Popular searches
Tamil Nadu · Government Exams
Departmental examinations are the qualifying tests Tamil Nadu government servants must pass for probation to be declared, for promotion, and for the increments their service rules make conditional on them. The commission conducts them in two sessions a year — May and December — and publishes the results as passes in its bulletin rather than as a merit list.
Three things make the Tamil Nadu version distinctive. Nearly every test is open to anyone, in government service or not, on payment of the fee. Every test is set out of 100 with a pass mark of 45, and a test split between an objective and a descriptive part must be passed in both parts separately. And the commission has already rewritten its criminal-law tests for the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and its companion codes — the old titles disappeared from the test list with the December 2024 session.
Tamil Nadu Departmental Examinations · checked 19 September 2026
The dates, vacancies and rules below are read on the conducting body’s own site and rewritten as each notice appears. The guide beneath carries the full pattern, syllabus, cut-offs and free mock tests.
Checked 19 September 2026
Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission
Two a year — May and December
Notification No. 3/2026 for the May 2026 session; results published 10 September 2026
₹200 per test, plus a ₹30 registration fee
Notification
Checked 11 September 2026. The May 2026 session, Notification No. 3/2026, is complete: examinations ran from 22 May to 2 June 2026 with one further date on 21 June, tentative keys were published on 21 July with a week for objections, and the results were published on 10 September 2026. The December 2026 session had not been notified at the date checked; the last two December sessions were notified on 22 October and 7 November.
| Session | Notified | Closing date | Examinations | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 2026 — No. 3/2026 | 9 April 2026 | 30 April 2026 | Objective 22 to 26 May; descriptive 30 May to 2 June | 10 September 2026 |
| December 2025 — No. 17/2025 | 22 October 2025 | 11 November 2025 | Objective 15 to 19 December; descriptive 27 to 30 December | 9 April 2026 |
| May 2025 | 4 April 2025 | — | 19 to 29 May 2025 | — |
| December 2024 | 7 November 2024 | — | 20 to 29 December 2024 | — |
From the December 2024 session the commission renamed the criminal judicial tests: the tests formerly titled Indian Penal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure at general-principles and detailed-application level became the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023 and Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023 tests under the same codes, and the Indian Evidence Act test became the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam 2023 test. The jail tests, the probation branch tests, the transport department’s procedure test and the forest law syllabus were revised to match. A candidate preparing from the old codes is preparing for a test that no longer exists.
TNPSC departmental examination notifications TNPSC departmental examination results
Overview
The tests exist because state service rules make career events conditional on demonstrated knowledge of the rules an officer works under. A revenue officer must know the Revenue Test; an officer handling money the Account Test; a jail officer the criminal codes and the jail manual. The departmental examination certifies that knowledge, and until it does, probation stays undeclared and promotion waits. Because the tests are open to the public, a candidate preparing for a government post can pass them in advance.
The commission conducts the objective tests as computer-based tests and the descriptive tests as written examinations, over about a week in each session. Many tests are split — sixty per cent objective without books and forty per cent descriptive with books, or eighty and twenty, or forty and sixty — and each part is written on a different day. The with-books parts permit only books on the commission’s published list, with bare Acts and rules allowed from any publisher; a guide or a digest in the hall invalidates the answer book and can bar the candidate for three years.
There is no general list. The tests you must pass, the period within which you must pass them, and the consequence of not doing so are fixed by the service rules for your post. The commission publishes the scheme, syllabus, duration and pass mark of every test in an annexure to each notification, and a candidate who has already passed a test code must not apply for it again. Confirm the codes against your own rules before registering.
Eligibility
| Tests | Who may sit them |
|---|---|
| Almost every test | Any person aged 16 or over on the notification date, whether in government service or not, on payment of the fee. |
| General Educational Test at SSLC standard | Restricted to government servants who lack the minimum general educational qualification, local body and panchayat employees, and other listed categories, with a certificate from the specified authority. |
| Compendium of Office Orders test | The commission’s own staff only. |
| Second Class Language Test in Tamil | Persons in, or aspiring to, government service who passed SSLC without Tamil or in a non-Tamil medium. |
| Third Class Language Test | Viva-voce only, for Assistant Curators of the Government Museum and probationary Sub-Registrars and District Registrars. |
| Charge | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Examination fee | ₹200 per test | Charged per test code. The two sections of Probation Branch Part II are compulsory together and charged as ₹400. |
| Registration fee | ₹30 | Charged once per application. |
| Government servants | Pay the fee | Those eligible for exemption pay and claim reimbursement from their office. |
Selection process
Each stage in order, and what it actually tests.
| Stage | Format | What it involves |
|---|---|---|
| Notification and online application | Per session, with one-time registration | The commission notifies each session with an application window of about three weeks. Candidates register once for departmental examinations, with Aadhaar linkage, and then apply per test; government servants give their employee number. |
| The examination | Computer-based for objective parts; written for descriptive parts | Objective parts are computer-based tests with four-option questions; descriptive parts are handwritten. The two parts of a split test are held on different days across the session’s week. Question papers are set in Tamil and English, and answers may be written in either or both, except in the language and translation tests. |
| Tentative key and objections | By email, within a week | The commission publishes tentative keys for the objective tests and the descriptive question papers, and accepts objections by email for a week with the evidence attached. Postal objections are not accepted. |
| Result | Pass or fail, in the commission’s bulletin | Results are published on the commission’s website with a register-number lookup, and the detailed list of successful candidates appears in the commission’s e-bulletin. Requests for the cause of failure or for revaluation are not entertained. |
Exam pattern
| Pattern | Objective part | Descriptive part | Total time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100% objective | Computer-based, 2 hours 30 minutes, pass 45 | — | 2 hours 30 minutes |
| 80% objective, 20% descriptive | Without books, 2 hours, pass 36 | With books, 30 minutes, pass 9 | 2 hours 30 minutes |
| 60% objective, 40% descriptive | Without books, 1 hour 30 minutes, pass 27 | With books, 1 hour, pass 18 | 2 hours 30 minutes |
| 40% objective, 60% descriptive | Without books, 1 hour, pass 18 | With books, 1 hour 30 minutes, pass 27 | 2 hours 30 minutes |
| 100% descriptive | — | Written, with books where the scheme says so, 2 hours 30 minutes, pass 45 | 2 hours 30 minutes |
Only books on the commission’s published list. Books containing only bare Acts and rules, without notes, commentaries or explanations, need not be government publications, and for the judicial tests the same applies to bare Acts. Photocopies are allowed only when recommended by the head of department and attested by a Group A officer with a page count. Government publications with an index are allowed. Guides, digests, summaries and notes are prohibited — a candidate found with one has the answer book invalidated, is expelled, and is liable to debarment for three years.
The commission does not entertain requests for the cause of failure or for revaluation, though it reserves the right to revalue an answer book of its own motion. The only marks-related process is the objection window on the tentative key. A candidate who has passed a test code must not apply for it again, and the commission takes action where it finds one has.
Sources
Checked 11 September 2026 against the commission’s departmental examination pages and the May 2026 notification with its three annexures. Fees, eligibility, the pass rule, the with-books rule and the BNS renaming are quoted from those documents. The commission publishes previous question papers only for the 2016 and 2017 sessions, and final keys for the December 2018 to December 2023 sessions; recent papers exist as the descriptive question papers released with each session’s tentative key.
Departmental examination notifications Notification No. 3/2026 — May 2026 session Annexure I — instructions to candidates Annexure II — scheme and syllabus of every test Annexure III — test codes and fees List of books allowed for with-books tests Departmental examination results Departmental examination e-bulletin Previous question papers Final answer keys by session
Exam resources
Six resource pages, each kept in step with the latest official notification.
Questions
The commission holds two sessions a year, May and December. The May 2026 session is complete, with results published on 10 September 2026. As at 11 September 2026 the December 2026 session had not been notified; the last two December sessions were notified on 22 October 2025 and 7 November 2024.
Yes. Almost every test is open to any person aged 16 or over, whether in government service or not, on payment of the fee. The exceptions are the General Educational Test at SSLC standard, the commission’s own compendium test, the second class language test in Tamil and the third class language test, each restricted to listed categories.
₹200 per test plus a ₹30 registration fee, paid online and not refunded. The two sections of Probation Branch Part II are compulsory together and charged as ₹400. Government servants eligible for exemption pay the fee and claim reimbursement from their office.
45 out of 100 in every test. Where a test is split between an objective and a descriptive part, each part must be passed separately in proportion — 27 and 18 in a 60/40 test, 36 and 9 in an 80/20 test, 18 and 27 in a 40/60 test.
That only books on the commission’s published list may be used. Bare Acts and rules without notes or commentary may be from any publisher; photocopies are allowed if recommended by the head of department and attested by a Group A officer with a page count; government publications with an index are allowed. Guides, digests, summaries and notes are prohibited, and a candidate found with one has the answer book invalidated and is liable to a three-year debarment.
Yes, from the December 2024 session. The tests formerly titled Indian Penal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure became the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023 and Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023 tests at general-principles and detailed-application level, and the Indian Evidence Act test became the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam 2023 test. The jail, probation, transport and forest syllabuses were revised to match.
The objective parts are computer-based tests; the descriptive parts are handwritten examinations. The two parts of a split test are held on different days within the session. Question papers are set in Tamil and English, and answers may be written in either or both except in the language and translation tests.
No. The commission states that requests for the cause of failure or for revaluation will not be complied with, though it reserves the right to revalue an answer book itself. The only marks-related process is the objection window on the tentative key, by email within a week of its publication.
Read the syllabus, attempt a free mock, then fix the section that costs you the most marks.
Already practising? Create Free Account to track your preparation.
