CAT 2026 Exam Date & Complete Schedule: Registration Fees, Admit Card, Result Dates

CAT exam full form is Common Admission Test, the highly competitive management entrance exam conducted by the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). All focus is directed at CAT prep; and not without reason, a poor DILR score can be the undoing of months of hard work as easily as missing a date on your calendar. The CAT 2026 notification has now been released by IIM Indore and a few critical dates are out. We know the complete timeline — what's set in stone and what is still a tentative window based on previous year trends.

Dates labelled "Expected" are based on historical data of when these events occurred in the past exam cycles but not officially verified — always cross verify with iimcat.ac.in closer to the date.

Notification and Registration

Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Indore, conducting the exam notified officially regarding CAT 2026 on July 26, 2026, with the below information listed - examination pattern, fee hike and complete calendar. The registration is open from 3rd August 2026, 10:00AM until September 15th, 2026 at 5:00 PM.

Registration fees for CAT 2026:

• ₹2,700 for General, EWS and NC-OBC candidates
• For SC, ST and PwD candidates: ₹1,350

Candidates need to pay the fee only once, irrespective of the number of IIMs or any other participating institute they shortlist in their application. It's non-refundable, so make sure your category-programme-city matches before payment.

How to register:

• Create your login on iimcat.ac.in list in which they apply it using the valid e-mail ID and mobile number.
• Log back into the portal to fill out the rest of your holistic application: personal information, academic history, and work experience (if applicable).
• Upload the necessary (Image, Signature and Category/Docs as applicable.
• Choose your choice of cities for the tests and pay the exam registration fees to fill in.

Candidates are given one final short window after form submission to rectify mistakes in their forms, mostly photographic image, signature or category-related rectifications, before the form is frozen for admit card generation.

Admit Card

The CAT 2026 admit card will be released on 4th November 2026. Candidates will be able to download their admit card by logging in with their CAT ID and password on the official CAT website.

What the admit card contains:

• Exam slot, address of test centre and time to report
• Candidate photograph and signature
• Roll number and CAT ID

Carry to the exam centre:

• Admit card print out
• A government-issued photo ID with a valid original. (like Aadhaar, passport, PAN, driving licence or voter ID)

Both admit card and original photo ID are mandatory to be allowed inside the exam centre, screenshots or soft copies on mobile devices will not be considered valid.

Exam Day: November 29, 2026

CAT 2026 will be conducted as a computer-based test across roughly 170 test cities in three sessions:

• Morning slot
• Afternoon slot
• Evening slot

The entire test is of 120 minutes (68 questions, with each section: VARC DILR and QA offered in that order for 40 minutes each: No switching between sections is allowed once time is up). As per the official bulletin, PwD candidates are given additional time in each section. The reporting time is generally also well ahead of the slot start, and a candidate turning up post-close of gates will be turned away without any leeway to allow them in (the exam may have not started yet).

ALSO READ: How to prepare for CAT Exam while Working

Answer Key and Result Timeline

Postexamination, IIM Indore generally publishes candidate answer sheets along with a preliminary solution key in the last week of November followed by a brief period around 2 to 3 days usually during which aspirants may formally contest individual questions after paying half a processing charge per question. Valid objections are examined, and the answer key is amended.

After that, final result and scaled scorecard are then likely to be declared in the third/ fourth week of December 2026 on iimcat.ac. Under the login of the candidate — CAT does not mail or courier results, so you will need to save and print your scorecard once it is available since you may need it during the admissions process.

What Happens After the Result

Because CAT percentile is just the first filter. On this, both IIMs and other participant institutes conduct their own shortlisting process where CAT score is combined with academic record, work experience, gender/diversity factors followed by Written Ability Test (WAT) and Personal Interview (PI) rounds from January through March of the following year. Even after your scorecard is out, individual institute websites also need to be monitored closely as all institutes conduct their WAT-PI on different dates, not necessarily through IIM CAT which is the common exam that edges them together.

Download Previous Year Question Papers

FAQs

Q1. When is the CAT 2026 exam?

 CAT 2026 date: IIM Indore will conduct CAT 2026 on Sunday, November 29, 2026 in three sessions across around 170 test cities.

Q2. When does CAT 2026 registration close?

Registration opens from August 3 to September 15 of the year (5:00 PM). Lastly, CAT has very few late registration slots so do not be waiting till the last hour.

Q3. What is the CAT exam fee?

For CAT 2026, the application fee is ₹2,700 for General, EWS and NC-OBC candidates and ₹1,350 for SC, ST and PwD candidates. The fee is paid during the online registration process and is non-refundable.

Q4. When will the CAT 2026 admit card be released?

The CAT 2026 admit card will be released on 4th November 2026. Candidates will be able to download it by logging in with their CAT ID and password on the official CAT website.

Q5. When will CAT 2026 results be declared?

The results are likely to be declared in the 3rd /4th week of December 2026, as is normally the case based on previous cycles, within a few days following release of the final answer key.

Q6. Can I edit my CAT 2026 application after submitting it?

 Yes, IIMs generally give a small window of correction some weeks after the registrations close and this is normally confined to making changes in details pertaining to uploaded documents, such as photograph, signature or caste proof. Once the window is done, core academic & personal information is typically not editable.

Q7. What documents do I need on exam day?

 A physical copy of the admit card for CAT 2026 as well as one original photo ID (government-issued) Both are compulsory for getting into the test centre.

Monitoring each CAT 2026 timeline alongside selecting the appropriate B-school? The PGDM admissions team at JIMS Rohini can help you determine what your next steps would look like.