Cobalt-iron bimetallic catalysts promoted with Nb, Ru or Rh and supported on multiwalled-carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were synthesized using a reverse-microemulsion method. The synthesized catalysts were characterized by TEM, N2-physical adsorption, XPS, XRD, and TPD/R/O methods. XPS analyses showed an increasing trend of the Co2+/Co3+ atomic ratios for the promoted catalysts, compared to that of the un-promoted Co�Fe/CNTs catalyst. The dispersion for the un-promoted Co�Fe /CNTs catalyst was 15.9 and it increased to 23.0, 20.4, and 17.7 in the presence of 0.1 wt. Nb, Ru, and Rh promoter, respectively. The addition of Nb-promoter also improved the reducibility of the catalyst as exhibited by the H2-TPR study. The presence of Nb, Ru, and Rh promoters improved the catalytic performance in a Fischer�Tropsch synthesis where the TOF over the un-promoted catalyst increased from 5.1 to 6.2, 5.7, 5.2 � 10�1 s�1 upon the addition of Nb, Ru and Rh promoter, respectively. Thus, the Nb promoter was a better promoter than Ru and Rh for the Co�Fe/CNTs catalyst. Graphical Abstract: Figure not available: see fulltext. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.