UPSC Syllabus 2027: Prelims, CSAT, Mains and Official PDF

What the UPSC CSE Syllabus Covers: Prelims, Mains and the Interview

UPSC Exam Stages and Which Marks Count for the Rank

The Civil Services Examination is held in two stages. The Preliminary Examination is a screening test, and the Main Examination has a written part and a Personality Test, or interview, for those who clear the written papers. Only the Main Examination decides the rank, so the syllabus matters twice. It decides who gets through the screening test, and then where a candidate finishes.

Preliminary marks are discarded once a candidate qualifies, so the Prelims syllabus decides whether a candidate continues and nothing else. The Main Examination carries 1,750 marks across seven papers, the Personality Test carries 275, and the final merit list is out of 2,025. The marks are set out in full in the guide on the UPSC exam pattern.

Of the nine written papers at the Main Examination, two are language papers that a candidate must pass but whose marks are never counted. Paper A is an Indian language from the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution and Paper B is English, each of 300 marks, and each needs 25 per cent. Failing either means the other papers are not evaluated at all.

The seven papers that count are the Essay, General Studies I, II, III and IV, and two papers on one optional subject. Each carries 250 marks, so a candidate writes on the whole General Studies syllabus for 1,000 marks and on one optional subject for 500. General Studies alone is almost half of the 2,025 marks that decide the rank.

UPSC Syllabus Paper by Paper: Guides to Each Paper

The Union Public Service Commission syllabus is short in each paper and long only when the papers are put together. Each paper below has a guide of its own, with the official text in full and what the paper has actually asked, so a candidate can work through the syllabus one paper at a time.

• Prelims General Studies Paper I: Seven topics, 100 questions, 200 marks, and the paper that decides the cut-off.
• CSAT, General Studies Paper II: Six topics, 80 questions, qualifying at 33 per cent.
• Mains General Studies I: Heritage and culture, history and the geography of the world and society.
• Mains General Studies II: Governance, the Constitution, polity, social justice and international relations.
• Mains General Studies III: Technology, economic development, biodiversity, environment, security and disaster management.
• Mains General Studies IV: Ethics, integrity and aptitude, with about half the paper set as case studies.
• Essay paper: 250 marks, judged on the writing as much as on the subject.
• UPSC exam pattern: Marks, timing and negative marking for every paper.
• Age limit and attempts: Who may sit the examination, and how many times.

UPSC Prelims Syllabus: General Studies Paper I Topics in Full

Official UPSC Prelims GS Paper I Syllabus Text

This is the complete General Studies Paper I syllabus, exactly as the Commission prints it. The paper carries 200 marks, lasts two hours, and its syllabus names just seven topics.

• Current events of national and international importance.
• History of India and Indian National Movement.
• Indian and World Geography-Physical, Social, Economic Geography of India and the World.
• Indian Polity and Governance-Constitution, Political System, Panchayati Raj, Public Policy, Rights Issues, etc.
• Economic and Social Development-Sustainable Development, Poverty, Inclusion, Demographics, Social Sector Initiatives, etc.
• General issues on Environmental ecology, Bio-diversity and Climate Change - that do not require subject specialization.
• General Science.

Three features of the list matter more than its length. The first topic, current events, has no limit of time or subject. Three topics end in the word etc., which makes the list open rather than complete. And the last topic is two words, General Science, with no level or scope given.

Subject-wise Weightage in UPSC Prelims, 2011 to 2026

The syllabus says what may be asked but not how often. From 2011 to 2026, Preliminary General Studies Paper I asked 1,600 questions, and 1,581 of them fall under one of the seven syllabus topics. The other 19 were on international relations, internal security and sport, which the Preliminary syllabus does not name separately.

Economic and Social Development is the most heavily tested topic at 19.8 questions a year, and environment follows at 17.6. History carries 16.9 and polity 14.3. Geography, at 11.1, is the lightest of the traditional subjects. The chart below shows any single year or span. Choose a year to see how one paper divided its 100 questions.

Rising and Falling Subjects in UPSC Prelims: 2011-2015 and 2022-2026

The syllabus text has not changed in sixteen years, but the paper has. Comparing the first five years, 2011 to 2015, with the last five, 2022 to 2026, shows the Commission moving questions between subjects without altering a word of the syllabus.

Environment has fallen the furthest, from 20.2 questions a year to 13.4, and current events has more than doubled, from 3.2 to 7.6. History is down by 2.2 and economy by 1.6. Geography has risen by 1.4, science by 0.8 and polity by 0.4, so polity is now the steadiest topic in the paper.

UPSC Prelims 2026 Paper: Subject-wise Questions

The 2026 paper carried the trend further. It set 8 environment questions, the fewest in any year since 2011 and less than half the sixteen-year average, while history rose to 21: 9 on ancient India, 7 on art and culture and 5 on modern India, with none on the medieval period. Economy and science carried 17 each, polity and governance 12, geography 9 and current events only 3.

The paper also asked 11 questions on international relations and 2 on internal security. Neither is a syllabus topic of its own at Prelims; both enter through the first topic, current events of national and international importance, which is why a count by syllabus topic alone understates how much of the 2026 paper turned on recent events. Read together, the 16 questions on international relations, internal security and current events were about a sixth of the paper.

General Science in UPSC Prelims: What Is Asked

General Science is the shortest topic in the syllabus and one of the hardest to prepare. It is two words long, and the notice gives no level and no list. In practice it has carried 222 questions since 2011, about 13.9 a year, and it has held steady: 13.8 a year in 2011 to 2015 and 14.6 in 2022 to 2026.

Of those questions, 100 test school-level science in biology, health, genetics, physics and chemistry. The rest turn on applied technology, such as launch vehicles and satellites, biotechnology regulation, telecommunications, semiconductors and nuclear power. The Commission usually asks the school concept through a current application, so a candidate who reads only the technology news struggles with the reasoning, and a candidate who reads only the textbook struggles with the framing.

The safest preparation is the school science textbooks for the concepts and the year's science news for the context. The science articles in the Study Library cover both.

UPSC CSAT Syllabus: The Qualifying General Studies Paper II

Official CSAT Syllabus and the 33 Per Cent Qualifying Mark

General Studies Paper II, commonly called the CSAT, carries 200 marks over two hours, and its syllabus lists six topics.

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

The notice prints three notes with this syllabus.

• Note 1: Paper-II of the Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination will be a qualifying paper with minimum qualifying marks fixed at 33%.
• Note 2: The questions will be of multiple choice, objective type.
• Note 3: It is mandatory for the candidate to appear in both the Papers of Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination for the purpose of evaluation. Therefore a candidate will be disqualified in case he/she does not appear in both the papers of Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination.

Two of those notes matter more than the syllabus itself. The paper is qualifying at 33 per cent, which is 66 marks of 200. And a candidate must appear in both Preliminary papers to be evaluated at all, so missing the CSAT disqualifies a candidate even if General Studies Paper I went well.

Why the Qualifying CSAT Paper Still Eliminates Candidates

A paper that adds nothing to the score is easy to treat as a paper that does not matter. It is the reverse. A candidate who clears the General Studies cut-off but scores below 66 in the CSAT is out of the examination for that year, and the attempt is spent. The paper cannot raise a rank, but it can end a candidature.

The syllabus itself explains why the paper catches people out. Comprehension and basic numeracy are described as Class X level, but the difficulty of a CSAT paper lies in reading speed and the density of the passages rather than in the mathematics. A candidate out of practice with sustained reading can know every concept in the syllabus and still miss the qualifying mark.

Across the 1,277 CSAT questions set from 2011 to 2026, the paper is dominated by comprehension passages and by reasoning closer to puzzle-solving than to arithmetic. Basic numeracy and data interpretation appear every year but rarely make up most of the paper.

The CSAT score is added to nothing, yet the practical target is a clear margin above 33 per cent, because comprehension accuracy is the part of the paper a candidate controls least on the day. The UPSC Prelims Test Series 2027 includes CSAT papers set to the same pattern, with every option explained.

UPSC Mains Syllabus: Four General Studies Papers and the Essay

UPSC Mains GS Papers I to IV: What Each Paper Covers

The four General Studies papers carry 1,000 of the 1,750 marks that decide a rank, and each has its own character as well as its own subjects. Knowing which paper a topic belongs to is most of the work, because the same topic can be asked very differently in two of them.

• General Studies I: The broadest in period and place, covering Indian culture from ancient times, modern Indian history from the middle of the eighteenth century, the freedom struggle, post-independence consolidation, world history, Indian society and physical geography.
• General Studies II: The most institutional, covering the Constitution and the separation of powers, the functioning of Parliament, the judiciary and the executive, welfare schemes, the social sector, and India's relations with its neighbours and the wider world.
• General Studies III: The widest spread of unrelated subjects, from the Indian economy, agriculture, science and technology, biodiversity and environment, disaster management and internal security.
• General Studies IV: The only paper whose syllabus states its own method. The notice says it will test approach and attitude through problems, and about half the paper is case studies.

Each General Studies paper has a guide of its own, built the same way, with the official syllabus in full and then what the paper has actually asked. See General Studies I, II, III and IV.

UPSC Essay Paper Syllabus and the Official Instructions

The Essay paper carries 250 marks, and its entire official syllabus is forty-five words. They are worth reading, because they state the marking priorities plainly.

The official syllabus prints the Essay paper as follows: “Candidates may be required to write essays on multiple topics. They will be expected to keep closely to the subject of the essay to arrange their ideas in orderly fashion, and to write concisely. Credit will be given for effective and exact expression.”

Three instructions sit inside those words. Keep closely to the subject, arrange the ideas in order, and write concisely. The notice adds that credit is given for effective and exact expression. None of that is about the topic, and all of it is about the writing.

How to Read the UPSC Syllabus and Build a Reading List

Topics Ending in 'Etc.': How Far the Syllabus Extends

Three Preliminary topics end in etc., namely polity and governance, economic and social development, and basic numeracy. The word tells a candidate that the list is illustrative rather than closed, and it is the reason two published breakdowns of the same syllabus can differ by a hundred topics.

The useful response is neither to ignore the word nor to treat it as endless. A topic belongs inside an etc. if it sits in the same family as the items named before it. Panchayati Raj is named under polity; municipal governance is not, but it plainly belongs to the same family, and so does election law. The monetary policy framework does not belong to polity at all; it falls under economic development.

The notice also states the standard of the General Studies papers, and the sentence is a ceiling as much as a description. It says the questions will be such that a well-educated person can answer them without specialised study.

That sentence works as a test. If a preparation resource teaches detail that a well-educated non-specialist could not reach, it has gone beyond the syllabus, whatever its cover says. No other sentence in the notice is as useful for deciding how deep to read.

Turning the UPSC Syllabus Into a Reading List

A reading list can be built straight from the syllabus in four steps, repeated for each of the seven Prelims topics.

1. Take one syllabus topic and write out everything it names.
2. Add the topics that sit in the same family as the named ones.
3. Find the shortest authoritative source for each topic.
4. Read that source rather than a summary of it.

Applied to polity, that gives the Constitution, the political system, Panchayati Raj, public policy and rights issues as the named topics, and then the institutions that run them. The authoritative sources are the text of the Constitution itself, the polity articles in the Study Library and the standard school textbooks for the underlying concepts.

Doing this once for each Prelims topic gives a reading list that can be checked against the notice, which is safer than a list borrowed from somebody else. The guides to the Prelims paper, the CSAT paper, the Essay and General Studies I, II, III and IV do exactly that, one paper at a time.

Common Questions About the UPSC Syllabus

Does the UPSC syllabus change every year?

No. The syllabus has been stable for years, and the text on this page is the one printed in the notice for 2026. No notification for the 2027 Civil Services Examination has been published yet, so no separate UPSC syllabus 2027 exists. UPSC's published programme lists the 2027 notification for 13 January 2027 and the Preliminary Examination for 23 May 2027, and this page will be updated when that notice appears.

How do you download the UPSC syllabus PDF?

The only UPSC syllabus PDF worth downloading is the Commission's own. The syllabus is Section III of the examination notice, published as Examination Notice 05/2026-CSE, with the syllabus beginning on page 32. The link is in the sources at the foot of this page.

An unofficial PDF can be out of date, can quietly expand the syllabus, and cannot be checked against anything; if it disagrees with the notice, the notice wins. Section III runs to dozens of pages, but almost all of that is the optional subjects and the literature papers. The General Studies syllabus that applies to every candidate is about six pages.

Is the IAS syllabus the same as the UPSC syllabus?

Yes. There is no separate IAS syllabus. The Indian Administrative Service is one of the services filled through the Civil Services Examination, and every candidate for every service writes the same papers from the same syllabus. Services are allocated after the result, on rank and preference, not through a different paper. The same is true of the Indian Police Service and the other services filled through this examination.

Is the UPSC syllabus the same as a state PCS syllabus?

No, although they often look similar. Each state public service commission sets its own syllabus in its own notice. Many follow the UPSC pattern of a screening paper followed by written papers, but they add material specific to the state and can differ in the number of papers, the marks and the qualifying rules. Preparation overlaps heavily, but the authority for a state examination is that commission's notice.

How many subjects are in the UPSC syllabus?

The syllabus is written as a list of topics rather than subjects, which is why no two counts agree. At Prelims, General Studies Paper I names seven topics and the CSAT six. At Mains there are four General Studies papers, the Essay, and two papers on one optional subject the candidate chooses.

Why is the UPSC syllabus so vast?

Most of the apparent vastness comes from two features of the text rather than from the number of topics. Three Prelims topics end in etc., which leaves the list open, and the first topic, current events, has no limit of time or subject. Everything else is bounded and short. The syllabus that applies to every candidate is about six pages, and the breakdowns that run to hundreds of topics are somebody's reading of those six.

Which subject carries the most questions in UPSC Prelims?

Economic and Social Development carries the most, at 19.8 questions a year across 2011 to 2026, followed by environment at 17.6, although environment fell to 8 questions in 2026. The lightest of the traditional subjects is geography at 11.1. Current events averages 5.3 but has risen to 7.6 a year in the last five years.

Official Sources

• Union Public Service Commission: Examination Notice No. 05/2026-CSE, Civil Services Examination 2026
• Union Public Service Commission: Programme of Examinations and Recruitment Tests 2027
• Union Public Service Commission: Civil Services Examination 2025, minimum qualifying marks
• Union Public Service Commission: 74th Annual Report 2023-24 (Appendix 9, profile of candidates, Civil Services Examination 2022)
• Legislative Department, Ministry of Law and Justice: The Constitution of India (Eighth Schedule, languages)
• Department of Personnel and Training: Gazette notifications (the Civil Services Examination Rules are notified here each year)
• National Council of Educational Research and Training: School textbooks, the standard reading for several syllabus topics
• Union Public Service Commission: Online registration and application portal
• Wikipedia: Civil Services Examination