The effect of Mn-promotion on high surface area Al-pillared montmorillonite (AlMMT) supported Co nanoparticles prepared by hydrothermal method have been investigated. A series of different weight% Mnpromoted Co nanoparticles were prepared and characterized by XRD, TPR, TGA, BET and SEM techniques. An increase in the surface area of MMT is observed with Al-pillaring. Fischer-Tropsch catalytic activity of the as prepared catalysts was studied in a fixed bed micro reactor at 225 o C, H 2 /CO = 2 and at 1 atm pressure. The data showed that by the addition of Mn the selectivity of C 1 dropped drastically while that of C 2 -C 12 hydrocarbons increased significantly over all the Mn-promoted Co/AlMMT catalysts. The C 13 -C 20 hydrocarbons remained almost same for all the catalysts while the selectivity of C 21+ long chain hydrocarbons decreased considerably with the addition of Mn. The catalyst with 3.5%Mn showed lowest C 21+ and highest C 2 -C 12 hydrocarbons selectivity due to cracking of long chain hydrocarbons over acidic sites of MMT.