through July and into early August, closing around the time most university post-UTME windows had wrapped up. In practice, your real deadline is whichever comes first: JAMB shutting the service, or your target school closing its screening. Either can arrive with little warning. For live status on the portal and any fresh JAMB announcements, keep an eye on our JAMB 2026 latest updates page.
Before you click submit
Decide first
- Confirm the new course and institution against the JAMB brochure
- Check your UTME subjects meet the new course’s combination
- Check your O’level credits meet the new course’s requirement
- Confirm the target school’s post-UTME window is still open
- Have at least ₦3,500 ready
On the portal
- Log into efacility.jamb.gov.ng
- Open “Correction of Data,” then “Change of Course/Institution”
- Select 2026
- Enter the new course and institution carefully
- Pay ₦2,500 and save the transaction reference
At the centre
- Bring your reference number, registration number, and valid ID
- Complete the thumbprint capture
- Confirm the staff logged the change
After biometrics
- Wait three to five days before registering on the new school’s post-UTME portal
- Watch CAPS for the updated course and institution
- Confirm your O’level results are uploaded to CAPS
Frequently asked questions
How much does JAMB change of course cost in 2026? The official JAMB fee is ₦2,500. Accredited CBT centres add a service charge of ₦700 to ₦1,000. Budget somewhere around ₦3,200 to ₦3,500 per attempt.
Can I change my course online without visiting a centre? No. You pay and start the request online, but the biometric thumbprint step is compulsory and has to be done in person at an accredited CBT centre or JAMB office. Any agent claiming to complete the whole thing remotely is running a scam.
How many times can I change my course? More than once. Unlike one-time bio-data corrections, a change of course can be repeated, and each attempt is a fresh ₦2,500 payment. Some centres mention a practical ceiling of around three, but JAMB hasn’t published a firm public figure, so confirm at your centre if you expect to need several.
How long does the change take to reflect? Usually 24 to 72 hours after biometrics for your CAPS profile to update. Allow another three to five days on top of that before registering on the new school’s post-UTME portal, since JAMB’s database has to sync with the university’s system first.
What if my UTME subjects don’t support the new course? The change may process on the portal, but the university rejects your profile during aggregate verification. Your registered subjects decide eligibility, not the course label, and no score overrides a missing required subject. Verify the subject match before paying.
Is change of course the same as change of institution? Yes. Both sit under one service, “Change of Course/Institution,” inside Correction of Data. You can switch course, school, or both in a single paid correction.
Can Direct Entry candidates change course? Yes. DE candidates use the same route and select the DE data-correction option after logging in.
The new school’s post-UTME says “JAMB Number Not Found.” What now? The likeliest cause is that JAMB’s data hasn’t synced with that university yet. Wait until it’s been five days since your biometrics. If it still fails after that, contact JAMB directly rather than paying for another correction.
Does changing my course cancel my candidature? No. It updates the course and institution on your profile, and processing continues against the new choice. It doesn’t carry over any progress toward the old course, so with the new school you start from its screening timeline.
The bottom line
The mechanics of a change of course are not the hard part. You pay online, then you verify your fingerprint in person. One portal visit, one trip to the centre. What actually decides the outcome is everything you settle before you submit.
So confirm the subject combination. Match your O’level credits against the new course. Check that the target school’s post-UTME window is still open. Then pay, do your biometrics, wait out the sync, and register. The two mistakes that hurt candidates most, paying before you’re sure of the new choice and handing your login to a stranger, are both easy to make when you’re panicking about a low score, and both completely avoidable.
For a live view of which post-UTME portals are open right now, check our Post-UTME 2026 portal tracker. To understand what your specific score means for your realistic options, read our guide on what your JAMB score really means for admission in 2026.
Want portal changes and deadline alerts as they happen? Join the Acadalite WhatsApp group for real-time updates. Join the WhatsApp Group here
I am Jude Chinecherem, a final-year MBBS student at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. I know what it feels like to want an education your family cannot afford. When my parents could not pay for my schooling, I had to learn how to find scholarships and work the system out on my own, with nobody to guide me. I came out the other side, and now I share everything I learned so the next student does not have to figure it out alone. This is the advice I wish someone had given me back then.
