diff --git a/tests/test_config.py b/tests/test_config.py
index e0978bac7c..93bcdbc258 100644
--- a/tests/test_config.py
+++ b/tests/test_config.py
@@ -490,6 +490,30 @@ def test_draft_model_enables_async_scheduling_by_default():
     assert cfg.scheduler_config.async_scheduling is True
 
 
+@pytest.mark.parametrize(
+    ("method", "parallel_drafting", "expected_slots"),
+    [
+        pytest.param("eagle3", False, 0, id="eagle3"),
+        pytest.param("eagle3", True, 7, id="p-eagle"),
+        pytest.param("dflash", True, 8, id="dflash"),
+        pytest.param("dspark", True, 7, id="dspark"),
+        pytest.param("mtp", False, 0, id="mtp"),
+        pytest.param("ngram", False, 0, id="ngram"),
+        pytest.param("draft_model", False, 1, id="draft-model"),
+        pytest.param("draft_model", True, 8, id="pard"),
+    ],
+)
+def test_max_num_new_slots_for_drafting(method, parallel_drafting, expected_slots):
+    speculative_config = SpeculativeConfig(
+        model="ngram",
+        num_speculative_tokens=8,
+    )
+    speculative_config.method = method
+    speculative_config.parallel_drafting = parallel_drafting
+
+    assert speculative_config.max_num_new_slots_for_drafting == expected_slots
+
+
 @dataclass
 class _TestConfigFields:
     a: int
diff --git a/vllm/config/speculative.py b/vllm/config/speculative.py
index be70da78b3..d8f049755c 100644
--- a/vllm/config/speculative.py
+++ b/vllm/config/speculative.py
@@ -1448,19 +1448,44 @@ class SpeculativeConfig:
 
     @property
     def max_num_new_slots_for_drafting(self) -> int:
+        """Return the maximum additional drafting slots per request.
+
+        The scheduler budget already includes one query slot per decoding request.
+        Let K be ``num_speculative_tokens``. Standard configurations require:
+
+        ==================== ============= ======== ================
+        Algorithm            Method        Parallel Additional slots
+        ==================== ============= ======== ================
+        EAGLE3               eagle3        No       0
+        P-EAGLE              eagle3        Yes      K - 1
+        DFlash               dflash        Yes      K
+        DSpark               dspark        Yes      K - 1
+        MTP                  mtp           No       0
+        N-gram               ngram         No       0
+        Draft model          draft_model   No       1
+        PARD                 draft_model   Yes      K
+        ==================== ============= ======== ================
         """
-        Calculate the maximum number of new slots that might be added to the batch
-        when drafting.
-        """
-        slots_per_req = 0  # for serial non-draft-model methods, no change needed
+        num_draft_tokens = self.num_speculative_tokens
+
+        if self.use_dflash():
+            # DFlash uses one bonus query followed by K mask queries.
+            return num_draft_tokens
+
         if self.parallel_drafting:
-            # For parallel drafting, we need one new slot per 'masked' token
-            slots_per_req = self.num_speculative_tokens - 1
+            if self.uses_draft_model():
+                # PARD does not shift the existing input, so all K query
+                # positions require additional slots.
+                return num_draft_tokens
+
+            # The existing query is reused; only masked queries need new slots.
+            return num_draft_tokens - 1
+
         if self.uses_draft_model():
-            # For draft model-based speculation, we need one new slot per request
-            # Since we do not slice the draft tokens
-            slots_per_req += 1
-        return slots_per_req
+            # The autoregressive draft-model input retains one unsliced token.
+            return 1
+
+        return 0
 
     def use_gemma4_mtp(self) -> bool:
         return (