Management control systems offers powerful ways of guiding employee behavior and implementing organizational strategy. Given the new business logic and the extensive and complex challenges that industrial firms face in light of a circular economy transition, this paper is oriented around two questions. First, the compatibility between traditional management control systems and circular economy. Second, how management control systems can support the radical transformation of firms that circular economy entails. By scrutinizing extant research on MCS, six propositions are developed and grounded in empirical illustrations. These propositions hold relevant implications for practitioners, and several promising avenues for future research are highlighted.