UPSC Exam Calendar 2027 — All Notification, Application and Exam Dates

The Union Public Service Commission released its Annual Calendar for 2027 on 20 May 2026. It fixes the notification date, the last date to apply and the exam date for every examination UPSC will conduct next year.

The headline dates: Civil Services Preliminary Examination on 23 May 2027, with the notification on 13 January 2027 and applications closing on 2 February 2027. Civil Services Mains begins 20 August 2027 and runs five days.

Read this first: the application window is twenty days, and that is the whole problem

Look down the table below and you will notice the same gap every time. Notification on the 13th, last date on the 2nd. Notification on the 2nd, last date on the 22nd. UPSC gives you twenty days to apply, and not one day more.

Twenty days is not enough time to obtain an OBC-NCL certificate, get an EWS income certificate issued, chase a duplicate Class 10 marksheet, or sort out a name mismatch between your Aadhaar and your degree. Those things take weeks.

So the practical use of this calendar is not knowing when the exam is. It is knowing which documents must already be in your hand before the notification appears — because once it appears, the clock is too short to fix anything.

For a candidate reading this in October 2026, that means two specific deadlines are already close:

• NDA & NA (I) and CDS (I) 2027 — notification 2 December 2026, apply by 22 December 2026. Six weeks away.
• CISF AC (EXE) LDCE 2027 — notification 25 November 2026, apply by 15 December 2026.

And the biggest one, Civil Services 2027, notifies on 13 January 2027. If you intend to write it, your certificates should be ready by December.

UPSC Annual Calendar 2027 — full table

The calendar is tentative. UPSC can and does revise dates, and when it does the revision is published on upsc.gov.in and nowhere else first.

Problems candidates hit — and what to do

"What does 'Reserved for UPSC RT/Examination' mean? Which exam is that?"

None, yet. Those are blocked dates — weekends UPSC holds in reserve for Recruitment Tests it has not yet announced. UPSC conducts Recruitment Tests for posts filled by direct recruitment on a requisition basis, and the requisitions arrive through the year.

So do not read a reserved slot as an exam you can prepare for. Read it as a warning: if an RT is announced on one of those dates and you have another exam the same weekend, UPSC will not move either of them. There are nine reserved slots in 2027.

"NDA I and CDS I are both on 11 April 2027. Can I write both?"

No. The calendar puts both examinations on the same Sunday, as it does again for NDA II and CDS II on 19 September 2027. One exam date means one exam.

You still apply separately, and the choice is usually made for you by eligibility rather than preference — NDA is for candidates in or just out of Class 12, CDS is for graduates. If you genuinely qualify for both, the practical answer is to write NDA I in April and CDS II in September, which the calendar permits, rather than trying to split one day.

"I want to write both Civil Services and Indian Forest Service"

You can, and this is the single most useful structural fact in the whole calendar. Both notify on 13 January 2027, both close on 2 February 2027, and both have their Preliminary examination on 23 May 2027 — because it is one common Preliminary examination and one common application form.

On that form you indicate whether you want to be considered for CSE, for IFS, or for both. Tick both and a single prelims attempt puts you in the running for two services. The Mains are separate papers on separate dates — CSE Mains from 20 August 2027 over five days, IFS Mains from 21 November 2027 over seven days — so you only commit to the second set of papers if you clear.

Candidates who tick only CSE and then clear the cut-off are not considered for IFS. There is no way to add it afterwards. If you have any science or engineering background that makes you IFS-eligible, tick both.

"Engineering Services Prelims is on 31 January 2027 and the application already closed"

Yes. For two examinations in this calendar, the application window has already passed — Combined Geo-Scientist Prelims closed on 22 September 2026 and Engineering Services Prelims closed on 6 October 2026. Their exams fall in January 2027, which is why they appear in the 2027 calendar at all.

This is exactly the trap the calendar exists to prevent. The exam you want to write in January 2027 was advertised in September 2026. Always check the notification column, not the exam column. If you missed Engineering Services this cycle, the next notification will appear in the 2028 calendar around September 2027.

"Three different Mains exams land on 18 and 19 June 2027"

They do — Engineering Services Main and IES/ISS both on 18 June, Combined Geo-Scientist Main on 19 June. These are separate candidate pools, so for most people it does not matter.

But if you are an engineering graduate with a statistics or economics background, you may be eligible for both ESE and IES/ISS, and the Mains clash makes that combination impossible in 2027. Decide which one you are actually chasing before the IES/ISS notification on 10 February 2027, because the ESE Prelims application has already closed and that choice is partly made.

"When should I start paying attention to Civil Services 2027?"

Now, for documents. The notification lands on 13 January 2027 and closes on 2 February 2027, and the CSE form is the longest form UPSC issues — it asks for your full education history, your service preferences, your optional subject, your centre choice and your category claims in one sitting.

Have these ready before January:

• Matriculation certificate — the only accepted proof of date of birth
• Degree certificate or provisional certificate. Final-year students can apply, but you must produce proof of passing at the Mains application stage
• Category certificate in the prescribed UPSC proforma — OBC-NCL certificates have a validity period and an expired one is rejected
• EWS certificate for the relevant financial year if you are claiming EWS
• PwBD certificate in the current statutory format if applicable
• A photograph and signature in the exact dimensions the notification specifies, and a name spelling that matches your certificates

The exam preparation is a separate conversation. The paperwork is the part that silently ends candidatures, and it is entirely within your control in October.

"Does UPSC ever change these dates?"

Yes. The calendar is explicitly tentative and revisions do happen, usually because of a clash with a general election, a public holiday or a court direction. What UPSC has been consistent about in recent years is not moving a date later once the notification is out.

Plan against the calendar, but confirm against the notification. And check upsconline.gov.in — the application portal — rather than news sites, because the one-time registration there is where every UPSC application now begins.

Applications are through One Time Registration

Every UPSC examination is now applied for through the One Time Registration (OTR) platform on upsconline.gov.in. You create the profile once — personal details, education, photograph, signature — and every subsequent application pulls from it.

Do this in a quiet month, not in the twenty-day window. An OTR profile completed in November 2026 turns the Civil Services 2027 application in January into a short form instead of a long one, and it is the single cheapest thing you can do today to protect a 2027 attempt.

The official Annual Calendar 2027 is mirrored below in full, so you can keep the authoritative version rather than a screenshot of a table.