The aim of the present empirical study was to test whether the working memory capacity of interpreting and translation students differs in order to shed light on the role of working memory capacity in interpreter education. Six interpreting students and five translation students, all pursuing a master’s degree at Innsbruck University, were tested on working memory capacity tasks: speaking span, counting span, listening span, and subtract 2 span. The Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test showed that the results of the speaking span (p = 0,0246) and subtract 2 span (p = 0,013) are statistically significant. In both of these tests, the interpreting students outperformed the translation students significantly. Moreover, a correlation analysis was conducted to determine whether more advanced students showed a higher memory span, which was the case in both tests. The results of this study suggest that interpreting students develop a higher working memory span throughout their master’s degree, which gives reason to believe that working memory capacity training as early as in the bachelor’s degree could lead to a reduced cognitive load when the students start their interpreter education. These findings are, however, based on a small sample (n = 11), for which they should be viewed with caution. In terms of Open Science, all test documents, results, and analyses can be found under the DOI 10.5281/zenodo.6985735.