Government Exam Calendar 2026–27: SSC, UPSC, IBPS, RRB & State Exam Dates

SSC’s revised calendar, UPSC’s 2027 calendar and IBPS’s 2026-27 calendar are all published. Still pending or unannounced: SSC MTS and SSC GD notifications, the new BPSC 72nd prelims date, the NDA/CDS and AFCAT 2027 notifications, and exact dates for several RRB and state exams.

I could not open any commission’s own calendar PDF while preparing this. Every date comes from portals that reproduce the official documents, and where portals disagree I say so. Each entry is one of four kinds: calendar (from a body’s annual calendar), notified (from a specific notice), reported (on portals, source PDF unread), or expected (my projection from past cycles, always labelled in the same line).

What “tentative” means this year

A government exam calendar is a plan, and 2026 shows how loosely it is held. Before you build a study schedule around any month below, look at what has already moved.

Testbook states that SSC’s schedule was not followed “due to administrative reasons” and had to be reissued. The pattern is that exam dates move later, and application windows hold better once a notification is out. Plan to the notification and the closing date first, and to the exam month second. If you are choosing between two exams, a closed application window ends the choice, whatever the exam month says.

The next 60 days

SSC: Central Government Group B and C

The revised SSC calendar, as reproduced by Testbook, runs like this:

Selection Post Phase 14 (16–26 September), Stenographer (9–15 September) and the Hindi Translators exam (8 September) have already been held. A Testbook headline reports 2,536 CHSL vacancies, which I have not checked against the notice.

MTS and GD are the two to watch. As of 19–20 October, reports say neither notification is out. CareerPower expects MTS in October, and the Daily Jagran gives a tentative GD date of 30 October, with some portals projecting 45,000 or more GD vacancies. Treat those vacancy figures as expectation, not a statement from SSC.

CGL, CHSL, CPO and JE now fall inside nine weeks of each other. That is manageable for a candidate who applied to one of them and brutal for one who applied to all four, because the Tier 1 level material for CGL and CHSL overlaps but the pattern and timing do not.

UPSC: the 2027 calendar

UPSC’s Annual Calendar for 2027, reported as released on 20 May 2026, lists these dates. UPSC calls all of them tentative.

Two things stand out. The Geo-Scientist and Engineering Services prelims windows have already closed. And the Civil Services application window, 13 January to 2 February, is about three weeks long, so the form is the first deadline an aspirant faces for a May exam. If you are aiming at CSE 2027, check your category certificates, the date of your degree, and your name’s spelling across documents before 13 January, not after.

NDA and CDS share the same day in both cycles (11 April and 19 September). A candidate applying to both must choose one, a point UPSC’s own calendar makes visible.

Banking: IBPS and the rest

IBPS published its 2026-27 calendar on 16 January 2026. SBI is not on it, because SBI recruits independently.

The RRB notification came out on 31 August and registration ran from 1 to 21 September, so that cycle is closed. Anyone looking for an open banking form today will not find one on this calendar.

SBI and RBI dates for the next cycle are not on any calendar I could verify. Adda247 headlines show SBI Clerk and SBI PO mains results already out, which means the 2026 SBI cycle is largely complete. I am not projecting an SBI or RBI date.

IBPS has used a mid-January release for its 2026-27 calendar. If that holds, the 2027-28 version would be the next thing to watch, and that is an expectation, not an announcement.

Railways: RRB

Two recruitments dominate this window.

RRB JE, DMS and CMA (CEN 04/2026). The advertisement is for 4,029 posts. Applications ran from 14 August to 13 September. A notice of 2 October cut CBT-1 from three days to 27 and 28 October. City intimation was reported on 17 October and admit cards from about 23 October, with the answer key in the first week of November (expected). Two portals mention Aadhaar-linked biometric verification at the centre, so keep your Aadhaar unlocked and match your name exactly as you applied.

RRB NTPC (CEN 06/2026 and 07/2026). The recruitment totals 5,236 posts:

Graduate selection is CBT-1, CBT-2, document verification and a medical exam, with no CBAT or CBTST, according to Testbook. Station Master is not in CEN 06/2026 and, per CareerPower, will have a separate notification. One older portal suggests January 2027 for the Undergraduate CBT-1, but RRB has not said so.

A candidate eligible for both Graduate and Undergraduate posts has two separate forms and two separate fees.

Teaching: CTET, UGC NET and state eligibility tests

CTET, 22nd edition. The exam is on 12 and 13 December 2026, per a CBSE public notice dated 14 September 2026 signed by the Director (CTET). The September 2026 session was originally set for 6 September, and one Adda247 page still shows 9 October. That page is out of date. City and date allotment is expected about 15 days before, and the admit card around 10 December.

UGC NET December 2026. NTA’s notification came out on 8 October. The online application runs to 28 October (11:50 PM), the late-fee window (₹500, reported) runs 29 to 31 October, and corrections are 2 to 4 November. A revised notice of 16 October moved the exam to 14–18 and 21 December. One blog reading the bulletin gives exam city intimation as 23 November and admit cards from 7 December. The exam covers 87 subjects in CBT mode.

Bihar School Librarian Eligibility Test. Applications close today (21 October), and the CBT is tentatively set for 19 November to 10 December 2026. It is an eligibility test, not a final selection.

Other teaching recruitments, such as KVS, NVS and state TETs, are not covered here because I found no dates I could verify.

Defence

NDA & NA (I) and CDS (I) 2027. Notification on 2 December 2026, applications to 22 December, exam on 11 April 2027. The second cycle is notified 12 May 2027, closes 1 June, and the exam is on 19 September 2027.

AFCAT. The cycle 02/2026 ran its applications from 20 May to 19 June (extended to 21 June), with an exam on 8 August 2026. AFCAT 01/2027 had not been notified as of 25 September, and I found no later notice. On the pattern of AFCAT 01/2026, which was notified on 9 November 2025 and held on 31 January 2026, the 01/2027 notification is expected in November or December 2026 and the exam in late January or February 2027. That is projection, not an announcement.

Paramilitary. SSC GD (CBT January to March 2027, expected) and UPSC CAPF Assistant Commandants (4 July 2027) are covered above.

I have not verified any Agniveer rally or CEE schedule, so none is listed.

State recruitment: what I could verify

BHEL’s Artisan recruitment (660 tentative posts) is a PSU exam, not a state one, but it sits in the same window: portals report a last date of 18 November, and they disagree on whether applications opened on 19 or 21 October.

I did not verify the calendars of Rajasthan, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Delhi, West Bengal, Kerala or other state commissions, so they are not in this article. For those, use the commission’s own annual planner.

Where exams clash

Each candidate gets an individual date and shift, so a clash is a possibility, not a certainty. Still, these windows overlap on paper:

• 20–28 November: SSC CPO spans the same dates as IBPS RRB Officer Scale I prelims (21–22 November) and the Karnataka prisons exam.
• 12–13 December: CTET falls on two of the three IBPS RRB Office Assistant prelims days (6, 12, 13 December).
• 14–21 December: UGC NET runs inside the SSC CHSL window (30 November to 31 December).
• Fourth week of December: RRB NTPC Graduate CBT-1 (tentative) lands next to the IBPS Clerk mains on 27 December.

When the city slip arrives, check the date against your other admit cards that same day. I have not verified what each body says about clashes, so read that clause in each notice and, if needed, write to the body early.

A more useful habit is to rank your targets by what you lose if you miss them. CTET and UGC NET are eligibility tests that recur, so a miss costs a cycle. A one-off recruitment with a single window, such as a particular IBPS RRB cycle, costs a year.

Checking a date before you trust it

Third-party calendars copy each other, and mistakes spread. In this research alone, one page still showed 9 October for CTET, another listed CGL under three different month ranges, and an old BPSC date was still circulating after the notice of 12 October. Before relying on a date, check:

1. The notice date, which should be on the commission’s own website.
2. Whether a revised notice exists, since SSC, RRB, UPSSSC and UGC NET each revised dates this month.
3. Whether the page says “tentative” or “expected,” and whether the date came from a notice or from last year’s pattern.

FAQs

Which applications are open right now, as of 21 October?
Reported open: UGC NET December (to 28 October, late fee to 31 October), RRB NTPC Graduate (to 6 November) and Undergraduate (to 13 November), TNPSC Group 4 (to 5 November), Punjab Court Clerk (to 4 November), BHEL Artisan (to 18 November), BTSC Touring Veterinary Officer (to 23 October), and the Bihar School Librarian Eligibility Test (closes today). UPSSSC JE opens on 3 and 6 November. SSC CHSL (closed 7 October) and IBPS RRB (closed 21 September) are shut.

Has SSC released the MTS and GD notifications?
Not in anything I found as of 19–20 October. SSC’s revised calendar lists MTS as “TBA” and GD for October 2026, and a portal gives 30 October as the tentative GD date.

Is the 23 May 2027 UPSC prelims date final?
It is UPSC’s calendar date, and UPSC says calendar dates are tentative. The notification is due on 13 January 2027 with applications closing 2 February.

If an exam is postponed, do the application dates also move?
Not necessarily. BPSC’s 72nd prelims has moved twice with its application window already closed. An extension of a window needs its own notice.

Is the BPSC 72nd prelims still on 25 October?
No. A notice of 12 October postponed it and no fresh date has been announced.

uma shankar tiwari

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Uma Shanker Tiware is the Founder of FirstJob24.com, a platform focused on government jobs, recruitment updates, exam syllabus, results, admit cards,…

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Published: 21 Oct 2026

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