UPSC ESE Cutoff 2026, 2025 and Previous Years: Prelims, Mains & Final

UPSC releases the Engineering Services Examination (ESE) cutoff, also known as the UPSC IES cutoff, for all three stages (Prelims, written and final) together, branch-wise and category-wise, after the final result. The latest official cutoff is for ESE 2025: the General category final cutoff was 758 in Mechanical, 719 in Civil, 686 in Electrical and 661 in Electronics & Telecommunication (E&T), out of 1,300.

This page lists the official UPSC ESE cutoffs from 2025 back to 2021, with vacancies for each category, and explains how the cutoff works and how it has moved over five years. All figures are taken from UPSC's "Recommendation Details and Cut-off Marks" documents. PwBD cutoffs are shown separately for 2025; for earlier years they appear in the same official documents.

How the UPSC ESE Cutoff Works

ESE has three cutoffs for every branch and category. Each one is measured on a different total, so they cannot be compared with each other directly.

The final ranking uses all 1,300 marks: Prelims (500), Mains (600) and Personality Test (200). The Personality Test has no minimum qualifying marks.

UPSC ESE Cutoff 2026: Prelims, Mains and Final

The ESE 2026 cutoff (Prelims, written and final) has not been released yet. UPSC does not publish a separate Prelims cutoff after the Prelims result; all three stages come out together after the final result.

Any "ESE 2026 expected cutoff" seen online is an estimate, not UPSC data. For stage-wise result updates, see our UPSC ESE Result page.

The ESE 2027 cutoff will be published after the ESE 2027 final result. Exam dates and vacancies for that cycle are on our UPSC ESE 2027 Notification page.

UPSC ESE 2026 Cutoff: Previous-Year Reference Range

Candidates looking for an ESE 2026 expected cutoff can use the official ranges below as a reference. These are historical ranges for the General category from 2021 to 2025, not a prediction; UPSC does not publish an expected cutoff.

The ESE 2026 cutoff could fall inside or outside these ranges, depending on the 2026 paper difficulty, the number of candidates and the final vacancies (474 were notified for ESE 2026).

UPSC ESE Cutoff 2025 (Official)

ESE 2025 had 554 vacancies, as per UPSC's official cutoff document. Mechanical had the highest General final cutoff (758) and Electronics & Telecommunication the lowest (661).

Civil Engineering cutoff from UPSC's official ESE 2025 "Recommendation Details and Cut-off Marks" document

UPSC ESE Cutoff 2025 for PwBD Candidates

PwBD-1 covers locomotor disability (including cerebral palsy, leprosy cured, dwarfism, acid attack victims and muscular dystrophy), and PwBD-3 covers deaf and hard of hearing candidates. Vacancies for PwBD candidates are counted within the category totals above.

UPSC ESE Cutoff 2024

ESE 2024 had 251 vacancies. Civil's General Prelims cutoff fell to 174, its lowest in five years, while Mechanical had the highest General final cutoff (725).

UPSC ESE Cutoff 2023

ESE 2023 had 486 vacancies. Mechanical and Electrical had the same Prelims cutoff of 173 for General, EWS and OBC candidates, and Civil had the highest General final cutoff (783).

UPSC ESE Cutoff 2022

ESE 2022 had 246 vacancies. In Electrical, the EWS final cutoff (729) was higher than the General final cutoff (714), a reminder that the final cutoff depends on how few seats a category has, not only on the category.

UPSC ESE Cutoff 2021

ESE 2021 had 225 vacancies, the fewest in the five years. It also had the highest General Prelims cutoff of the period in every branch, and Civil's General final cutoff of 804 is the highest final cutoff on this page.

UPSC IES Previous Year Cutoff Trend: 2025 to 2021

General Category Prelims Cutoff (out of 500)

General Category Final Cutoff (out of 1,300)

Vacancies by Branch (as Reported by UPSC)

What the Data Shows

• Prelims cutoffs rose in 2025 but stayed below 2021. General Prelims cutoffs went up in every branch from 2024 to 2025 (Civil +59, Electronics & Telecommunication +47, Mechanical +21, Electrical +11), yet all four were still below their 2021 levels.
• Electronics & Telecommunication has the lowest cutoffs. It had the lowest General Prelims cutoff in all five years, with a five-year average of 164.2 against 209.6 to 222.2 for the other branches.
• A General candidate needs a little over half the total marks. In 2025, the General final cutoff ranged from 50.8% of 1,300 (Electronics & Telecommunication) to 58.3% (Mechanical).
• Category gaps differ by branch. In 2025, the General–SC gap in the final cutoff was 86 marks in Civil, 96 in Mechanical, 99 in Electrical and 155 in Electronics & Telecommunication.
• Small categories can have high cutoffs. With very few seats, a reserved category's final cutoff can be close to or above General, as with Electrical EWS in 2022 (729 against 714 for General).

Past cutoffs show the usual range, but they do not predict the next year's cutoff, which depends on that year's vacancies, paper difficulty and candidate performance.

Factors That Decide the UPSC ESE Cutoff

• Number of vacancies. More seats usually mean a lower final cutoff, because the last recommended candidate sits further down the merit list.
• Difficulty of the papers. A tougher Prelims or Mains paper lowers the marks needed to qualify.
• Number of candidates. UPSC calls about 6 to 7 times the number of vacancies to the Mains and about twice the number to the Personality Test, so the cutoff falls wherever that count is reached.
• Category-wise seats. Each category's cutoff is set separately, against the seats reserved for it in that branch.
• Negative marking. In the Prelims, one-third of a question's marks are deducted for each wrong answer, which pulls scores and cutoffs down.

Minimum Paper-wise Marks in UPSC ESE

Separately from the branch and category cutoff, UPSC applies a minimum qualifying standard in each paper. This is stated in the footnotes of every official ESE cutoff document from 2021 to 2025.

The Personality Test has no minimum qualifying marks. Its 200 marks are simply added to the written total to decide the final rank.

To prepare against these standards, start with the UPSC ESE Syllabus for your branch.

FAQs on UPSC ESE Cutoff