UPSC & Civil Services · Government Exams

UPSC CSE Exam Pattern

Every figure here is from the 2026 notification and the 2025 cut-off sheet — what each stage asks, what counts, what merely qualifies, and where the cut-offs have sat.

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UPSC CSE · 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.

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19September 2026

Checked 19 September 2026

UPSC CSE: the facts that matter now

01
Notified 14 January 2026 (revised 6 February); prelims held 24 May, result 15 June; mains from 21 August 2026; interviews to follow
2026 cycle
02
Union Public Service Commission — Civil Services Examination 2026 for the IAS, IFS, IPS and the Group A and B central services
Conducted by
03
About 933, including 33 for persons with benchmark disabilities; CSE 2025 recommended 958 candidates on 6 March 2026
Vacancies
04
Graduate; age 21–32 on 1 August 2026; six attempts for general candidates, nine for OBC and EWS, unlimited for SC and ST
Eligibility

Pattern

UPSC CSE — UPSC CSE exam pattern 2026: prelims, mains, personality test and cut-offs

The Civil Services Examination has three stages: an objective preliminary examination that only screens, a written main examination of nine papers that builds most of the merit, and a personality test. Only the mains and the interview count — 2,025 marks in all. The prelims is set in Hindi and English with a third of a mark off per error; the mains is handwritten in the medium the candidate chooses.

Preliminary examination. Objective, OMR-based; Hindi and English; one third of a mark deducted per wrong answer.
Paper	Questions	Marks	Time	How it is used
General Studies Paper I	100	200	2 hours	Category-wise cut-off decides admission to the mains
General Studies Paper II — CSAT	80	200	2 hours	Qualifying: 33 per cent, i.e. 66.67 marks

About 12–13 times the vacancies are admitted to the main examination on GS Paper I marks, subject to 33 per cent in the CSAT. The general-category cut-off on GS Paper I was 92.66 in 2025, 87.98 in 2024 and 75.41 in 2023; blind candidates and candidates with cerebral palsy get 20 minutes of extra time per hour.

Main examination — nine papers over five days, three hours each, 1,750 merit marks.
Paper	Subject	Marks	Counted
A	One Indian language from the Eighth Schedule	300	Qualifying — 25 per cent
B	English	300	Qualifying — 25 per cent
I	Essay — two essays from choices	250	Merit
II	General Studies I	250	Merit
III	General Studies II	250	Merit
IV	General Studies III	250	Merit
V	General Studies IV — ethics, integrity and aptitude	250	Merit
VI	Optional paper 1	250	Merit
VII	Optional paper 2	250	Merit

How the mains is scored

Qualifying papers first — Paper A and Paper B must be passed at the Commission’s minimum for the seven merit papers to be evaluated; their marks are not counted.
A floor in every merit paper — The 2025 cut-off sheet notes the mains cut-off is subject to 10 per cent in each of the seven competitive papers.
Optional subjects — Forty-eight subjects including 22 literatures; the same optional must be used for both papers, and it is chosen in the application.
Medium — Any Eighth Schedule language or English for the GS, essay and optional papers, with the literature optionals in their language.

Personality test and final merit.
Item	Detail
Who is called	Roughly twice the vacancies on mains marks by category
Marks	275
Final merit	Mains 1,750 + interview 275 = 2,025; services allotted by rank, category and preference
2025 final cut-off	General 963, EWS 926, OBC 931, SC 905, ST 902 out of 2,025

What the pattern means for how you attempt the paper

Prelims: never guess across four options — A third off per error; the general cut-off has needed about 45–47 correct answers net of penalties in recent cycles.
CSAT is a real gate — Sixty-seven marks out of 200 must be secured; candidates from non-mathematics backgrounds fail it every year.
Mains: nine minutes a question — Twenty questions in three hours per GS paper; structure and coverage beat depth on any single answer.
The optional is a quarter of the written total — Five hundred marks with far higher score variance than GS; it is where ranks are made.

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