CAT 2026: Exam Date, Eligibility, Registration, Pattern, Syllabus & Cutoff

The Common Admission Test (CAT) is India's best-known MBA entrance exam. One of the 21 IIMs conducts it every year on a rotation, and this year IIM Indore is the convener. The score is used for PGP admissions at all 21 IIMs and for MBA/PGDM programmes at more than 1,200 other B-schools.

CAT 2026 is a computer-based test with 68 questions in three sections: Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension (VARC), Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning (DILR) and Quantitative Ability (QA). The paper runs for 120 minutes, and each section has its own 40-minute timer. Over 2.5 lakh candidates take the exam every year.

The official notification came out on July 25-26, 2026 and registration closed on September 22, 2026. The admit card is due on November 4, and the exam is on Sunday, November 29, 2026, in three slots across roughly 170 cities.

1. July 25-26, 2026
   Official notification

   July 25-26, 2026
   Out
2. August 3, 2026
   Registration opens

   August 3, 2026
   Over
3. September 22, 2026, 5:00 PM
   Registration closes (extended)

   September 22, 2026, 5:00 PM
   Over
4. September 24, 2026, 5:00 PM
   Fee payment closes

   September 24, 2026, 5:00 PM
   Over
5. November 4, 2026
   Admit card release

   November 4, 2026
   NextUpcoming
6. November 29, 2026 (Sunday)
   CAT 2026 exam

   November 29, 2026 (Sunday)
   Upcoming
7. First week of December 2026
   Provisional answer key

   First week of December 2026
   Expected
8. Second week of December 2026
   Answer key objection window

   Second week of December 2026
   Expected
9. Second week of January 2027
   Result declaration

   Second week of January 2027
   Expected

Dates marked "Expected" are estimates based on previous years. Please confirm on the official website.

Individual IIMs may add their own criteria, such as work experience for some programmes. Check each IIM's admission notice after the result.

CAT 2026 registration is closed. It ran from August 3 to September 22, 2026, and IIM Indore said there would be no further extension. Registered candidates can log in at iimcat.ac.in to check their application status. Those who missed it can plan for CAT 2027, which normally opens in August.

Registration steps

1. 1Go to iimcat.ac.in and open the registration link.
2. 2Create a login with your name, email ID and mobile number.
3. 3Fill in personal, academic and work-experience details.
4. 4Upload a recent passport-size photo and your signature in the given format.
5. 5Choose up to 3 test cities in order of preference.
6. 6Select the IIM programmes you want to apply to.
7. 7Pay the fee online and submit the form.

CAT 2026 Application Fee

How many candidates registered?

IIM Indore has not published official CAT 2026 registration figures yet. Media reports put the number of registered candidates at about 2.84 lakh. For comparison, CAT 2025 (conducted by IIM Kozhikode) had around 2.95 lakh registrations and roughly 2.58 lakh candidates appeared, an attendance of about 87%. Registrations have stayed in the 2.5-3 lakh range for several years.

The CAT 2026 admit card will be available from November 4, 2026 on iimcat.ac.in. Log in with your user ID and password to download it. You cannot enter the test centre without it.

How to download

1. 1Visit iimcat.ac.in on or after November 4, 2026.
2. 2Click the admit card download link on the homepage.
3. 3Log in with your registered email ID and password.
4. 4Download the admit card and take a printout.

CAT 2026 has 68 questions in 120 minutes. Each section is timed separately at 40 minutes, so you cannot return to an earlier section or move ahead before the timer ends. The order is fixed: VARC, then DILR, then QA.

• The test is fully computer-based; rough work is done on scratch paper provided at the centre, which must stay there.
• When a section timer ends you move on automatically and cannot go back.
• TITA questions have no options and carry no negative marking.
• A basic on-screen calculator is available in the QA section only.
• The maximum raw score is 204 (68 questions x 3 marks).

Your exact slot and reporting time are printed on the admit card. Gates usually close 15-20 minutes before the start and late entry is not allowed.

IIMs do not publish a fixed syllabus for CAT; the exam tests skills. Based on recent papers, the topics below are what you can expect in each section.

The provisional answer key is expected in the first week of December 2026, a few days after the exam, on iimcat.ac.in along with the question papers of all three slots. Last year the key came within 4 days and the challenge window stayed open for 4 days; a similar timeline is likely. A final key follows before the result.

How to challenge the answer key

1. 1Log in at iimcat.ac.in after the provisional key is published.
2. 2Open the answer key challenge section.
3. 3Pick the question and submit your objection with reasoning or evidence.
4. 4A fee may apply per challenge and is usually not refunded if the objection is rejected.

The CAT 2026 result is expected in the second week of January 2027 on iimcat.ac.in. For reference, the CAT 2025 result was declared on December 24, 2025 by IIM Kozhikode, about 3.5 weeks after the exam, so CAT 2026 could land anywhere between the second and fourth week of January. The scorecard shows your overall percentile and separate percentiles for VARC, DILR and QA. CAT does not give an All India Rank.

How the score is calculated

• The exam runs in three slots, so scores are normalised to account for small differences in paper difficulty.
• Raw section scores are scaled, then combined into a total scaled score.
• Your overall percentile compares your total scaled score with all candidates.
• Most IIMs also apply a minimum sectional percentile alongside the overall one.

How to download the scorecard

1. 1Visit iimcat.ac.in once the result is declared.
2. 2Log in with your user ID and password.
3. 3Download and save the scorecard. The site is slow right after the result, so retry if needed.

CAT publishes no fixed marks-to-percentile chart. These are indicative ranges from recent years; the real mapping depends on paper difficulty and how everyone performs. Sectional percentiles matter too.

Each IIM releases its own cutoff after the result in January 2027 and uses it to shortlist candidates for WAT/PI. The table gives expected overall percentiles for the General category, based on last year's pattern.

Sectional cutoff

These are projections, not official numbers. Check each IIM's website for the final cutoff matrix after the result.

1. 1
   CAT score shortlisting

   IIMs shortlist on overall and sectional percentiles. You must clear both to get a WAT/PI call.

2. 2
   WAT and PI

   Shortlisted candidates attend a Written Ability Test and a Personal Interview, usually between February and April 2027. Some IIMs use an analytical writing test instead of WAT.

3. 3
   Composite score

   Each IIM combines CAT score, WAT/PI, academics, work experience and diversity factors using its own weights.

4. 4
   Offer letter

   Candidates on the final list get an offer and must pay the seat acceptance fee by the deadline.

Typical selection weightage

All 21 IIMs and over 1,200 B-schools accept the CAT score. Below are the IIMs and some other well-known institutes with the approximate percentile they look for.

All 21 IIMs

• IIM Ahmedabad
  Ahmedabad, Gujarat
• IIM Bangalore
  Bengaluru, Karnataka
• IIM Calcutta
  Kolkata, West Bengal
• IIM Lucknow
  Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
• IIM Indore
  Indore, Madhya Pradesh
• IIM Kozhikode
  Kozhikode, Kerala
• IIM Mumbai
  Mumbai, Maharashtra
• IIM Shillong
  Shillong, Meghalaya
• IIM Rohtak
  Rohtak, Haryana
• IIM Raipur
  Raipur, Chhattisgarh
• IIM Ranchi
  Ranchi, Jharkhand
• IIM Trichy
  Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu
• IIM Kashipur
  Kashipur, Uttarakhand
• IIM Udaipur
  Udaipur, Rajasthan
• IIM Visakhapatnam
  Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh
• IIM Bodh Gaya
  Bodh Gaya, Bihar
• IIM Amritsar
  Amritsar, Punjab
• IIM Sirmaur
  Sirmaur, Himachal Pradesh
• IIM Nagpur
  Nagpur, Maharashtra
• IIM Sambalpur
  Sambalpur, Odisha
• IIM Jammu
  Jammu, Jammu & Kashmir

Other top B-schools

With the exam on November 29, you are in the consolidation phase. Learning new topics matters less now than full-length mocks, spotting patterns and fixing errors.

Download CAT previous year question papers as PDF and practise in exam conditions.

• CAT 2025 Slot 1 Question PaperPDF · 2.7 MB Download
• CAT 2025 Slot 2 Question PaperPDF · 2.5 MB Download
• CAT 2025 Slot 3 Question PaperPDF · 3.9 MB Download
• CAT 2024 Slot 1 Question PaperPDF · 0.8 MB Download
• CAT 2024 Slot 2 Question PaperPDF · 2.7 MB Download
• CAT 2024 Slot 3 Question PaperPDF · 1.4 MB Download

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