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UPSC Eligibility Criteria 2025, Qualification, Age Limit, Nationality

PWOnlyIAS October 22, 2024 07:24 1767 0

UPSC Eligibility Criteria 2025 is provided here in detailed. Candidates can check the educational qualification, number of attempts and category wise age limit here.

UPSC Eligibility Criteria 2025, Qualification, Age Limit, Nationality

UPSC Eligibility Criteria 2025: Candidates cannot begin preparing for the UPSC Civil Services Exam (CSE), popularly known as the IAS exam, without first acquiring correct and credible information about the exam’s qualifying requirements. In order to verify the eligibility of candidates vying for positions in the government-run civil services such as Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS), Indian Police Service (IPS), Indian Revenue Service (IRS), and so on, the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), which administers the Civil Services Examination, has established several criteria based on factors like age, number of attempts, educational background, etc.

To utilize the benefits offered, an applicant must be aware of the varied relaxations offered for each of the many qualifying requirements. It is also crucial to remember that reservations for SC, ST, OBC, EWS, and PwD candidates are applied at every stage of the selection process, even with a change in the cut-off marks. For this reason, it is crucial to ascertain if a candidate qualifies for these privileges as well.

With the exception of modifications to the Creamy-Layer factor for candidates from Other Backward Classes (OBC) and the quota for applicants from Economically Weaker Sections (EWS), the UPSC has largely maintained the qualifying requirements unaltered. Keep reading to know more about UPSC Eligibility Criteria 2025 from here.

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UPSC Eligibility Criteria 2025 – Educational Qualification

The Commission sets the qualifying requirements for the UPSC IAS. In this part, let’s review the UPSC IAS 2025 qualifying requirements.

  • For the UPSC CSE, the minimum level of education needed is any graduation from any university founded by an Act of the Central or State Legislature in India, any other university recognised as a university by the University Grants Commission Act, 1956, or any other university established by an Act of Parliament.

                                                                                 OR 

  • Have a certification that is comparable (or professional and technical credentials that the government has approved as being comparable to degrees in certain fields).
  • Applicants can participate in the UPSC Preliminary Examination if they are in their last year of graduation. Applicants may also take the UPSC CSE Prelims Exam if they are awaiting the announcement of their graduation degree (or similar exam) results. This means that these candidates have taken an exam that, should they pass, will qualify them for the CSE program.
    • When submitting an application for the Main Examination, all such candidates who have been deemed qualified by the Commission to sit for the Civil Services (Main) Examination will need to provide documentation of their passing the necessary exam; otherwise, they will not be allowed to take the Main Examination.
  • Candidates will be provisionally admitted to the examination if they submit a copy of a certificate from the relevant university or institution proving they passed the necessary final professional medical examination along with their application. This is applicable to candidates who have passed the final professional M.B.B.S. or any other medical examination but have not finished their internship by the time their applications for the Civil Services (Main) Examination are submitted.
    • In these situations, the applicants must provide their original degrees or a certificate from the relevant university or institution authorities at the time of the interview attesting to the fact that they have fulfilled all requirements—including finishing the internship—in order to be awarded a degree.

Eligibility Criteria for UPSC Exam 2025 – Nationality Qualification

For the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) and Indian Police Services (IPS) positions, candidates must be citizens of India.

  • Candidates for all other services, like Indian Revenue Services (IRS), etc., may be citizens of India, subjects of Nepal, Bhutan, or Tibet refugees who arrived in India prior to January 1, 1962, with the intention of settling there permanently; or persons of Indian origin (PIO) who have immigrated from Pakistan, Burma, Sri Lanka, East African nations such as Kenya, Uganda, the United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, Ethiopia, Zaire, and Vietnam with the intention of settling in India permanently.
  • All applicants (for services other than IAS and IPS) must provide a certificate of eligibility provided by the Government of India, with the exception of Indian citizens. However, candidates may sit the test prior to receiving the aforementioned proof of eligibility.

It is noteworthy that an individual who has migrated from Pakistan, Burma, Sri Lanka, East African countries (Kenya, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, Ethiopia, Zaire, and Vietnam) and is neither a citizen of India nor a Person of Indian origin (PIO) is ineligible for appointment to the Indian Foreign Service (IFS).

UPSC Eligibility Criteria 2025 Age Limit

One prerequisite that applicants must meet in order to sit for the test is the UPSC 2025 Age Limit. As of August 1, 2025, applicants must be at least 21 years old and no older than 32, per the UPSC’s norms. This implies that in order to be eligible for the exam, an applicant needs to have been born between August 2, 1993, and August 1, 2004.

In order to guarantee that applicants have the required degree of maturity and experience before taking the test, UPSC 2025 has set a minimum age restriction. Before applying, candidates should carefully assess their age and make sure they fit within the allowed ranges. Furthermore, there is a limit on how many times a candidate may take the exam during the UPSC 2025 age limit:

  • You must be at least 21 years old to take the IAS Exam. This indicates that the applicant must be at least 21 years old on August 1st of the year in question when the test is administered.
  • Regardless of their reservation status, ALL applicants must meet the same minimum age requirement.
  • For instance, an applicant must be at least 21 years old by August 1, 2024, if they are applying for the UPSC CSE 2024 (even if they are under 21 at the time of application in February 2024).
  • For candidates in the general category, the maximum age restriction to appear in the UPSC Civil Services Examination is 32 years old. For candidates in other reservation categories, there are age relaxations available.
  • On August 1st of that year, the Upper Age Limit was also taken into consideration. For instance, if a candidate applies for UPSC CSE 2024 in the General Category without any age restrictions, they will not be allowed to take the test if, on August 1, 2024, their age exceeds 32 years.
  • Upper Age restriction: Based on the age relaxations indicated in the UPSC CSE notification 2023, this restriction is established for various reservation groups.

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UPSC 2025 Age Limit
Category Upper Age Limit
  • General category and Economically Weaker Sections (EWS)
32 Years
  • Other Backward Classes (OBC)
35 Years
  • Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST)
37 Years
  • Defense Services personnel disabled in operations during hostilities with any foreign country or in a disturbed area and released as a consequence thereof
35 Years
  • Ex-servicemen including Commissioned Officers and ECOs/SSCOs who have rendered at least five years Military Service
37 Years
  • Persons with Benchmark Disabilities (PwBD) such as blindness, loss of hearing, locomotor disabilities, autism, and other intellectual disabilities etc.
42 Years

Further details on the relaxation of the maximum age limit:

  • Candidates who meet the eligibility requirements for SC, ST, or OBC and who are also PwBD or ex-servicemen may be granted a cumulative age reduction under both categories.
  • The date of birth listed on the Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC), also known as the 10th Marks Card, is the one recognized by the Commission.
  • A candidate must present the certificate attesting to their date of birth only when submitting an application for the Civil Services (Main) Examination. Marks Cards received after the application submission deadline (e.g., updated or duplicate marks cards) will not be accepted; only the tenth Marks Card issued prior to the application submission date is acceptable.

UPSC Eligibility Criteria 2025 -Number of Attempts

As part of the requirements for qualifying for the Civil Services Examination, UPSC has set a maximum number of tries that a candidate may take.

  • It is crucial to remember that a candidate’s effort is only considered valid if they show up for the preliminary exam! An attempt is not defined as merely applying to take the exam. Approximately half of the over ten lakh applicants for the UPSC CSE choose not to take the preliminary exam for this reason.
  • It’s also important to remember that an applicant who passed the test and is now employed as an Indian Administrative Services (IAS) or Indian Foreign Services (IFS) officer is not eligible to retake the test while they are in service.

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Nonetheless, an officer in the Indian Police Services (IPS) or Indian Revenue Services (IRS) may retake the test while still employed in order to improve their ranking and maybe secure the much sought-after IAS position. Maximum Attempts allotted to each reservation category (taking into account the relaxations outlined in the UPSC CSE notification 2021)

UPSC 2025 Age Limit and Attempts
Category Maximum Age Number of Attempts
General 32 6
Other Backward Classes (OBC) 35 9
Scheduled Castes (SC)/Scheduled Tribes (ST) 37 Unlimited
Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) 42 Depends on category

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FAQs On UPSC Eligibility 2025

The upper age restriction for the general category is 32 years old as of August 1st of the year that the form is filled out; in other words, in order to be eligible, you cannot be older than 32 on August 1st, 2026, in the case of UPSC 2026.

While there is no maximum age limit for SC/ST applicants, there is no cap on the number of tries.

The UPSC 2025 age restriction for female candidates is the same as it is for their respective categories.

There hasn't been a formal statement as of yet on a lower UPSC 2025 age limit.

According to the UPSC eligibility requirements, a candidate must be at least 21 years old or at least 32 years old on August 1st in order to be eligible to take the test. This implies that you can begin at any moment until you reach the UPSC's age requirements.
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UDAAN PRELIMS WALLAH
Comprehensive coverage with a concise format
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Designed as per recent trends of Prelims questions
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