CISF Constable Syllabus, Exam Pattern, Eligibility

A single computer based paper. 80 questions, 160 marks, 60 minutes, and it is the only stage in the whole recruitment that produces a number.

Sixty minutes covers the whole paper, so the budget is 45 seconds a question. Correct answers earn +2; wrong ones cost −0.25, an eighth of the question's value, which is mild enough that a reasoned guess still pays. No calculators. The Commission pitches the questions at Matriculation level and the paper is set in fifteen languages: English, Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu, with Part D taken in English or Hindi.

Why cut offs carry decimals

With the exam spread over weeks and many shifts, raw marks are normalised under a formula the Commission publishes. Merit, and every published cut off, uses the normalised score plus NCC bonus, which is why you cannot reverse a cut off into a count of correct answers.

NCC bonus, and the two ways to lose it

An NCC 'C' certificate adds 5 per cent of the maximum marks, which on this paper is 8 marks; 'B' adds 3 per cent (4.8 marks) and 'A' adds 2 per cent (3.2 marks). Eight marks is four questions in a contest settled to two decimals. You lose the bonus if you did not tick the NCC box on the application form, and you lose it again if the original certificate is not produced at document verification. Ex-Servicemen do not get it at all.

Objections and ties

Tentative answer keys appear after the paper; an objection costs ₹100 per question and must go through the link provided, since letters and e-mails are not entertained. Nothing is re-evaluated or re-checked. Ties break on Part A marks, then Part B marks, then date of birth with the older candidate ahead, then alphabetical order, so Mathematics and the language paper never settle a tie.

Four parts, twenty questions and forty marks each, pitched at Matriculation level. The Commission's published description runs to a paragraph per part, and the shape of it matters more than the wording.

Part A, Reasoning. Analytical aptitude and pattern recognition, tested principally through non-verbal questions. Expect figures far more than verbal puzzles: spatial work, visual memory, classification and series, with analogies, relationship concepts, arithmetical reasoning and coding questions filling the rest. This is the first tie breaker.

Part B, General Knowledge and General Awareness. Current events and everyday observation, including its scientific side, at the level expected of any educated person, drawn from sports, history, culture, geography, the economy, polity and the Constitution, and scientific research in India and its neighbours. The Commission states that no special study of any discipline is needed, which is a warning against over-preparing this part.

Part C, Elementary Mathematics. Arithmetic only: number work and the four operations, percentages, ratio, proportion and averages, interest, profit and loss and discount, mensuration, and time with distance and work. Nothing algebraic, trigonometric or data-interpretive appears, which makes this the most drillable part of the paper.

Part D, English or Hindi. Basic understanding and basic comprehension in whichever language you chose when you applied.

The live text is at ssc.gov.in syllabus.

Citizenship, class 10, a five year age band, and a set of physical standards that eliminate more people than the paper does.

Domicile decides your competition

Posts are allotted state, union territory and area wise, so you need a domicile certificate or Permanent Resident Certificate. The Commission reads your state and district from the domicile column of the form, never from the permanent or correspondence address. Neither can be changed after submission, and a certificate at the medical that disagrees with the form ends the candidature there.

Age: 18 to 23 on 1 January of the exam year

For the 2025 cycle, born between 2 January 2002 and 1 January 2007. Date of birth is taken from the Matriculation certificate alone. Above the upper limit: 5 years for SC and ST, 3 years for OBC, 3 years for Ex-Servicemen after deducting military service from actual age, and for children and dependants of those killed in the 1984 riots or the 2002 Gujarat riots, 5 years (UR and EWS), 8 years (OBC) or 10 years (SC and ST).

Education

Matriculation or class 10, passed on or before the crucial date, and nothing higher counts for anything. "Passed" means the board declared the result by that date; a result merely being processed does not qualify. Distance learning degrees need UGC Distance Education Bureau approval for the relevant period, produced at verification.

Height

Chest, for male candidates

80 cm unexpanded with 5 cm expansion is the general standard. Scheduled Tribe candidates need 76 cm; Garhwalis, Kumaonis, Dogras, Marathas and candidates of Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh need 78 cm; candidates of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura and the Gorkha Territorial Administration need 77 cm. Every one of them must expand 5 cm. Chest is not measured for women, where the board simply satisfies itself that it is well developed, and weight must be proportionate to height and age for both.

Relaxation claims are checked after the race is cleared and before measurement. Apart from Scheduled Tribe candidates, who produce an ST certificate, everyone claiming one must hand over a certificate in the Commission's own proforma, from the competent authority, on the day.

The race

Men run 5 km in 24 minutes, women 1.6 km in 8 minutes 30 seconds. Candidates of the Ladakh region run 1.6 km in 7 minutes and 800 m in 5 minutes respectively. Twenty-four minutes for five kilometres is 4 minutes 48 seconds a kilometre, sustained.

Fail on height or chest and you may appeal the same day, through the Presiding Officer to the Appellate Authority for that centre, whose word is final. Fail the race and there is no appeal at all. Ex-Servicemen skip the race but still attend for measurement and must clear the medical.

Women declare their pregnancy status on reporting. A candidate found pregnant is declared temporarily unfit and her post is held in reserve; she is re-examined six weeks after confinement on a registered practitioner's fitness certificate and keeps her seniority if fit.

Everything turns on one paper, and four gates then decide whether that paper counts. CISF itself sets the sequence out in five lines: written exam, PET and PST, document verification and medical, declaration of result and allocation of force by SSC, then issue of the offer of appointment by the force. Note where CISF sits in that list. The Commission decides who is selected and which force they join; CISF only appears at the end.

The floor

30 per cent for UR, 25 for OBC and EWS, 20 for SC, ST and Ex-Servicemen, out of 160, before NCC bonus. Clearing it buys consideration and nothing else.

Shortlist at eight times the vacancies

The Commission calls roughly eight times the number of posts to the ground, ranked on written merit including NCC bonus and separated by state, area, category and gender. More may be called for the all India vacancies of SSF and NCB. Your rivals are candidates of your own state, category and area, not the national field.

The ground, which CISF does not run

The Physical Standard and Efficiency Tests belong to the CAPFs under CRPF as Nodal Force. The admit card for them comes from rect.crpf.gov.in, about a fortnight ahead, and not from the Commission. The order on the day is biometric verification, the race, then height, chest and weight.

Medical and documents at twice the vacancies

Those who survive are re-ranked on the same written merit and called at about twice the vacancies for the Detailed Medical Examination and Document Verification, run together by the CAPFs. Carry the Matriculation and domicile certificates, the NCC certificate if claimed, the caste certificate in the Commission's proforma, and any relaxation certificate.

Which force you get

All eight preferences are compulsory, and allocation runs on written merit cum preference against the posts available in your own state, category and area. The notice warns in capitals that no preference change is entertained after submission, and the Commission may still allot by suitability and availability. With CISF holding 57.3 per cent of this cycle's posts, ranking it first is the single likeliest route to a job here, which is also why its cut offs are the highest in the exam.

Areas inside a state

Posts are split again between Border Guarding districts and Militancy or Naxal affected districts. Candidates from a Naxal or militancy area go against those posts first and general posts second; border area candidates the same way round for border posts; candidates from both go Naxal or militancy, then border, then general. SSF and NCB recruit all India and skip the whole arrangement.

Reservation arithmetic

A reserved category candidate who gets through without any relaxed standard counts against unreserved posts, and the reserved posts are filled afresh; last cycle that shifted 2,090 EWS, 1,913 SC, 998 ST and 8,902 OBC men into the UR list. Use a relaxation of any kind and you count against reserved posts whatever your rank, though age deducted for military service does not count as one. Ex-Servicemen hold 10 per cent of posts, not shown separately in the tables.

No reserve list and no waiting list is kept, so posts left unfilled or vacated by non-joiners go forward to next year's cycle. Debarment for malpractice runs from two to seven years, and carrying a phone, switched off, is three of them.

Seven of the eight pay the same, so pay barely moves the preference order. ₹21,700 is the entry cell of Level 3, with dearness, house rent and transport allowance over it. One difference the table hides: house rent allowance is banded by class of city, and a force stationed at airports, metros, ports and refineries puts more people in the higher bands than a border force does.

A recruit is liable to serve anywhere in India, and CISF units sit in every state at the installations it protects. Appointment also depends on training seats, so selected candidates join in phases, with CISF's own rules then governing joining and seniority.

The ranks above, and who fills them

Level 3 is the bottom of the subordinate ranks, and the ladder runs up through Head Constable, Assistant Sub-Inspector, Sub-Inspector and Inspector. What is useful to a serving Constable is how many of those rungs CISF recruits for directly:

Three agencies fill the ranks above a Constable, and CISF fills a dozen specialist cadres through its own portal.

The application is online, on the Commission's portal, and there is no offline form and no route through CISF.

The fee deadline falls a day after the form deadline, and a form with no fee behind it is rejected summarily with no appeal.

The fee itself is ₹100 for general and OBC men and nil for every woman, for SC and ST candidates, and for Ex-Servicemen eligible for reservation. Pay by BHIM UPI, net banking or a debit card; no other method is accepted, and nothing is refunded or carried to another exam. Correcting the form costs ₹200 the first time and ₹500 the second, charged to everybody whatever their gender or category, and there is no third chance. If the correction charge does not reach the Commission, your earlier form remains the valid one.

Three entries with no second chance

1. Force preferences. All eight, ranked. Locked on submission.
2. Domicile state and district, in the domicile column. Locked on submission, and a mismatch at the medical is fatal.
3. The NCC claim. Leave the box unticked and the bonus is unreachable later.

Nothing is scrutinised before document verification, so candidature stays provisional the whole way through. Blurred photographs and signatures get forms rejected outright.

Four bodies touch this recruitment, and CISF, despite taking more than half the posts, is the one a candidate deals with last.

CISF's own portal at cisfrectt.cisf.gov.in is busy, but it handles the dozen cadres the Force recruits itself. A Constable (GD) candidate has no business there. Nor will the Commission hear any appeal, RTI application or grievance against a physical or medical board decision, since those boards belong to the forces.

Where a CISF recruit trains

General Duty constables go to one of six Recruit Training Centres: Barwaha in Madhya Pradesh, Behror and Deoli in Rajasthan, Bhilai in Chhattisgarh, Mundali in Odisha and Thakkolam in Tamil Nadu. Which centre you report to depends on where space is free, which is why appointments come in phases.

You pick three centres in order of priority, all inside one Commission region. The Commission tries to honour the choice, reserves the right to allot elsewhere, and will not change a centre later for any reason.

Nine regional offices share the country between them: Central at Prayagraj, Eastern at Kolkata, Karnataka Kerala at Bengaluru, Madhya Pradesh at Raipur, North Eastern at Guwahati, Northern at New Delhi, North Western at Chandigarh, Southern at Chennai and Western at Mumbai. Which states fall to which, and the city list inside each, come with the notice and the Commission's regional office pages. The region you choose settles which office runs your exam, publishes your admit card and receives any representation. Haryana has no centre of its own, so its candidates travel to Chandigarh, Mohali or Punjab.

Where you sit the paper has nothing to do with which vacancies you compete for. A Bihar domiciled candidate sitting in Delhi still goes against Bihar's posts at Bihar's category cut off. For the ground and the medical you choose nothing at all: the CAPFs fix those venues under CRPF, no centre is altered on request at any stage, and long journeys to the race are routine.

This cycle

That one day shift came five days before the paper: the Department of Personnel and Training moved the Id-u-Zuha holiday on 22 May 2026 and the Commission moved the exam the same day, promising admit cards for the new date two or three days in advance. Watch the site.

The previous cycle, start to finish

Sixteen months from notice to select list, with a five month wait between the paper and its result. Keep your registered mobile number and e-mail working for the duration. The underlying rhythm is a notice in the second half of the year, applications closing six weeks later, the paper early the next year, the ground around the monsoon, and the final list the following January. The examination calendar gives the earliest warning.

Admit cards come from two different organisations here, which is where candidates lose a stage.

Nothing is posted. If your details are missing from the site a week before the paper, contact the regional office immediately with proof that you applied, or you lose any claim to consideration. If the CRPF card will not download, ring the CRPF Recruitment Cell on 011-26160255 at least a week before the test; nobody runs without a printout.

Take to the exam hall: the printed certificate, two passport size colour photographs, and an original photo ID carrying your date of birth. Where the ID shows no date of birth, bring a second original that does, such as the Matriculation certificate or a board marksheet. A date of birth that contradicts the certificate keeps you out of the hall. Biometrics captured that day are matched at every later stage, and a phone in your possession, on or off, means a three year debarment.

Four declarations punctuate the year, all on ssc.gov.in: the tentative answer key, the written result shortlisting for the ground, the physical test result, and the final select list carrying force allocation and the cut off annexures.

Last cycle's final result listed, for every state, force, area and category, the posts available, the posts filled, the cut off to five decimals, and the Part A marks, Part B marks and date of birth of the last candidate in. Separate lists covered recommended women, recommended men, withheld results and debarred candidates, and detailed marks for everyone who sat the paper go up afterwards.

Vacancies considered last cycle: 5,370 for women plus 522 Ex-Servicemen, and 48,320 for men plus 4,840 Ex-Servicemen, 53,690 in all.

The headline figures: 4,932 women and 45,115 men recommended. Of 4,840 male Ex-Servicemen posts only 287 were filled, about six per cent, with the rest passing to non-Ex-Servicemen of the same categories, so an Ex-Serviceman competes in the emptiest pool in this exam.

Results can be withheld for months on court orders or suspected malpractice. No reserve list is kept, scores are never re-evaluated, and the paid objection window against the answer key is the only way to challenge a question.

Two different numbers get called a cut off. The qualifying mark is 30 per cent (48 marks) for UR, 25 per cent (40) for OBC and EWS, and 20 per cent (32) for SC, ST and Ex-Servicemen, out of 160, applied before NCC bonus. It is a floor. What actually decides selection is the mark of the last candidate taken for CISF in your state, area and category.

CISF, male, unreserved, general area, last cycle

Published in Annexure IV of the final result of 15 January 2026.

Same paper, same force, same category, same year: 142.30 in Rajasthan against 48.43 in Mizoram, a 94 mark spread out of 160. Your domicile does more to decide the outcome than anything you control, and that column cannot be changed after submission.

One thing separates CISF from the rest of the field. It filled its unreserved general area posts in 29 of the 30 states above, missing only in Mizoram where 2 of 6 went. Where CISF has posts, they get filled, which is what being the force most candidates rank first looks like in the arithmetic.

CISF, female, unreserved, general area

142.71 in Haryana is the highest single cut off figure anywhere in this exam, and all 24 rows were filled. CISF's female intake is simultaneously the largest here and, in the northern states, the hardest to get into.

Using these numbers

• Normalised scores, not raw marks, so there is no way back to a count of correct answers.
• They include NCC bonus, which for an NCC 'C' holder is eight free marks.
• They were set against CISF's 7,145 posts last cycle. This cycle notifies 14,595, more than double, so CISF cut offs should be expected to fall, which is the opposite of what a BSF or CRPF aspirant faces.
• They are CISF's cut off in that state. Short of it, another force from the same state may still take you lower down, if your preference list leaves room.

The race comes first, however good your marks

3,94,121 candidates reached the ground last cycle and 95,575 left it still in the running. Men run 5 km in 24 minutes, women 1.6 km in 8 minutes 30 seconds, with easier marks only for Ladakh region candidates. Height and chest decisions can be appealed on the spot; the race cannot be appealed at all. The gap between the written result and the ground was nine weeks, far too short to build the fitness from nothing.

Check the standards before you plan anything else

170 cm with an 80 cm chest expanding 5 cm for a general category man, 157 cm for a woman. If a relaxation applies to you, the certificate must be in the Commission's proforma and in your hand on test day.

Forty-five seconds a question

Eighty questions, sixty minutes, Matriculation level content. Time yourself from the first practice session: answering correctly in ninety seconds is the same as not answering.

Leave fewer blanks than you think

A wrong answer costs an eighth of what a right one earns, so answer anything where you can strike out an option. Anyone trained on a one third penalty is carrying the wrong habit into this paper.

Weight Parts A and C

Part A decides ties and is mostly non-verbal, so figure series and spatial work pay back quickly. Part C is arithmetic with no algebra, trigonometry or data interpretation, which makes it the best return per hour in the paper. Part B is the second tie breaker but unbounded, so cover breadth not depth. Part D is comprehension: pick whichever language you read faster.

Rank CISF honestly

CISF is 57.3 per cent of this cycle's posts and 72 per cent of the female posts, so for most candidates it belongs high in the preference list. The flip side shows in the tables above: CISF cut offs are the highest in the exam, and 142.71 in Haryana for women is the highest figure anywhere in it. Use your own state's row, not a national average, and remember CISF notifies more than double last cycle's posts this time.

Claim the NCC bonus on the form

NCC 'C' is worth 8 marks. Tick the box when you apply, because it cannot be added later, and carry the original to document verification or it is taken back.

Two sets of material come from the body that actually writes the paper. The Commission publishes previous year question papers under For Candidates, and a walk-through video with a mock test in the Candidate's Corner. Use the mock test even if you think you know the subject; computer based exams cost people marks through the interface rather than the syllabus.

• Previous year question papers
• Candidate's Corner, for the walk-through and mock test

Beyond that, SSC MTS and CHSL papers sit at a neighbouring level and work as substitutes once you drop anything algebraic or trigonometric. Sit every one of them in sixty minutes, against a clock, with no calculator. CISF publishes no question papers of its own for this post, because it does not set the paper.

Apply and follow the rules

• Staff Selection Commission, the only place to apply
• Scheme of examination and syllabus
• Tentative vacancy, where CISF's state wise share is set out
• Previous year question papers
• Format of certificates, for the relaxation proformas carried to the ground
• Notice of the Constable (GD) Examination, 2025, the full rule book
• Final result, 15 January 2026, the source of the cut offs above

CISF

• Central Industrial Security Force
• CISF Recruitment, the rank by rank list naming which agency fills each post
• CISF recruitment portal, for the cadres the Force fills itself

The admit card for the physical tests and the medical comes from CRPF Recruitment, which runs those stages as Nodal Force.

Does CISF hold its own Constable (GD) exam?

No, and the Force says so on its own recruitment page: against Constable/General Duty it reads recruitment process conducted through Staff Selection Commission. CISF does recruit directly for a dozen other cadres, among them Constable/Fire, Constable/Driver, the tradesmen, the ministerial Head Constables and the ASI technical posts, at cisfrectt.cisf.gov.in.

How many of the posts are CISF's?

14,595 of 25,487 this cycle, 57.3 per cent, which is more than the other seven organisations put together. CISF also holds 1,460 of the 2,020 female posts. Last cycle its share was 7,145 of 39,481, so the figure moves a great deal between cycles.

Will ranking CISF first get me CISF?

It is the likeliest single choice, but nothing is guaranteed. All eight organisations must be ranked, allocation runs on written merit cum preference against the posts of your own state, area and category, and the Commission may allot by suitability regardless. Preferences cannot be changed after submission.

What marks will I need?

Higher than for any other force here, because CISF is what most candidates rank first. Last cycle the unreserved general area cut off for men ran from 48.43 in Mizoram to 142.30 in Rajasthan, and for women from 56.47 in Arunachal Pradesh to 142.71 in Haryana. With CISF notifying more than double the posts this cycle, expect those figures to ease rather than climb.

What is the job actually like?

Different from the other seven. CISF guards installations rather than borders: airports, metro systems, ports, refineries, power stations, mints, space and atomic energy establishments, government buildings and heritage sites. Postings are urban and industrial far more often than remote, and fire protection is part of the Force's charter.

What is the pay?

Pay Level 3, ₹21,700 to ₹69,100, plus allowances, identical to a Constable (GD) in BSF, CRPF, SSB, ITBP and SSF and a Rifleman (GD) in Assam Rifles. Only the Narcotics Control Bureau's Sepoy sits lower, at Level 1. Because house rent allowance is banded by class of city, CISF's urban postings tend to land in the higher bands.

Where do I download my admit cards?

Two places. The written exam card comes from your Commission regional office three to seven days before the paper. The card for the physical tests, the medical and document verification comes from CRPF, which runs those stages as Nodal Force, about two weeks before. Call 011-26160255 if it will not download.

Where will I be trained?

At one of six Recruit Training Centres: Barwaha in Madhya Pradesh, Behror and Deoli in Rajasthan, Bhilai in Chhattisgarh, Mundali in Odisha, or Thakkolam in Tamil Nadu. Which centre takes you depends on where space is free, which is why appointments arrive in phases.