IIT Bombay: Complete Guide & JoSAA 2026 Cutoff, Round Wise
IIT Bombay is, year after year, the single most-preferred campus for JEE Advanced toppers – the destination almost every candidate inside the top 100 ranks chooses first when it's their turn to pick. Here's what makes the institute what it is, and exactly how its 2026 JoSAA cutoffs moved round by round.
About IIT Bombay
Established in 1958 at Powai in Mumbai, IIT Bombay is one of the original Indian Institutes of Technology and consistently ranks among the top 2–3 engineering institutes in the country in the NIRF rankings. Its sprawling Powai campus, built around Powai Lake, houses academic departments, a well-known incubation and entrepreneurship ecosystem, and Asia's largest science-and-technology festival, Techfest, held on campus every year. Beyond core engineering, IIT Bombay also runs a respected Industrial Design Centre and a growing set of interdisciplinary and dual-degree programmes.
Academic Strengths
- Computer Science & Engineering: The single most sought-after branch at any IIT in the country, drawing the very highest JEE Advanced rankers every year.
- Electrical Engineering: A traditional strength, closely trailing CSE in demand.
- Design & interdisciplinary programmes: The Industrial Design Centre and newer interdisciplinary B.Tech programmes have grown steadily in popularity.
- Research and entrepreneurship: A strong startup incubation culture, with alumni founding companies across fintech, deep tech, and consumer software.
JoSAA 2026 Cutoff, Round Wise
JoSAA 2026 ran five rounds, with the final round declared on 16 July 2026. The table below is pulled directly from JoSAA's own official OR-CR portal – Round 1 versus Round 5 (final), OPEN category, gender-neutral seats, across every undergraduate programme IIT Bombay offers. Computer Science is the headline story: it opened Round 1 at rank 65 and closed the entire process at just 67 – a two-place shift across five rounds and roughly two months of counselling. It wasn't even the most stable programme on campus: BS in Mathematics, the 5-year Electrical Engineering dual degree, and Industrial Engineering & Operations Research all closed Round 5 at the exact same rank they opened at in Round 1, not moving by a single position.
| Branch (Gender-Neutral, OPEN) | Round 1 Closing Rank | Round 5 (Final) Closing Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Computer Science & Engineering | 65 | 67 |
| Electrical Engineering (4 Yr) | 400 | 411 |
| Electrical Engineering (5 Yr Dual Degree) | 844 | 844 |
| Industrial Engineering & Operations Research | 834 | 834 |
| BS in Mathematics | 1,042 | 1,042 |
| Engineering Physics | 1,435 | 1,575 |
| Mechanical Engineering | 1,852 | 1,900 |
| Economics | 2,270 | 2,272 |
| Energy Engineering | 2,588 | 2,605 |
| Aerospace Engineering | 2,593 | 2,638 |
| Chemical Engineering | 2,750 | 2,833 |
| Metallurgical Engineering & Materials Science | 3,941 | 3,995 |
| Civil Engineering | 4,376 | 4,417 |
| Environmental Science & Engineering | 4,979 | 5,473 |
| Applied Geophysics | 6,691 | 7,301 |
| Chemistry | 7,099 | 7,838 |
The pattern holds across the board: CSE and Economics barely move, core engineering branches drift by a few dozen to a few hundred ranks, and the pure-science and interdisciplinary programmes – Chemistry, Applied Geophysics, Environmental Science – loosen the most, by several hundred to over 700 ranks, as higher-ranked candidates migrate into core engineering branches over the five rounds and leave these seats to be filled further down the list. IIT Bombay also reserves separate female-only supernumerary seats in every programme, with their own closing rank – for CSE, that seat closed at rank 395 in both Round 1 and Round 5, noticeably more relaxed than the gender-neutral figure. If you're applying under that category, use the female-only figure for your programme rather than reading off the gender-neutral numbers above.
This table reflects JoSAA 2026's final, closed results. Next year's cycle will move by a similar small margin, but always confirm the current year's actual figures on JoSAA's own OR-CR portal (josaa.nic.in) once that year's rounds are under way, rather than assuming this table still applies.
How Reserved Categories Compare
JoSAA keeps a separate closing rank for every category – General, EWS, OBC-NCL, SC, ST, and PwD – and each one is a position within that category's own applicant pool, not the overall merit list. As a rule, EWS tracks closest to the General figure, OBC-NCL relaxes further, and SC/ST relax the most of all, since fewer candidates compete within each of those pools.
| Category | CSE Closing Rank (category rank, recent cycle) |
|---|---|
| General (verified, Round 1 → Round 5) | 65 → 67 |
| OBC-NCL (unverified estimate) | ~30–40 |
| SC / ST | Considerably more relaxed than General – see note below |
The General row above is now sourced directly from JoSAA's own OR-CR portal, not a third-party estimate. We're still not publishing a specific OBC-NCL, SC, or ST number: the third-party sources we checked disagree with each other by a wide enough margin on these exact figures that citing any of them as fact would be misleading. This EWS-tightest-to-ST-loosest pattern holds across every branch at IIT Bombay, not just CSE, though the exact gap varies branch to branch. If you can pull the same OR-CR report from josaa.nic.in for EWS, OBC-NCL, SC, or ST, we can update this table with verified figures for those categories too – the same way the General-category numbers on this page were verified.
Placements
IIT Bombay's placement season consistently produces some of the highest domestic and international offers among all IITs, particularly for CSE, Electrical, and core branches recruited by product-based technology firms, quant finance companies, and consulting firms. Its central location in Mumbai's business district also gives it strong, easy access to recruiters.