Match Day 2026 hits record high of residency positions

In 2026, a total of 48,050 medical students applied for residency programs, a 1.8% increase from 2025. Of these applicants, 44,344 were matched into over 6,800 residency programs across the United States — a new record. Overall, hospitals and medical centers filled 93.5% of the positions they offered, a slight decrease from 94.3% last year.

According to NRMP, primary care specialties, including internal medicine, pediatrics, and family medicines, continued to offer the largest number of residency positions. In 2026, primary care specialties offered 20,712 residency positions and filled 92.1% of them, a 1.4% decrease from the year before.

Family medicine had the lowest fill rate of the different primary care specialties at 83.6%, a decline from 85% in 2025. Due to persistent challenges in recruiting physicians to the specialty, NRMP will convene a Blue Ribbon Panel of Family Medicine leaders and stakeholders to better understand interest from medical students, evolving dynamics in residency recruitment, and other factors impacting the specialty's growth and sustainability.

NRMP also reported a decrease in fill rates for emergency medicine this year. In 2022 and 2023, fill rates for emergency medicine residency declined due to the COVID-19 pandemic but rebounded in recent years. In 2026, 95.6% of emergency medicine residency positions were filled, a 2.3% decrease from 2025.

In comparison, psychiatry saw growth in both the number of positions offered and its fill rate. In 2026, psychiatry added 30 residency programs, which led to 128 new positions offered. Of the 2,516 psychiatry residency positions, 2,451 were filled, an increase of 71 positions from the year before. 

"The prohibitive increase in H-1B application fees will disproportionately affect rural and socioeconomically disadvantaged communities, which already experience the greatest healthcare workforce shortages," wrote Tarun Ramesh, from Massachusetts General Hospital, and colleagues in a study on the impact of the new H1-B visa fee on the healthcare workforce. "Physicians on H-1B visas are far more likely than their domestic counterparts to fill critical gaps in healthcare delivery systems, such as primary care and psychiatry."

Recently, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a new bill in the House that would waive the new H1-B fee for foreign healthcare professionals, including physicians and nurses. Major healthcare organizations, including the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Hospital Association, praised the bill and urged Congress to work quickly to pass it.

"I live in Flint, Michigan, a very medically underserved place that really depends on international medical graduates," said AMA president Bobby Mukkamala. "If this doesn't get fixed, it leaves places like my hometown and other rural communities without enough physicians to take care of that population.”

"In many such communities, international medical graduates play a vital role in providing care and ensuring patients can see a doctor when they need one," he added.