National Institute of Fashion Technology Entrance Examination (NIFTEE)(NIFT Entrance Exam (NIFTEE))

About the exam

About NIFT Entrance Exam (NIFTEE)

NIFTEE, the NIFT Entrance Exam, fills the regular B.Des, B.F.Tech, M.Des, MFM and M.F.Tech seats at the National Institute of Fashion Technology's 20 campuses. The programme decides what the rank is made of: a B.F.Tech rank rests on the computer-based General Ability Test alone, a B.Des rank gives 50% of its weight to the pen-and-paper Creative Ability Test and 20% to a model built at the Situation Test, and master's ranks add an interview. In NIFT's documents CAT stands for Creative Ability Test; it has nothing to do with the Common Admission Test that the IIMs use for MBA admission.

The NTA NIFTEE portal says NIFT has entrusted the National Testing Agency with taking applications and conducting the test for undergraduate, postgraduate, lateral entry (NLEA) and artisan candidates, under NIFT's guidelines. The NIFT admissions page describes the hand-off in one line: admissions through NIFTEE conducted by NTA, followed by e-counselling by NIC. The NIFTEE 2026 Information Bulletin stops NTA's part at the declaration of results, so the seat matrix, the admission fee and campus allotment are set out in NIFT's own Admission Guidelines and seat allocation rules.

Stage 1 is the computer-based General Ability Test (GAT), plus the paper-based CAT for the design programmes; Stage 2 is a Situation Test for B.Des and a Personal Interview for M.Des, MFM and M.F.Tech, and B.F.Tech has none. The same bulletin records that NIFT became a statutory institute by an Act of Parliament in 2006 and has full-fledged 20 campuses. Some routes skip the GAT and CAT altogether: NRI and foreign applicants are ranked on SAT, GMAT or GRE scores, artisans on a skill test and interview, and Ph.D. applicants on a written test NIFT conducts itself.

At a glance

NIFT Entrance Exam (NIFTEE) highlights

Calendar

Important dates

No NTA or NIFT document dates the next NIFTEE cycle yet. The NTA NIFTEE portal, last updated on 10 September 2026, still leads with the 2026 score cards, and the NIFT admissions page still offers Prospectus 2026 as its reference document. The newest notice on that page is Notification 28 of 14 September 2026, the final result of Ph.D. Admissions 2026.

The 2026 application calendar, as the bulletin first printed it:

The registration rows did not hold. The NIFT admissions page lists two NTA extensions of the last date for registration, and the second, NTA's final extension notice of 09 January 2026, is where the revised 2026 registration, late-fee and correction windows are printed.

NTA's candidate pages date each later step. Stage 1 admit cards went up on 4 February 2026, per its Stage 1 admit card page. Stage 1 score cards followed on 20 March 2026, per its Stage 1 score card page. PG interview call letters came on 1 April 2026 (call letter page), and Stage 2 admit cards on 22 April 2026, per the Stage II admit card page. Final score cards were posted on 3 June 2026 (final score card page).

NIFT's e-counselling then ran from 15 June to 29 July 2026, per the NIFT Guidelines for Seat Allocation 2026, and the Ph.D. track later still, with a "Result of written exam held on 18.07.2026" listed on the NIFT admissions page.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

The age cap is a bachelor's-level rule. Under the NIFTEE 2026 Information Bulletin, a B.Des or B.F.Tech candidate must be under 24 years of age on 1 August of the year of admission, relaxed by 5 years for SC, ST and PwD candidates, while M.Des, MFM, M.F.Tech and Ph.D. carry no age limit. For the Ph.D. NIFT Teaching Fellow category, NIFT's Addendum I on Ph.D. Admissions 2026 later set a maximum age of 30 years.

B.Des. The bulletin accepts any one of these:

• a pass in the 10+2 examination of a recognised Central or State board;
• a pass grade in the National Open School's senior secondary examination, taken in five subjects or more;
• a 3 or 4 year diploma recognised by AICTE or a State Board of Technical Education, taken after Class 10;
• a school, board or university examination, in India or abroad, that the Association of Indian Universities recognises as equivalent to 10+2;
• GCE Advanced level (London, Cambridge or Sri Lanka) or the International Baccalaureate.

B.F.Tech. The same routes, each with Mathematics, except that the diploma route narrows to a 3 or 4 year diploma in any branch of engineering.

Candidates still in Class 12 or a final-year degree can apply. The NIFT Admissions Guidelines 2026 make such an admission provisional, cancelled with the fee forfeited unless the final result reaches the campus director by 30 September 2026, and a candidate with a Class 12 compartment must clear it under the same board.

M.Des and MFM. An undergraduate degree in any discipline from a university recognised by law in India, or an undergraduate diploma of at least three years from NIFT or NID. The admissions guidelines warn that M.Des presupposes the fundamentals of design and teaches no basic design skills.

M.F.Tech. A B.F.Tech from NIFT, a B.E. or B.Tech, or a four-year B.F.Tech from any institute recognised by law in India.

Lateral entry (NLEA). This route admits diploma holders to the third semester of a NIFT undergraduate programme. For B.Des (NLEA) the admissions guidelines accept a 1 or 2 year diploma in a related field taken after Class 10 plus two years of full-time industry experience; a 1 year diploma taken after Class 12 plus one year of experience; or a completed two-year regular undergraduate diploma at NIFT. B.F.Tech (NLEA) mirrors those routes with Mathematics and a narrower list of fashion, apparel, textile, home science and handloom diplomas.

Artisans. Under the admissions guidelines, a B.Des candidate qualifies by meeting the academic bar and holding a valid Artisan Card issued to self, father or mother by the Development Commissioner (Handicrafts) or (Handlooms), Ministry of Textiles, or by having applied for one before the 2026 prospectus was launched.

NRI, foreign national, OCI, PIO and SAARC candidates are ranked on international test scores instead. The NIFT Admissions Guidelines 2026 say they are not required to appear for the entrance examination and select them on SAT scores for the bachelor's programmes, GMAT for MFM and GRE for M.Des and M.F.Tech, with a minimum score requirement of 50%, scores not declared before 1 January 2024, and scores received by NIFT by 30 April 2026.

Ph.D. The bulletin pairs each qualifying degree with a grade floor and an experience bar:

The admissions guidelines excuse two groups from the Ph.D. written test: master's degree holders with at least 10 years of professional experience in research areas relevant to NIFT, and master's degree holders with a valid UGC NET, CEED, CSIR (JRF), GATE or similar score.

Step by step

Application process and fee

Every 2026 form went through NTA's NIFTEE portal. The NIFTEE 2026 Information Bulletin asked for a live photograph taken by webcam, or through a QR code on a phone where the device had none, besides an uploaded colour JPG photograph of 10 to 200 KB against a white background and a running-hand signature of 10 to 30 KB.

Two bulletin rules shape the form itself:

• One application per candidate, except the B.F.Tech with B.Des and MFM with M.Des pairings, which carry their own two-programme fee. The B.Des option for B.F.Tech applicants is not open under NLEA.
• Four exam cities in order of priority, limited to the state of the candidate's permanent and present address.

The 2026 fee by category was as follows.

Payment is by net banking, debit or credit card or UPI, with bank charges borne by the candidate, and the bulletin entertains no refund request once the fee is paid. NIFT's Notification 01 for Admissions 2026 says it reduced the application fee for that cycle to encourage wider participation.

A reserved-category applicant without a valid certificate is moved to open seats and pays the difference in application fee, unless a relaxation was already availed, in which case the NIFT Admissions Guidelines 2026 reject the candidature.

Before the exam

Admit card and exam day

For 2026 the exam city reached candidates first, on a city intimation slip, and the admit card followed on 4 February 2026, per NTA's admit card notice. The bulletin makes the downloaded card the only one: none goes by post and the centre cannot issue a duplicate.

What to bring, per the NIFTEE 2026 Information Bulletin:

• the printed admit card with the self-declaration (undertaking) filled in;
• two passport-size photographs, the same as the one uploaded, for the attendance sheet;
• one original, valid photo ID from the bulletin's list;
• the PwD certificate and UDID where a relaxation is claimed;
• for the second-shift CAT only, colouring and drawing material in a transparent pencil box; the booklet with space for answers is provided at the centre.

The two rulebooks set different arrival times that fit together: the NIFT Admissions Guidelines 2026 ask candidates to be at the centre at least 60 minutes before the start, and the bulletin shuts the gate 30 minutes before it.

The CAT answer sheet must stay anonymous. A candidate who writes any personal detail or a coaching centre's name or logo on it, or places any identification mark, is disqualified with no appeal, per the bulletin, and the same rule covers the Situation Test model and its write-up.

Stage 2 has separate paperwork: the NTA NIFTEE portal lists one notice releasing Stage 2 admit cards for UG programmes and another releasing interview call letters for PG programmes. A shortlisted PG candidate who misses the Personal Interview at New Delhi gets no final result, under the NIFT Admissions Guidelines 2026.

Structure

Exam pattern

The GAT is objective, bilingual in Hindi and English (English prevails if the two differ), and marked +1 for a right answer and -0.25 for a wrong one, with nothing for a question left blank. The NIFTEE 2026 Information Bulletin gives full marks to every candidate for a question dropped for a technical error. The paper and its length depend on the programme.

The final merit list weighs each test as below. The CAT, three questions long, enters the table only as a share of the final score; the bulletin and admissions guidelines print no mark for any single CAT question.

A paired B.F.Tech and B.Des applicant receives two separate Common Merit Ranks. GAT Section A counts in both; the B.F.Tech rank takes the rest from GAT Section B, the B.Des rank from the CAT and the Situation Test.

The other routes are weighted differently in the bulletin. B.Des (NLEA) uses the GAT at 40%, a Studio Test at 40% and a Personal Interview at 20%; B.F.Tech (NLEA) replaces the Studio Test with a Technical Ability Test at the same 40%. The artisan route is marked out of 100: an Artisan Skill Test for 70 marks and a Personal Interview with document verification for 30. The Ph.D. written test has a 45-minute objective set of 30 marks (research aptitude, communication skills and logical reasoning, 10 marks each), a 15-minute break, and a one-hour descriptive research disposition set of 20 marks, followed by a Research Proposal Presentation and Interview.

What to study

Syllabus

The GAT tests the same four areas at every level, in different proportions, and adds case-study questions for B.F.Tech, MFM and M.F.Tech. Section-wise question counts from the NIFTEE 2026 Information Bulletin:

The bulletin's topic lists are short and specific:

• Quantitative Ability: addition, multiplication, division, fractions, percentage, rate of interest, work and task, ratio and proportion, and distance.
• Communication Ability and English Comprehension: synonyms, antonyms, words with corresponding meanings, singular and plural, one-word substitutes, idioms and phrases, correct spellings, and comprehending a situation from a passage.
• Analytical and Logical Ability: inference and logic from given information, and identifying a problem and reasoning through it; the bulletin notes that creative and lateral thinking are likely to help.
• General Knowledge and Current Affairs: described only as a test of general knowledge and current affairs.
• M.F.Tech only: some questions from the engineering field.

The CAT, set for both undergraduate and postgraduate design programmes, judges intuitive ability, power of observation in concept development and design ability, and the bulletin singles out the creative and innovative use of colour and illustration skills.

The Situation Test, as the bulletin describes it, asks a shortlisted B.Des candidate to make a model from a given set of materials, with no material added or allowed. The jury evaluates it on the spot for space visualisation, innovative use of the material, composition of elements, colour scheme, construction skill, finesse and overall presentation, and checks it against a write-up of the concept that earns marks only in English. The model is not preserved.

The Personal Interview for master's candidates is scored, per the bulletin, on career orientation, aptness for the course, personal achievements in academics and co-curricular activities, communication, and general awareness with aptitude and creative and lateral thinking.

How to prepare

Preparation and books

The preparation material NIFT itself puts out is past papers. Its sample question paper page links papers by programme (B.Des CAT, B.Des, B.F.T, M.Des CAT, M.Des, M.F.M and M.F.T), yearly sets for 2012 to 2015 and 2022 to 2024, and Ph.D. sample papers for 2021 to 2024; its 2025 entry points to NTA's home page rather than to a paper. The 2024 set is NTA's own record of the February 2024 papers, holding the GAT for B.Des, B.F.Tech, M.Des, MFM and M.F.Tech and the CAT for B.Des and M.Des.

The NIFT Admissions Guidelines 2026 state in capitals that NIFT does not recommend or endorse any coaching classes, and add that any attempt to influence admission by recommendation invites immediate disqualification.

Where it is held

Exam centres

NTA's public notice inviting applications for NIFTEE 2026 offered 100 exam cities in India. A public notice of 23 December 2025 added Vapi in Gujarat and Daman at NIFT's request, taking the total to 102, and let candidates who had already applied switch to them in the correction window. The Stage 1 test itself was set for around 129 centres across about 97 cities, per NTA's NIFTEE 2026 admit card notice.

On allotment the documents disagree. The NIFTEE 2026 Information Bulletin has NTA try to follow the order of the four city choices, merge cities with very few candidates and refuse changes after the correction window, while the NIFT Admissions Guidelines 2026 allot centres on a first come, first served basis.

Stage 2 moved to a much shorter list of venues. NTA's notice on the conduct of Stage 2 held the PG Personal Interviews from 06 to 11 April 2026 at New Delhi only, with no change of date or venue entertained, and told UG candidates that the date, city, centre and reporting time of their Stage 2 test would be printed on the Stage 2 admit card.

After the exam

Answer key

The GAT is the paper a candidate can contest. The NIFTEE 2026 Information Bulletin expects NTA to show each candidate's recorded responses and question paper, and separately the provisional key, for two to three days each, and a challenge costs Rs 200 for every question contested, a processing fee NTA keeps. A challenge that is unpaid, lacks justification or arrives other than through the challenge link is not considered; subject experts decide the rest, NTA tells no challenger the outcome individually, and if experts find a second option correct, everyone who marked either option gets the mark. No grievance about the key is heard after the result.

The final answer key file for NIFTEE 2026 Stage 1 lists the correct option against each question ID, programme by programme, for the exam date 08.02.2026.

The CAT, drawn and coloured by hand, has no key at all. The NIFT Admissions Guidelines 2026 restrict CAT re-evaluation to checking that every answer was evaluated and that the marks were totalled correctly, and ignore any request sent without a scanned copy of the admit card.

Scores

Result and scorecard

A B.Des or master's candidate meets two results in a cycle, one that calls them to Stage 2 and one that ranks them. NTA declared the 2026 Stage 1 result on 20 March 2026, the publish date of its Stage 1 score card page, and its Stage 1 result notice says candidates were shortlisted for the Situation Test, Studio Test or Personal Interview in the ratio of 1:4 (one seat to four candidates), category-wise, with an additional marks condition for PwD candidates that the same notice sets out.

A B.Des candidate who skips either the GAT or the CAT is not shortlisted for the Situation Test, and for B.F.Tech the GAT is the final test for selection, per the NIFT Admissions Guidelines 2026. The same guidelines make a merit rank valid only for the programme and category the candidate sat for, and only for Admissions 2026. Final score cards followed on 3 June 2026 (final score card page).

Equal scores are split by Stage 2 marks, then for B.Des and M.Des by CAT and then GAT marks, and finally by GAT section marks in the order English, Quantitative, Analytical and Logical, then General Knowledge, under the NIFTEE 2026 Information Bulletin. A grievance about the result is entertained only within 30 days of its declaration, and disputes fall under Delhi jurisdiction.

Scores you need

Cutoff

What NIFT publishes after each counselling round is a rank, not a mark. The NIFT Guidelines for Seat Allocation 2026 commit to putting opening and closing ranks on the public portal with every round's allotment result. The NIFT e-Counselling portal holds those reports for UG, UG lateral entry and PG counselling for 2024, 2025 and 2026, and the 2025 and 2026 titles state that all ranks are Common Merit Ranks.

Each pair of ranks in the NIFT UG Counselling 2026 opening and closing rank report belongs to one round, campus, programme, quota and category, so a closing rank describes that row of that cycle and nothing wider.

For Stage 1, the bulletin and the Admissions Guidelines print no qualifying mark; the 2026 shortlist was drawn at the category-wise 1:4 ratio that NTA's result notice describes.

Getting a seat

Counselling and seat allotment

Seats are handed out on NIFT's e-counselling portal, which NIC hosts, and registration is open only to candidates holding a Common Merit Rank from the final result. The NIFT Guidelines for Seat Allocation 2026 set out the sequence: registration and document upload, online document verification, choice filling and locking of campus and programme, seat allotment, a willingness choice, and payment of the admission fee.

The willingness choice decides what happens next:

• Float: stay in the running for every higher choice at any campus.
• Slide: stay in the running only for higher choices within the same campus; this applies to B.Des.
• Freeze: accept the allotted programme and campus and stay with it.

A candidate who does not pay the admission fee in time loses the seat and cannot take part in the later regular rounds. Choices not locked by the deadline are locked by the system as last saved.

The 2026 schedule ran as below.

That calendar moved during the cycle. NIFT's Notification 14 of 26 June 2026 extended Round 1 choice filling to midnight on 26 June 2026 and ruled out any further extension.

The money at stake at allotment is set in the seat allocation guidelines. The admission fee payable on a regular seat, at any campus, was Rs 1,91,700 for the semester. An NRI sponsored seat cost Rs 10,19,900 a year at Bengaluru, Chennai, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and New Delhi, and Rs 7,22,100 a year at the other campuses. A withdrawal made on the portal by 17 July 2026 was refunded in full except the Rs 9,300 registration fee; after that date only the security deposit came back.

Domicile seats follow the school, not the home address. The NIFT Admissions Guidelines 2026 treat a candidate as domiciled in the state where the Class 12 school is located, and offer State Domicile Preferential Seats at these campuses:

• Patna (Bihar), Kangra (Himachal Pradesh), Kannur (Kerala), Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh), Bhubaneswar (Odisha), Jodhpur (Rajasthan), Panchkula (Haryana), Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh) and Nava Raipur (Chhattisgarh);
• Shillong, for Meghalaya, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Sikkim, Nagaland and Tripura;
• Srinagar, for Jammu, Kashmir, Ladakh and Kashmiri migrants;
• Daman, for Daman, Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and Lakshadweep.

The 2026 seat matrix shows the size of that preference programme by programme: at these campuses a programme lists 34 regular seats with 7 State Domicile seats beside them, or 12 at Srinagar, which the seat allocation guidelines express as 20% of seats earmarked for domicile candidates and a special quota of 35% at NIFT Srinagar. The admissions guidelines still let a domicile candidate take an all-India seat at any other campus on overall rank.

The admissions guidelines hold SC 15%, ST 7.5%, OBC (non-creamy layer) 27% and GEN-EWS 10% of each programme, and run a 5% PwD reservation, for 40% or more disability, horizontally across all of them. A PwD candidate must appear before NIFT's Evaluation Committee for a physical assessment before seat allocation, and one who does not appear is not called for allocation.

NRI sponsored seats are supernumerary, carry no reservation and are never converted to another category. The admissions guidelines let any candidate with a Common Merit Rank opt for one at allocation, on paying the enhanced fee and submitting the sponsoring NRI or foreign national's undertaking and copies of that person's passport and valid visa. Artisan-category candidates were told in NIFT's e-counselling notification not to use the portal, since NIFT handles their allotment separately.

Where it is accepted

Participating institutes

NIFTEE admits only to NIFT's own campuses, which the NIFT admissions page puts at 20. The NIFT Guidelines for Seat Allocation 2026 name them: Bengaluru, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Daman, Delhi, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad, Jodhpur, Kangra, Kannur, Kolkata, Mumbai, Patna, Panchkula, Raebareli, Shillong, Srinagar, Varanasi and Nava Raipur. Not every campus runs every programme; M.F.Tech, for one, is listed only at Chennai and Delhi.

Regular seats for 2026, including domicile seats, came to the totals below.

On top of these sit supernumerary seats. The 2026 seat matrix adds 5 NRI seats per programme at Bengaluru, Chennai, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, New Delhi and Raebareli, and 3 per programme at Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Daman, Jodhpur, Kangra, Kannur, Nava Raipur, Panchkula, Patna, Shillong and Varanasi. The NIFT Admissions Guidelines 2026 earmark two supernumerary B.Des seats at each campus for artisans, and put the tentative lateral entry intake at 401 seats, 10% of 4,014 undergraduate seats, subject to the vacancies left after internal student transfers.

Get help

Contact

The bulletin's payment annexure lists NTA's helpdesk at nift@nta.ac.in, 011-40759000 and 011-69227700, and NIFT's helpline numbers as 9310075593, 9310076577 and 9310078175. Legal notices and petitions go to NTA only at legal@nta.ac.in.

For seat allocation, the NIFT Guidelines for Seat Allocation 2026 add the email helpdesk.seatallocation@nift.ac.in alongside the same three NIFT mobile numbers. The NIFT admissions page prints the third number as 9310075175 instead, and gives both helplines' hours as Monday to Friday, 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

The contact page of the NIFT e-Counselling portal gives the NIFT campus at Hauz Khas, Near Gulmohar Park, New Delhi 110 016, telephone +91-11-26542000.

Source

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Disclaimer

Disclaimer

Exact exam dates, deadlines, per-programme marks/duration/question counts, answer keys, cut-offs, merit lists and results are released per cycle by NTA/NIFT. 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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