UPSC CSE Syllabus

PSC Syllabus 2026: Union Public Service Commission has released the revised exam dates for UPSC Prelims & Mains exam, therefore it’s high time, the candidate should focus on their strategy and be serious for their preparation. As the syllabus for Civil Service Exam is vast therefore the candidates have to understand the detailed syllabus for the exam. In the below section, we have discussed the exam pattern and syllabus for UPSC IAS Exam, IPS, IRS & IFS. Bookmark this page before starting your preparation for any of these exam and don’t skip out any important topic from the syllabus.

UPSC Prelims has been scheduled for 10th October 2026 and Mains will conducted for 5 days beginning on 07th January 2026. UPSC syllabus pattern for services such as the Indian Administrative Service, Indian Foreign Service, Indian Police Service, Indian Revenue Service and other civil services is same. Go through the article, and know the selection process, exam pattern, and syllabus for each stage in detail.

UPSC IAS Syllabus 2026

The stages of UPSC CSE 2026 is comprised of Prelims, Mains, and Interview, where Prelims consists of two Objective Type Exam and Mains consists of 9 Descriptive Type Papers. The candidates qualifying Prelims & Mains will be called for the personality test where they will be assessed for their intelligence, attentiveness, balance of judgement and human qualities like honesty, integrity and leadership qualities.

UPSC Prelims Syllabus for IAS, IPS, IRS, IFS

The UPSC (Union Public Service Commission) Prelims exam is the first stage of the examination and is qualifying in nature. The candidate have to score minimum 33% marks along with the marks above cut-off as decided by UPSC. UPSC Prelims exam is conducted to shortlist limited candidates for Mains exam. The Prelims exam comprises of two papers namely General Studies and CSAT (Civil Services Aptitude Test).

UPSC Prelims Exam Pattern

Before going to the UPSC Syllabus 2026, candidates should well-understand the exam pattern of the UPSC CSE (Civil Service Examination) exam.

IMPORTANT POINTS !!

• 1. There is a negative marking of 1/3 marks for each wrong answer marked and no mark will be deducted for unanswered question.
• 2. In General Studies (Paper I) candidates will be awarded 2 marks for correct answer and 0.66 will be deducted for each wrong answer.
• 3. In CSAT (Paper II) candidates will be awarded 2.5 marks for each correct answer and 0.833 marks will be deducted for each wrong answer marked by the candidates.
• 5. The marks of Prelims exam will not be included in the included in the final result (merit list).
• 6. Paper-II of the Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination will be a qualifying paper with minimum qualifying marks fixed at 33%.

UPSC Prelims Syllabus 2026

In this section, we have provided the detailed UPSC syllabus 2026 for Prelims Exam. The candidates can check the General Studies (Paper I) syllabus of Prelims examination and begin with their preparation for UPSC CSE 2026.

UPSC Prelims Syllabus: General Studies (Paper I)

• 1. Current Affairs (Events) of national and international importance.
• 2. History of India and Indian National Movement.
• 3. Indian and World Geography-Physical, Social, Economic Geography of India and the World.
• 4. Indian Polity and Governance – Constitution, Political System, Panchayati Raj, Public Policy, Rights Issues, etc.
• 5. Economic and Social Development – Sustainable Development, Poverty, Inclusion, Demographics, Social Sector initiatives, etc.
• 6. General issues on Environmental Ecology, Biodiversity and Climate Change: that do not require subject specialization.
• 7. General Science

UPSC CSE CSAT Syllabus (Paper II)

Candidates can check the IAS Prelims CSAT (Civil Services Aptitude Test) Syllabus given below. This section do need constant practice and reading articles, newspapers, solving as much as mock-tests would be of great help.

• 1. Comprehension
• 2. Interpersonal skills including communication skills
• 3. Logical reasoning and analytical ability
• 4. Decision-making and problem solving
• 5. General mental ability
• 6. Basic numeracy (numbers and their relations, orders of magnitude, etc.) (Class X level), Data interpretation (charts, graphs, tables, data sufficiency etc. – Class X level).

UPSC Mains Syllabus for IAS, IRS, IFS, IPS

The candidates qualifying prelims exam will be eligible to appear for the Mains exam. It is the scoring and rank deciding stage of the exam process and candidates have to qualify in each paper. The Mains exam tests the candidate’s academic knowledge and their ability to present the understanding according to the requirements of the question in a time-bound manner.

UPSC IAS Mains Exam Pattern

The Mains exam comprises of nine papers and candidates have to score minimum qualifying mark in each subject. Lnagugae papers are of qualifying marks and rest of the papers will be scoring.

IMPORTANT POINTS !!

• 1. There are two qualifying paper in the mains exam, Namely “Paper A” and “Paper B” of 300 marks each.
• 2. Two Qualifying Papers are “Any Indian Language from Eight Schedule “ and “English Language Paper”.
• 3. Candidates need to score 25% in both qualifying papers i.e, 75 marks each.
• 4. All other seven papers are scoring in nature their marks will be included in the final merit list.
• 5. Candidates can answer all the scoring subject in English or any of the eight schedule language.
• 6. Candidates have to select any one subject from the table as their Optional subject for the Paper VI and Paper VII.