Indian Institute of Foreign Trade MBA (International Business) Admission Test(IIFT)

About the exam

About IIFT

There is no IIFT question paper in IIFT's own admission documents for the MBA (International Business) and MBA (Business Analytics) 2026-28 programmes. The prospectus the institute published for that intake sets out a different route: a shortlist drawn from CAT scores, then a Group Discussion and a Personal Interview held in person. Anyone hunting for an IIFT exam pattern for that intake is hunting for a paper the institute did not set. What it set instead was a sequence: a CAT score, a shortlist, and an interview in a city the prospectus names.

Two programmes are admitted through this route, both of them IIFT's own. The institute's admissions page puts the MBA (International Business) at its Delhi, Kolkata, Kakinada and GIFT City campuses and the MBA (Business Analytics) at Delhi, and IIFT's guidelines for applying online require a candidate who wants both to register and apply for each of them separately.

The route into both is stated in one paragraph of the IIFT prospectus for 2026-28: IIFT used the score of CAT 2025 and other defined parameters to shortlist, and shortlisted candidates were called for a second round consisting of a Group Discussion and a Personal Interview. The same document draws the boundary explicitly, saying the IIMs have no role either in the selection process or in the conduct of the programme. The test is theirs; the selection is IIFT's.

At a glance

IIFT highlights

Calendar

Important dates

The 2026-28 cycle is closed. The admission calendar IIFT published for it, on the application portal its admission section links to, ran as follows.

Two of those dates disagree, and both are IIFT's. The printed prospectus gave 28 November 2025 as the last date to submit the online application form and fee, under its own Important Dates heading; the admission calendar on the application portal carried 12 December 2025 for both the registration and the payment. The brochure's date falls before the CAT 2025 exam the shortlist was drawn from, the portal's after it, and neither document acknowledges the other. The safe reading of a split like that is the earlier date, because meeting it satisfies both.

IIFT's admission section still carries the MBA (IB) and MBA (BA) 2026-28 programmes and nothing newer. On the published pattern, the application opened in autumn and the second round ran the following spring, which is the shape to watch for rather than a date to write in a diary.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

For the MBA (International Business), the prospectus asks for a recognised Bachelor's degree of minimum three years' duration in any discipline with minimum 50% marks, and 45% for candidates in the Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and Persons with Disability categories. There is no age limit. Candidates still appearing for a qualifying examination could apply, subject to submitting proof of the qualification by October 31, 2026.

The MBA (Business Analytics) sets three separate routes in the same document, and a candidate needs only one of them. The first is a Bachelor's degree with minimum 50% marks in aggregate or 5.0 CGPA out of 10, with Mathematics or Statistics as a subject at graduation level. The second is a B.Tech or B.E. in any discipline from a recognised university or institute, with at least 50% marks in aggregate or 5.0 CGPA out of 10. The third is a Bachelor's degree with minimum 50% marks in aggregate or 5.0 CGPA out of 10, with Mathematics as a subject at the 10+2 level, and the prospectus adds that Applied Mathematics at 10+2 will not be considered. The appearing-candidate concession and the absence of an age limit apply here too.

Provisional joining carries a condition candidates often miss. A candidate admitted provisionally who fails to obtain the minimum percentage must inform IIFT as soon as the result is declared, and the prospectus states that admission of candidates who do not inform the institute will automatically stand cancelled on 31st October 2026.

NRI and foreign national applicants are handled apart. The prospectus said their online application forms would be available in the month of February 2026, subject to approval of regulatory bodies.

Step by step

Application process and fee

MBA (IB) and MBA (BA) take separate registrations. IIFT's guidelines for filling the online form tell candidates to register and apply separately for the two programmes, on the application portal linked from the institute's admission page.

Everything after registration happens inside one login. The guidelines walk it through as a numbered run of actions: fill the application form, upload the photograph and signature, upload the documents, make the payment that submits the form, then print the submitted form for the record. They are specific about the files, and what fails an application at this step is almost always one of those mechanics rather than anything academic. Photograph and signature go up as JPG or JPEG under 100kb each, the signature scanned from black ink on white paper. Class 10 and 12 marksheets and the graduation degree, provisional certificate or consolidated marksheet go up as PDFs under 300kb each. Work experience certificates, where they apply, go up as a single PDF under 5Mb. A category certificate from the competent authority is required for SC, ST, OBC (NCL), PWD, EWS and Kashmiri Migrant applicants. Once the application is submitted at the payment step, the information can no longer be edited.

Payment runs through debit card, credit card, net banking or UPI, and the guidelines warn that fees paid by any other mode will not be accepted and the application will be rejected. The fee is not refunded. Nothing is posted to IIFT: the uploaded certificates are scrutinised later, at document verification.

Before the exam

Admit card and exam day

IIFT issued no hall ticket for the 2026-28 cycle, because it conducted no examination of its own. The document that put a candidate in a room was the shortlist, published on iift.ac.in in the last week of January 2026 per the admission calendar, followed by the call for the Group Discussion and Personal Interview.

Neither the prospectus nor the application guidelines publish a document checklist for the interview day itself. What they do state falls later in the process: the information furnished in the application form and the certificates uploaded with it are scrutinised and verified at the time of document verification, per the guidelines.

Structure

Exam pattern

The pattern that governed the 2026-28 intake was a two-stage selection, not a question paper. Stage one was the CAT 2025 score with other defined parameters; stage two was a Group Discussion and a Personal Interview in physical mode, both set out in the prospectus.

What the prospectus does not publish is the arithmetic behind either stage. It gives no weightage for the CAT score, for past academics, for work experience or for the interview, and it names no qualifying score. The phrase it uses for everything beyond the CAT score is "other defined parameters", and it leaves the parameters undefined in that document.

The sectional structure, question count and negative marking that still circulate under the name IIFT exam belong to the dedicated IIFT paper of earlier cycles. Applying that pattern to the route IIFT published for 2026-28 means preparing for an examination that intake did not include.

What to study

Syllabus

IIFT published no syllabus for entry to the 2026-28 programmes, which follows from setting no paper. Whatever stage one tested was whatever the CAT tested, and IIFT neither wrote that paper nor issued a topic list for it.

Quantitative aptitude, verbal ability and reading comprehension, data interpretation and logical reasoning, and general awareness describe the dedicated IIFT test of earlier cycles, not this one. For the second round of the 2026-28 cycle, the prospectus names two components, a Group Discussion and a Personal Interview, and says nothing about the content of either.

How to prepare

Preparation and books

Nothing IIFT hands an applicant for this route is a study document. The prospectus and the application guidelines cover the programmes, eligibility, the fee, the mechanics of the form and the two stages of selection, and neither carries a reading list, a sample paper or a previous-year paper.

Official preparation material therefore splits by stage, and none of it is IIFT's. Whatever exists for stage one is published by the body that conducts the CAT. Stage two is a Group Discussion and an interview in a city IIFT names, and the prospectus describes neither beyond naming them.

Where it is held

Exam centres

The only centres in this route are the ones a shortlisted candidate travels to. With no written paper there was no centre preference on the form, no allotment to worry about and no venue printed on an admit card; the prospectus instead names where the second round sat, with the Group Discussion and Personal Interview conducted in physical mode at Delhi, Kolkata, Kakinada, GIFT City, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Indore, Lucknow and Mumbai.

Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Indore, Lucknow and Mumbai hold no IIFT campus, which is the point of listing them: a shortlisted candidate in Lucknow attends there rather than travelling to Delhi. The institute also reserves the right to add or delete any GD/PI centre for administrative reasons, so the list is the cycle's, not a standing one.

After the exam

Answer key

There was nothing for IIFT to key. It set no paper for the 2026-28 cycle, so this route never reaches the stage at which a candidate sees the questions a second time. Anything to be asked about the CAT paper itself belongs to the body that set it.

Nor does the prospectus describe a challenge or review window against the shortlist. What it does state around that stage is blunter: an incomplete application shall be summarily rejected, and all disputes are subject to the jurisdiction of Delhi courts only.

Scores

Result and scorecard

IIFT issues no scorecard, because it awards no score. What it publishes is a list, twice. The shortlist for the second round went up on iift.ac.in in the last week of January 2026, and the final result of selected candidates in the last week of April 2026, per the admission calendar.

One number a selected candidate still waits for is the programme fee. The prospectus says of both MBAs that the exact amount of total fee applicable for the 2026-28 batch would be informed to the students at the time of sending the offer letters, and the fee tables it does print are the 2025-27 batch's. The offer letter, not the brochure, is where that number becomes real.

Scores you need

Cutoff

A CAT percentile is the number every IIFT applicant wants, and IIFT prints none of its own. The prospectus fixes no qualifying percentile, no sectional minimum and no category-wise mark against the score it shortlists on, and describes the shortlist no more precisely than as drawn on that score and other parameters.

Percentile figures circulate for IIFT anyway, and the institute's own admission documents for 2026-28 carry none of them. What a candidate actually gets back from IIFT is binary: the name is on the shortlist it posts for that cycle, or it is not.

Getting a seat

Counselling and seat allotment

IIFT runs the whole of what follows the shortlist itself. The prospectus takes the process from shortlist to second round to offer letter without naming a counselling authority, a choice-filling portal or a common allotment anywhere in it.

The seats the offers fill are stated in the prospectus. MBA (IB) carried 240 seats at each of the Delhi and Kolkata campuses and 120 each at GIFT City and Kakinada; MBA (BA) carried 60 seats at Delhi. Seats are reserved as per the Government of India's norms, the category certificate has to be uploaded with the application form, and the category once filled in the form will not be changed under any circumstances.

Two conditions follow the offer. Students of the SC, ST and PWD categories are given a 50% concession in tuition fee only, and a provisional admission stands or falls on the degree result, per the same document.

Where it is accepted

Participating institutes

The prospectus names IIFT's own campuses and no one else's. MBA (International Business) seats sat at Delhi, Kolkata, GIFT City and Kakinada for 2026-28; MBA (Business Analytics) sat at Delhi alone.

GIFT City belongs in that list for this intake. IIFT's Vice Chancellor writes in the same prospectus that in the MBA 2026-28 programme students will have opportunities across all four campuses, and the institute's admissions page lists the MBA (IB) at Delhi, Kolkata, GIFT City and Kakinada.

Because IIFT set no paper, there is no IIFT score for another institute to accept. A candidate applying with a CAT score applies to each institute that uses it, separately, on that institute's own terms.

Get help

Contact

Admission queries go to IIFT's admissions cell at admission@iift.edu or 011-39147213, and the prospectus asks candidates to quote their CAT registration number, IIFT application number and registered email address in every message.

The institute's admissions page names the officers behind that desk: Ms. Meenakshi Saxena, Assistant Registrar, on admission@iift.edu, and Mr. Anil Kumar Meena, Section Officer, on soadmission@iift.ac.in. The portal's clarification page gives Monday to Friday, 9:00 am to 5:30 pm for the admission lines, a further number staffed on all days from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm, and a separate address, iift@applyadmission.net, for technical trouble with the form itself.

Source

Official links

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Disclaimer

Disclaimer

The conducting mode (dedicated NTA CBT vs CAT-score-based admission) has changed across recent cycles and must be re-verified each year. Exact dates, marks, question count, cutoffs, shortlists and results are per-cycle. Anything per-cycle here is stated for the cycle it names and is taken from the conducting body's own notification; confirm it on the official website before acting on it. Expertie does not conduct any exam, process applications or charge fees.

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