Number of IITs in India
There are 23 IITs in India as of 2026 — from IIT Kharagpur (1951) to the newest 2016 additions. Here's the complete list with locations, founding years, and the current JoSAA seat matrix.
"How many IITs are there?" has a moving answer if you're going by memory — the count has grown from 5 to 23 since the 1950s, with the biggest jumps in 2008-09 and 2016. All 23 admit undergraduates through the same route: JEE Main → JEE Advanced, with seats allocated centrally by JoSAA alongside NITs, IIITs, and GFTIs.
Full List of 23 IITs — Location & Founding Year
| # | IIT | State | Established / Converted | Generation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | IIT Kharagpur | West Bengal | 1951 | Old (first IIT) |
| 2 | IIT Bombay | Maharashtra | 1958 | Old |
| 3 | IIT Madras | Tamil Nadu | 1959 | Old |
| 4 | IIT Kanpur | Uttar Pradesh | 1959 | Old |
| 5 | IIT Delhi | Delhi | 1961 | Old |
| 6 | IIT Guwahati | Assam | 1994 | Old |
| 7 | IIT Roorkee | Uttarakhand | 2001 (converted; founded 1847 as Thomason College) | Old |
| 8 | IIT Jodhpur | Rajasthan | 2008 | 2008-09 batch |
| 9 | IIT Ropar | Punjab | 2008 | 2008-09 batch |
| 10 | IIT Gandhinagar | Gujarat | 2008 | 2008-09 batch |
| 11 | IIT Hyderabad | Telangana | 2008 | 2008-09 batch |
| 12 | IIT Patna | Bihar | 2008 | 2008-09 batch |
| 13 | IIT Bhubaneswar | Odisha | 2008 | 2008-09 batch |
| 14 | IIT Mandi | Himachal Pradesh | 2009 | 2008-09 batch |
| 15 | IIT Indore | Madhya Pradesh | 2009 | 2008-09 batch |
| 16 | IIT (BHU) Varanasi | Uttar Pradesh | 2012 (converted; founded 1919 as IT-BHU) | 2012 conversion |
| 17 | IIT Palakkad | Kerala | 2015 | 2015-16 batch |
| 18 | IIT Tirupati | Andhra Pradesh | 2015 | 2015-16 batch |
| 19 | IIT (ISM) Dhanbad | Jharkhand | 2016 (converted; founded 1926 as ISM) | 2016 conversion |
| 20 | IIT Bhilai | Chhattisgarh | 2016 | 2015-16 batch |
| 21 | IIT Dharwad | Karnataka | 2016 | 2015-16 batch |
| 22 | IIT Jammu | Jammu & Kashmir | 2016 | 2015-16 batch |
| 23 | IIT Goa | Goa | 2016 | 2015-16 batch |
Sourced from: Wikipedia's IIT list (cross-checked against founding-year figures published by the individual institutes) for historical/location data, and JoSAA for seat figures. Founding years are stable historical facts; always check josaa.nic.in for the current admission cycle's exact seat matrix, as it's revised every year.
Old IITs vs New IITs — What Actually Differs
The seven "old" IITs — Kharagpur, Bombay, Madras, Kanpur, Delhi, Guwahati, and Roorkee — carry decades of alumni network, research output, and industry recognition, which is why they consistently see the highest JEE Advanced cutoffs and the strongest average placement packages. This isn't a minor gap: employer familiarity and referral networks built over 40-70 years don't transfer instantly to a 15-year-old campus.
That said, "new" doesn't mean "weak." IIT Hyderabad and IIT Indore, both from the 2008-09 batch, have built strong research output and placement records well ahead of their age — IIT Hyderabad in particular is often ranked competitively with several older IITs in NIRF rankings. The 2015-16 batch (Bhilai, Dharwad, Jammu, Goa, Palakkad, Tirupati) is newer still and generally sees lower cutoffs, which can be a reasonable trade-off for a student prioritizing branch choice over institute name.
JoSAA 2026 Seat Matrix — IITs, NITs, IIITs & GFTIs
Undergraduate seats across all four institute categories are allocated through a single centralized counselling process, JoSAA (Joint Seat Allocation Authority). Here's how the 2026 seat matrix breaks down:
| Category | Total Seats (2026) |
|---|---|
| IITs (23 institutes) | 18,951 |
| NITs | 25,162 |
| IIITs | 11,518 |
| GFTIs | 11,692 |
| Total (JoSAA 2026) | 67,323 |
Sourced from: JoSAA's published 2026 seat matrix. This number changes every year as institutes add capacity — check josaa.nic.in/seat-matrix directly before relying on it for admission planning.
IIT vs IIIT vs NIT — Don't Mix These Up
This trips up a lot of first-time JEE aspirants. IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) are fully government-funded Institutes of National Importance. NITs (National Institutes of Technology) are a separate, also fully government-funded network of 31 institutes, generally a step below IITs in average cutoff but with strong regional reputations. IIITs (Indian Institutes of Information Technology) are mostly public-private-partnership institutes focused on IT and computer science — the "IIIT" name is easy to misread as "IIT" at a glance, but they're a distinct, separate system with generally lower cutoffs (with the notable exception of IIIT Hyderabad, which is highly competitive for CS specifically).