National Institute of Fashion Technology

How is National Institute of Fashion Technology ranked in 2026?

Heading into the 2026 admissions cycle, National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Delhi is the No. 1 fashion design institution in India, having been ranked Rank #1 in Fashion Design (Government) by both India Today 2025 and Outlook 2025, the two most recent national surveys available. NIFT Delhi held the same #1 position in the India Today survey for the third consecutive year in 2025, with NIFT Mumbai placed second and NIFT Bangalore third behind it. Because the Ministry of Education's NIRF framework does not run a dedicated fashion-design ranking and NIFT does not currently feature in it, these media-led surveys (India Today, Outlook, The Week) and the global CEOWORLD list are the recognised benchmarks for NIFT Delhi's standing. On the world stage, NIFT was placed 10th among the best fashion schools globally by CEOWORLD magazine in 2024, the only India-headquartered institution in that top bracket. As the first NIFT campus, established in New Delhi in 1986, and the only campus that offers the full spread of NIFT programmes, the Delhi institute consistently sets the benchmark the other twelve campuses are measured against.

Year-Wise Rankings

The table below consolidates National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Delhi's verified rankings across the major surveys that actually rank fashion-design institutions in India and abroad. It answers the core question an applicant asks: which body ranked NIFT Delhi, in which category, in which year, and at what position. Read it top to bottom by year to see how stable the institute's standing has been; the "Score" column reflects that these national media surveys publish ordinal ranks rather than a public composite score, while the CEOWORLD entry is a global list.

The clear takeaway is consistency: National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Delhi holds Rank #1 across India Today, Outlook and The Week in every year for which data is available (2023, 2024 and 2025), so an applicant is not looking at a one-off spike but a sustained top placement. The single global data point, CEOWORLD's #10 in 2024, shows the Delhi campus is competitive well beyond India. Note that there is no NIRF or QS row here because, as explained below, NIFT does not participate in those frameworks; treat any source quoting a "NIRF fashion rank" for NIFT Delhi with caution.

Ranking Trajectory of National Institute of Fashion Technology

National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Delhi's ranking trajectory is best described as flat-at-the-top rather than rising or falling, which is itself the strongest signal a fashion aspirant can get. India Today placed NIFT Delhi at Rank #1 in Fashion Design in 2023, 2024 and again in 2025, the latter marking its third consecutive year at the summit, with the institute reported to have held the top India Today position for several years running before that. Outlook mirrors this, keeping NIFT Delhi at #1 in its Fashion Design (Government) list in both 2023 and 2025, and The Week similarly ranked it #1 in 2023 and 2025.

What this stability signals to a 2026 applicant is durability of the things rankings actually measure: teaching quality, graduation outcomes, research and inclusivity (the parameters India Today weighs), plus placements, infrastructure and industry engagement. A college that briefly tops a list can slip the next year; NIFT Delhi has instead defended #1 through multiple survey cycles and across three different ranking houses simultaneously. On the global side, the institute's appearance at #10 worldwide in the 2024 CEOWORLD list, judged on academic reputation, admission criteria and graduate employability by a large industry panel, shows the Delhi campus is not just first in a domestic field but credible against international fashion schools.

How National Institute of Fashion Technology Compares

Within the NIFT system itself, National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Delhi sits at the apex. In the India Today 2025 Fashion Design ranking, NIFT Delhi was #1, NIFT Mumbai was #2 and NIFT Bangalore was #3, so the Delhi campus out-ranks its own sister institutes that themselves dominate the national field. Among the 13-plus NIFT campuses, the commonly cited top five are NIFT Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad, with Delhi leading the group; its status as the founding 1986 campus and the only one running NIFT's complete course portfolio reinforces that lead.

Against private and non-NIFT peers, NIFT Delhi heads composite "top fashion design colleges in India" lists that also feature Pearl Academy, Symbiosis Institute of Design, the National Institute of Design (NID) and Amity School of Fashion Technology, ranking above all of them in the India Today 2025 survey. The one comparison NIFT Delhi cannot be slotted into is NIRF or QS: NIFT does not participate in the Ministry of Education's NIRF rankings, and it is not listed in the QS World University Rankings, so peers such as NID likewise compete in the same media-survey ecosystem rather than against a government composite score. The honest comparative read for 2026 is that within every ranking framework that actually covers fashion design, NIFT Delhi is the institution others are benchmarked against.