The UPSC Cut Off is the minimum qualifying mark a candidate must score to clear each stage of the Civil Services Examination — Prelims, Mains, and the Final Merit List. Cutoffs change every year based on exam difficulty, the number of vacancies, and how well candidates perform overall, which is why aspirants track historical trends closely to gauge where they stand. This guide covers UPSC cutoff marks for the last eight years across every major category, explains exactly how and why the cutoff is decided, and answers the most common cutoff-related questions for CSE 2026.
What Is the UPSC Cut Off?
The UPSC Civil Services Examination has three stages, and each has its own cutoff:
- Prelims Cutoff: The minimum score (out of 200, on General Studies Paper I only) needed to qualify for the Mains exam. CSAT (Paper II) is qualifying-only at a flat 33% (66.67 marks) and does not otherwise affect the Prelims cutoff.
- Mains Cutoff: The minimum score (out of 1,750 written marks) needed to be called for the Interview/Personality Test.
- Final Cutoff: The minimum score (out of 2,025 — Mains 1,750 + Interview 275) needed to appear on the final selection/merit list.
Each cutoff is set separately for General, EWS, OBC, SC, ST, and PwBD categories, and all of them change every year — there is no fixed number you can rely on across cycles. For the full exam structure these cutoffs apply to, see our UPSC Prelims Exam guide and UPSC Mains Exam guide.
UPSC Prelims Cutoff: Last 8 Years (Out of 200)
| Category | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| General | 92.66 | 87.98 | 75.41 | 88.22 | 87.54 | 92.51 | 98.00 | 98.00 |
| EWS | 89.34 | 85.92 | 68.02 | 82.83 | 80.14 | 77.55 | 90.00 | — |
| OBC | 92.00 | 87.28 | 74.75 | 87.54 | 84.85 | 89.12 | 95.34 | 96.66 |
| SC | 84.00 | 79.03 | 59.25 | 74.08 | 75.41 | 74.84 | 82.00 | 84.00 |
| ST | 82.66 | 74.23 | 47.82 | 69.35 | 70.71 | 68.71 | 77.34 | 83.34 |
Note: “2025” here refers to the Civil Services Examination 2025 cycle (Prelims held 25 May 2025, results declared 11 July 2025, official cutoff released alongside the final result on 6 March 2026) — not calendar year 2025 in isolation. UPSC labels its exam cycles by the year the Prelims is conducted, and the official cutoff for that cycle is released much later, after the final result. Always check which exam cycle a “year” refers to before comparing figures across sources.
UPSC Mains Cutoff: Last 8 Years (Out of 1,750)
| Category | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| General | 739 | 729 | 741 | 748 | 745 | 736 | 751 | 774 |
| EWS | 706 | 696 | 706 | 715 | 713 | 687 | 696 | — |
| OBC | 717 | 702 | 712 | 714 | 707 | 698 | 718 | 732 |
| SC | 700 | 685 | 694 | 699 | 700 | 680 | 706 | 719 |
| ST | 694 | 684 | 692 | 706 | 700 | 682 | 699 | 719 |
UPSC Final Cutoff: Last 8 Years (Out of 2,025)
| Category | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| General | 963 | 947 | 953 | 960 | 953 | 944 | 961 | 982 |
| EWS | 926 | 917 | 923 | 926 | 916 | 894 | 909 | — |
| OBC | 931 | 910 | 919 | 923 | 910 | 907 | 925 | 938 |
| SC | 905 | 880 | 890 | 893 | 886 | 875 | 898 | 912 |
| ST | 902 | 884 | 891 | 900 | 883 | 876 | 893 | 912 |
The Final Cutoff is the last stage — clearing it means a name appears on the official CSE merit list and (depending on rank and preferences) a service allocation follows. For a breakdown of what final rank ranges typically map to which services, see our UPSC Salary & Perks guide.
UPSC CSE 2026 Cutoff: Current Status
The CSE 2026 Prelims exam was conducted on 24 May 2026, with results declared in mid-June 2026. As of this writing, the official CSE 2026 cutoff has not yet been released — UPSC only publishes the official cutoff for a cycle alongside that cycle’s final result, which typically follows Mains and Interview roughly 10-12 months later (based on the CSE 2025 pattern, that would place the official CSE 2026 cutoff release around April-May 2027).
In the meantime, several coaching platforms publish expected/predicted cutoff ranges based on candidate feedback and answer-key based score estimation (commonly cited in the General category 85-95 range for CSE 2026 Prelims at the time of writing) — treat these as directional estimates only, not official figures, and always wait for UPSC’s own notification before drawing firm conclusions about your own result.
What Factors Affect the UPSC Cutoff Each Year?
- Difficulty of the question paper. A tougher paper generally pulls the cutoff down since fewer candidates score high; an easier paper pushes it up.
- Number of vacancies notified. More vacancies in a given cycle generally allow a lower cutoff, since more candidates can be accommodated at a given score band.
- Total number of candidates and overall performance. A stronger-performing candidate pool in a given year raises the cutoff; a weaker one lowers it.
- Normalization across question-paper sets. For Prelims, UPSC uses a normalization procedure to adjust scores fairly across multiple question-paper sets of slightly different difficulty, before applying the cutoff.
- Category-wise reservation policy. Each category’s cutoff is computed independently based on the number of seats reserved for it and the applicant pool within that category — this is why General, OBC, SC, ST, and EWS cutoffs never move in perfect lockstep with each other.
For reference, CSE 2025 notified 979-1,129 vacancies (the number was revised upward during the cycle) and resulted in 958 candidates being finally selected — vacancy count is one of the single biggest swing factors in how forgiving or strict a given year’s cutoff turns out to be.
UPSC Cutoff Trend: What the Last 8 Years Show
- Prelims cutoff is the most volatile of the three stages — the General category alone has swung from a low of 75.41 (2023) to a high of 98.00 (2018-2019) across these eight years, entirely driven by paper difficulty and vacancy count in a given cycle.
- Mains and Final cutoffs are comparatively stable — General category Mains cutoff has stayed in a tighter 729-774 band, and Final cutoff in a 944-982 band, since Mains largely rewards consistent writing ability rather than being as sensitive to a single paper’s difficulty swing.
- Category gaps compress and expand year to year — the General-to-ST Prelims gap was as wide as ~27 points in 2023 (75.41 vs 47.82) but much narrower in years with an easier paper, since a harder paper widens relative category gaps while an easier one compresses them.
What If You Don’t Clear the UPSC Cutoff?
- Get your exact marks via the RTI route or through UPSC’s official marks-upload facility (available for non-recommended candidates) to precisely gauge how far you were from qualifying.
- Analyze which stage and paper cost you the most — a Prelims miss with a comfortable CSAT score usually means a GS-I revision gap; a Mains miss usually points to answer-writing or optional-subject depth rather than raw knowledge.
- Use the same cycle to prepare State PSC exams in parallel — our State PSC Exams guide covers exams with 60-80% syllabus overlap with UPSC CSE, so a missed UPSC attempt isn’t preparation lost.
- Don’t over-index on a single year’s cutoff when planning your target score — aim comfortably above the highest cutoff in your category from the last 3-4 cycles, not just the most recent (often lowest) one.
Related Resources
- UPSC Prelims Exam Guide
- UPSC Mains Exam Guide
- UPSC Previous Year Question Papers
- UPSC Current Affairs 2026 Strategy Guide
- UPSC Salary Guide (IAS, IPS & IFS Pay Scale)
- State PSC Exams in India: Complete Guide
- NCERT Books Guide (Class 6-12)
Frequently Asked Questions
Disclaimer: Cutoff figures are compiled from UPSC’s official notifications and cross-checked secondary sources at the time of writing. UPSC cutoffs for a given cycle are released only after the final result, so any “expected” or “predicted” cutoff mentioned for an ongoing cycle is not official. Always verify current-cycle cutoff figures against the official notification at upsc.gov.in.
