NMAT is conducted by the Graduate Management Admission Council, the body that also owns the GMAT. The 2026 test window opens on 2 November 2026 and runs for about seven weeks, closing on 20 December. Registration opened on 20 August 2026 and closes on 10 October 2026. The paper is computer-based, 120 minutes long, and carries 108 multiple-choice questions across three sections.
Two features separate it from every other national test an Indian MBA applicant sits. You pick your own test date inside the window, and you may sit the exam up to three times in one cycle, with the best score counting. Almost everything that follows is a consequence of those two facts.
The paper in numbers
Three sections, 36 questions each, each on its own clock. Language Skills runs 28 minutes, Quantitative Skills 52, and Logical Reasoning 40. The three add to 120 minutes exactly, and time left over in one section does not carry into the next. Each section is reported on a scaled band of 12 to 120, so the total sits between 36 and 360.
A correct answer is worth three marks. A wrong one costs nothing, and neither does a blank. There is no negative marking anywhere in the paper.
The section clock is the whole exam
Divide the questions into the minutes and the paper stops looking symmetrical. Language Skills allows about 47 seconds a question. Logical Reasoning allows about 67. Quantitative Skills allows about 87, nearly twice the language allowance.
That ordering is the opposite of the one most candidates prepare for. Quantitative work is where preparation time usually goes, and it is the section NMAT is most generous with. Language Skills, which many treat as the section that needs no work, is the one where the clock does the eliminating. Forty-seven seconds is enough to read a short passage and answer, or to settle a grammar question, but it is not enough to deliberate. Anything requiring a second read has already cost two questions.
Compare this with CAT, which also runs 120 minutes but divides them into three equal sections of 40. CAT’s structure lets you plan a uniform pace. NMAT’s does not, and a pace that works in one section will fail in another.
What no negative marking actually changes
An unattempted question scores zero. A guessed one has some chance of scoring three. The arithmetic points one way only, so a blank at the end of a section is a wasted opportunity rather than a safe choice.
This inverts the habit CAT builds. Under CAT’s marking, a wrong multiple-choice answer costs one mark, and on a four-option question blind guessing breaks even at best. Candidates coming from CAT preparation arrive with a trained instinct to leave doubtful questions alone. On NMAT that instinct costs marks.
The practical consequence is a change to what the last minute of each section is for. It is not for checking work. It is for filling every blank that remains, fastest section first, because Language Skills is where blanks are most likely to still be sitting there.
Three attempts, and the date that quietly removes one
You may sit NMAT three times in a cycle: one attempt and two retakes. The registration fee is Rs 3,000 plus taxes for each of them, which at 18% GST works out to about Rs 3,540 an attempt and roughly Rs 10,620 to use all three.
Most published guidance puts the minimum gap between consecutive attempts at 15 days. GMAC’s own dates and fees page does not state a figure, and third-party sources do not fully agree, so confirm the current rule on the official site before planning dates around it. What follows assumes 15 days, because that is the figure the majority of sources give.
On that assumption the scheduling arithmetic is worth doing before you book anything. A first attempt needs 15 days before the second and another 15 before the third, so the third attempt falls at least 30 days after the first. The window closes on 20 December. Book the first attempt later than 20 November and the third one no longer fits inside the window at all.
That is a decision made at registration, months before you know whether you will need a third attempt. Booking early costs nothing and preserves the option. Booking late quietly removes it.
Why the score arrives as 12 to 120 and not as marks
The section bands are scaled scores, not raw marks. A test delivered in many different forms across a seven-week window cannot treat every form as equally difficult, and a candidate who sat a harder form in the first week should not be penalised against one who sat an easier form in December. Raw marks are converted onto a common scale so that the numbers mean the same thing whenever they were earned.
Two things follow. A published cutoff is a scaled figure, so counting how many questions you answered correctly in a mock tells you less than it appears to. And a score from one attempt is directly comparable with a score from another, which is what makes the three-attempt structure usable in the first place.
You choose the order the sections come in
NMAT lets you decide the sequence of the three sections at the start of the test. Within a section you can also review and change answers, but only until that section’s timer runs out, after which the answers stand.
The choice matters more than it sounds. Whichever section you place first is the one you attempt while still settling into the test, and whichever you place last is the one you attempt while carrying whatever the first two did to your nerves. Placing your strongest section first buys confidence at the cost of spending your freshest attention where it is least needed. Placing the tightest section first, which for most candidates means Language Skills, spends that attention where the clock is least forgiving.
There is no general right answer. There is a right answer for you, and the only way to find it is to sit mocks in more than one order before the real attempt.
Who takes the score
NMIMS Mumbai is the anchor school and the reason the test exists: NMAT began as the institute’s own entrance test before GMAC took it over. Beyond it, more than fifty business schools in India accept the score, along with a handful in South Africa, the Philippines and Nigeria.
Published lists of accepting institutes vary between sources and change between cycles, and some sites include schools whose flagship programmes admit on other tests entirely. Check the admissions page of any school you are counting on rather than a compiled list, and check it for the specific programme you intend to apply to.
Building a plan around a date you pick yourself
Self-scheduling removes the excuse a fixed national test date provides. There is no single day the whole cohort is working towards, which means preparation has to be paced against a date you set rather than one set for you.
A workable shape, given the constraints above: register early in the window, book the first attempt in the first three weeks of November, and treat it as a real attempt rather than a trial run, because a score good enough on the first sitting saves about Rs 7,000 and several weeks. Keep the second slot in reserve for a specific diagnosed weakness rather than a vague sense that the score could be better. Keep the third for the case where something went wrong on the day.
Preparation time should follow the clock, not the syllabus. Quantitative Skills carries the most generous allowance per question and is where most candidates are already strongest after CAT preparation. Language Skills carries the tightest allowance and is where most candidates have done the least work. That gap, rather than any difference in difficulty between the subjects, is where the marks are.
Dates, fees and the retake rule are revised each cycle. The figures here are for the 2026 cycle; confirm them against GMAC’s official NMAT pages before registering.