CAT 2026 Notification — Expected Release Date, Conducting IIM & What Happens Next

Every CAT cycle starts the same way: a single PDF, published on one specific day, that turns a year of “probably November” planning into confirmed dates. The CAT 2026 notification hasn’t dropped yet — here’s exactly when to expect it, which IIM is likely hosting this year, and what to do the moment it’s out, from the Quantifiers team.

1. What the CAT 2026 Notification Actually Is

The CAT notification is the single official document that turns projected dates into confirmed ones. It’s released by whichever IIM is hosting that year’s exam, published first as a short advertisement in English and Hindi, followed a few days later by the full information bulletin PDF. Until that PDF is live, every date circulating — including the ones in this article — is a well-informed estimate based on past patterns, not a confirmed fact.

This distinction matters more than it sounds. Aspirants often start referring to “CAT 2026 dates” as though they’re settled the moment July begins, when in reality the conducting IIM, exact registration window, and final exam date are only locked in once the notification itself is published.

2. CAT Notification Release Dates — A 10-Year Pattern

The notification’s release window has stayed remarkably consistent — almost every year, it lands in the last week of July, generally on a Sunday.

Table 1 — CAT Notification Release Dates, 2017–2025

3. Which IIM Will Conduct CAT 2026?

CAT rotates among a fixed group of older, established IIMs, and the sequence has held steady for nearly two decades. Based on that rotation, IIM Indore is due to host CAT 2026 — it last conducted the exam in 2020, six cycles ago.

Table 2 — CAT Conducting IIM by Year

4. What the CAT 2026 Notification PDF Will Contain

Once released, the official information bulletin is a dense but essential document. It typically spans the following:

• Exam conducting body and hosting IIM for the current cycle
• Confirmed exam date and number of test sessions
• Full list of participating IIMs and the programmes each one offers through CAT
• Eligibility criteria, including minimum qualifying marks by category
• Reservation policy across SC, ST, OBC-NC, EWS, and PwD categories
• Registration fee structure by category
• Registration start and end dates, along with the correction window
• List of test cities and centres
• Admission process overview for participating institutes

5. CAT 2026 Expected Dates — Full Timeline

Until the notification confirms otherwise, here’s the working timeline based on how the last several cycles have played out.

Table 3 — CAT 2026 Expected Timeline

6. What to Prepare Before the Notification Drops

Waiting for the notification doesn’t mean waiting to prepare. Use the run-up to actually get ahead on the parts of the process that don’t depend on the PDF itself.

• Confirm your own eligibility against the general criteria — a bachelor’s degree with at least 50% aggregate (45% for reserved categories), or final-year status with conditional eligibility. This rarely shifts year to year, so there’s little reason to wait on it.
• Gather your documents now — a valid email ID and mobile number, your 10th, 12th, and graduation mark sheets, scanned photograph and signature, and category certificate if applicable. Scrambling for these during a live registration window costs time you don’t need to lose.
• Identify your weaker sections through a diagnostic mock if you haven’t already — this is genuinely independent of the notification and is one of the highest-leverage things to do while dates remain unconfirmed.
• Bookmark the official site directly rather than relying on a search result or a saved screenshot, so you’re not caught refreshing an outdated page once the notification actually goes live.

7. What to Do the Moment the Notification Is Released

• Read the full information bulletin PDF yourself, not just a summary — details like the exact correction-window dates and test-city list are worth verifying firsthand rather than relying on secondhand recaps.
• Re-confirm your eligibility against the specific wording in this year’s bulletin, since minor phrasing changes (particularly around final-year student eligibility) do occasionally appear.
• Register as early in the window as your documents allow. Early registration doesn’t affect your percentile, but it does reduce the risk of last-minute payment gateway issues or server load closer to the deadline.
• Lock in your target institute list at the registration stage itself, since programme preferences typically can’t be added after submission — under-selecting costs you nothing to avoid, since there’s no per-institute fee.
• Shift your prep into a dated countdown once the exam date is confirmed — a concrete date on the calendar tends to sharpen focus more effectively than an approximate “sometime in November.”