CRPF Constable Syllabus, Exam Pattern, Eligibility

One paper, 80 questions, 160 marks, 60 minutes, computer based. It is the only stage that produces a mark, so the entire merit list comes out of this hour.

• +2 for a correct answer, −0.25 for a wrong one. That penalty is an eighth of the question's value, so a reasoned guess pays.
• 45 seconds a question. The clock is harder than the syllabus, which the Commission sets at Matriculation level.
• No calculators, no electronic devices.
• Set in English, Hindi and thirteen regional languages: Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. Part D is taken in English or Hindi.

Normalised scores, not raw ones

The exam runs over several weeks in many shifts, so raw marks are normalised by the Commission's formula. That normalised score, plus any NCC bonus, decides merit and every cut off. It is why published cut offs carry decimals a candidate cannot reconstruct by counting correct answers.

NCC bonus

Eight marks is four questions in a race decided to two decimals. The bonus is given only if the NCC box was ticked on the online form, and it is withdrawn if the original certificate is not produced at document verification. Ex-Servicemen do not receive it.

Answer keys and ties

Tentative answer keys go up after the paper and objections cost ₹100 a question through the link provided; nothing sent by letter or e-mail is entertained, and there is no re-evaluation or re-checking. Ties break on Part A marks first, then Part B, then date of birth with the older candidate higher, then alphabetical order. Mathematics and the language paper never enter a tie break.

The Commission publishes four short paragraphs, one per part, because the paper sits at Matriculation level and no part is worth more than another.

Two things follow from that list. Part C contains no algebra, no trigonometry, no geometry proof and no data interpretation, so it is a closed syllabus of class 8 to 10 arithmetic that can be drilled to reflex. And Part A, the section that breaks ties, is mostly figures rather than verbal puzzles.

The current text is kept at ssc.gov.in syllabus.

Indian citizenship, Matriculation, an age band of five years, and physical standards that do most of the filtering.

Domicile

Vacancies are state, union territory and area wise, so a domicile certificate or Permanent Resident Certificate is required. The state and district are read from the specific domicile column of the form, not the address boxes, and no change is allowed after submission. A certificate at the medical that disagrees with the form cancels the candidature on the spot.

Age

18 to 23 years 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 and nowhere else. Relaxations above the upper limit:

Education

Matriculation or class 10, passed on or before the crucial date. No higher qualification helps. "Passed" means the result was declared by then; processing of the result is not enough. Open and Distance Learning qualifications count only if the university held UGC Distance Education Bureau approval for the relevant period.

Height

Chest and weight

Chest is not measured for women; the board satisfies itself that it is well developed. Weight must be proportionate to height and age. Relaxations are scrutinised after the race is cleared and before measurement, and every category except Scheduled Tribes must produce a certificate in the Commission's own proforma at the test.

The race

Five kilometres in twenty-four minutes is 4 minutes 48 seconds a kilometre, held. Height or chest failures can be appealed the same day through the Presiding Officer to the Appellate Authority for the centre, whose decision is final. There is no appeal against the race. Ex-Servicemen are exempt from it but still attend for measurement and the medical.

Women give a self declaration of pregnancy status on reporting. A candidate found pregnant is declared temporarily unfit, her vacancy held in reserve, and she is re-examined six weeks after confinement, keeping her seniority if fit.

One paper decides everything; four gates then decide whether the paper counts.

1. Clear the floor

A candidate must score 30 per cent (UR), 25 per cent (OBC and EWS) or 20 per cent (SC, ST and Ex-Servicemen) in the computer based exam before any NCC bonus. That is a floor, not a cut off. Nobody is called to the ground on 48 marks.

2. Shortlisting at eight times the vacancies

Shortlisting is state-wise, area-wise and category-wise, separately for men and women, on merit including NCC bonus, at about eight times the vacancies. You are not competing against the country, only against candidates of your own state, category and area.

3. The physical tests, run by CRPF

The PST and PET are conducted by the CAPFs under CRPF as Nodal Force, at centres the forces pick. The admit card for this stage comes from rect.crpf.gov.in about two weeks ahead, not from the Commission, which catches people out every cycle. On the day: biometric verification, then the race, then height, chest and weight.

4. Medical and documents, at twice the vacancies

Survivors are shortlisted again on the same written merit, state, area and category wise, at about twice the vacancies, for the Detailed Medical Examination and Document Verification, held together by the CAPFs. Bring the Matriculation and domicile certificates, the NCC certificate if claimed, the caste certificate in the Commission's proforma, and any relaxation certificate.

5. Force allocation

All eight preferences must be filled. Allocation runs on written merit cum preference against the vacancies available in your own state, category and area. The notice says in capitals that no change of preference is entertained after submission, and the Commission reserves the right to allot a force by suitability whatever the preferences say. Putting CRPF first guarantees nothing: the Force is 21.5 per cent of this cycle's posts.

Areas inside a state

Vacancies are further earmarked for Border Guarding districts and for Militancy or Naxal affected districts. Candidates from a Naxal or militancy area are considered against those posts first, then general; border area candidates against border posts first, then general; candidates from both against Naxal or militancy, then border, then general. SSF and NCB are filled all India and skip this entirely.

Reservation arithmetic

• An SC, ST, OBC, EWS or ESM candidate selected on merit without any relaxed standard counts against unreserved vacancies, and the reserved posts are filled separately. Last cycle that moved 2,090 EWS, 1,913 SC, 998 ST and 8,902 OBC men into the UR list.
• Anyone who used a relaxed standard counts against reserved vacancies only. Age deducted for military service is not a relaxed standard.
• 10 per cent of vacancies go to Ex-Servicemen, not shown separately in the tables.

No reserve or waiting list is prepared: unfilled posts and posts left by non-joiners carry forward to the next year, so a candidate just below the line has nothing to wait for. Heard nothing from your force six months after the final result? Chase the force. Malpractice is debarred for two to seven years; a mobile phone, on or off, costs three.

Seven of the eight pay identically, so pay is no reason to rank CRPF high or low. ₹21,700 is the entry cell of Level 3; dearness, house rent and transport allowance ride over it, and risk, hardship and remote posting allowances follow the deployment rather than the rank, which favours CRPF's posting profile.

A recruit is liable to serve anywhere in India: selection against a state's vacancies is not a posting there. Appointment also waits on training seats, so candidates are taken in phases, after which CRPF's own rules govern joining and seniority.

The promotion ladder

Each rung needs a minimum length of service and set courses:

Each rung also needs a clean Confidential Card or ACR for the preceding five years and no major punishment. Read the first two rows together: eight years to Head Constable, and eighteen years of service before Sub-Inspector is even possible. Someone joining at twenty reaches Sub-Inspector around thirty-eight on the promotion route, which is why the direct graduate entry through the Commission's Sub-Inspector in Delhi Police and CAPFs exam matters.

Online only, on the Commission's portal. There is no offline route and no application to CRPF.

The form closes a day before the fee does. A form submitted without the fee is summarily rejected, and no representation against that is entertained.

Payment by BHIM UPI, net banking or a debit card, and by no other route. The fee is never refunded. Correcting the form afterwards costs ₹200 the first time and ₹500 the second, paid by everybody whatever their gender or category, with no third attempt; if the charge does not arrive, the earlier form stays valid.

Three entries you cannot fix later

1. Force preferences. All eight, in order. No change after submission.
2. Domicile state and district, entered in the domicile column. No change after submission, and a mismatch at the medical ends the candidature.
3. The NCC claim. Untick it and the bonus is gone, however good the certificate.

Candidature stays provisional until document verification, so nothing is checked before the paper or the ground. Blurred photographs and signatures get forms rejected.

Three bodies run this recruitment, and CRPF fills two of the three roles: it is a destination force and the Nodal Force that conducts the physical and medical stages for everyone else.

That third row is why rect.crpf.gov.in matters to every candidate here, not only to CRPF hopefuls. The Commission entertains no appeal, RTI application or CPGRAMS grievance against a physical or medical board decision: those boards belong to the forces. The paper itself is administered by whichever Commission regional office covers your centre, and that office also receives any representation, within two months of the result.

Where a CRPF recruit trains

Eight Recruit Training Centres take General Duty constables: Jodhpur, Peringome, Avadi, Neemuch, Rajgir, Amethi, Latur and Lethpora near Srinagar.

You give three centre options in order of priority, all within one Commission region. The Commission tries to honour them but may allot another centre, and no change is considered later. The region you pick also fixes which regional office runs your exam, issues your admit card and hears any representation.

The city list for each region comes with the notice; Haryana has no centre of its own and its candidates sit in Chandigarh, Mohali or Punjab.

The exam centre and the domicile state are unconnected. Someone domiciled in Bihar who sits the paper in Delhi still competes for Bihar's vacancies at Bihar's category cut off. For the later stages the candidate chooses nothing at all: the PST and PET grounds and the medical boards are fixed by the CAPFs under CRPF, no centre is changed on request at any stage, and several hundred kilometres of travel to the race is normal.

The current cycle

The paper moved by a day at five days' notice, after the Department of Personnel and Training changed the Id-u-Zuha holiday date on 22 May 2026. Admit cards for the new date went up two or three days ahead, and anyone not watching the site would not have been told.

The last completed cycle, end to end

Sixteen months from notice to select list, five of them between the paper and its result. Plan on the better part of two years and keep the registered mobile number and e-mail alive. The rhythm across both cycles: notice in the second half of the year, applications close six weeks later, paper in the first half of the next year, the ground during and after the monsoon, final result the January after. The examination calendar warns earlier than the notice.

Two organisations issue admit cards in this recruitment, and a candidate who does not know that will miss a stage.

Certificates are issued online and never posted. If your details are missing a week before the paper, contact the regional office at once with proof of having applied, or forfeit any claim to consideration. If the CRPF card will not download, call the Recruitment Cell on 011-26160255. No printed copy, no ground.

Carry to the paper: the printed Admission Certificate, two passport size colour photographs, and an original photo ID showing the date of birth. If the ID carries no date of birth, bring an additional original that does, such as the Matriculation certificate. A date of birth that disagrees with the Admission Certificate bars you from sitting. Biometrics taken at the paper are the reference for every later stage. Leave the phone behind: carrying one, on or off, is a three year debarment.

Four declarations come out over roughly a year, all of them read at ssc.gov.in: the tentative answer key, the written result that shortlists for the ground, the physical test result, and the final select list with force allocation and the cut off annexures.

Last cycle's final result gave, for every state, force, area and category, the vacancies, the number filled, the cut off to five decimals, and the Part A marks, Part B marks and date of birth of the last candidate selected. Detailed marks of every candidate, selected or not, go up afterwards.

What last cycle recorded: 4,932 women and 45,115 men recommended against 5,370 and 48,320 vacancies plus 522 and 4,840 Ex-Servicemen posts. Only 287 men came in against those 4,840 Ex-Servicemen vacancies, about six per cent, so an Ex-Serviceman is competing in by far the emptiest pool here; unfilled ESM posts go to non-ESM candidates of the same categories.

Outcomes stay provisional for months, and some are withheld on court orders or suspected malpractice. There is no reserve list and no re-checking of scores; the paid objection window against the answer key is the only route to challenge a question.

The qualifying mark and the cut off are different numbers, and the gap between them is where the recruitment is decided. The qualifying mark is 30 per cent for UR, 25 for OBC and EWS and 20 for SC, ST and Ex-Servicemen, out of 160, applied before NCC bonus. Clearing it makes you eligible for consideration and nothing more.

CRPF, male, unreserved, general area, last cycle

From Annexure IV of the Commission's final result of 15 January 2026. Each row is the normalised mark of the last candidate selected for CRPF against that state's general area unreserved vacancies.

Same paper, same force, same category, same year: 138.62 in Rajasthan and 50.21 in Nagaland, a spread of 88 marks out of 160. Where you are domiciled does more to decide your chances than anything you control, and the domicile column cannot be changed after submission.

Seven of those thirty-two rows are short, more than for any other force here: Goa filled 1 of 10, Puducherry 1 of 3, Kerala 88 of 99, Telangana 76 of 80, Mizoram 1 of 2, Arunachal Pradesh 2 of 3, and Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu 1 of 2. Where too few candidates from a state survive the ground, the posts simply go unfilled and are carried to the next cycle.

CRPF, female, unreserved, general area

Nineteen of those twenty-five states offered six or fewer CRPF posts and eight offered one or two, and every row was filled. CRPF carries 124 female vacancies this cycle against CISF's 1,460, so a woman should think hard about where CRPF sits in her preference list.

Reading these figures

• They are normalised scores, so you cannot work back from them to a count of correct answers.
• They include NCC bonus. An NCC 'C' certificate is eight of these marks.
• They are last cycle's numbers, set against CRPF's 11,541 notified vacancies. This cycle notifies 5,490. Half the posts and a field of similar size means expecting CRPF cut offs to rise.
• They are CRPF's cut off in that state. Falling short of it does not end the matter: another force from the same state may take you at a lower mark, if your preference list allows.

Train for the race before anything else

Last cycle, 3,94,121 candidates reached the ground and 95,575 came back from it. Three in four went home. Men run 5 km in 24 minutes, women 1.6 km in 8 minutes 30 seconds, with easier standards only for Ladakh region candidates. There is no appeal against the race, unlike height and chest. And the gap between the written result and the ground was nine weeks last cycle, which is not enough time to build the fitness from nothing.

Measure yourself against the standards today

170 cm and an 80 cm chest expanding 5 cm for a general category man, 157 cm for a woman. These cannot be trained into existence. A relaxation needs a certificate in the Commission's proforma, in your hand at the test.

Practise against the clock

Eighty questions in sixty minutes is 45 seconds each, and the Commission says twice that the paper is Matriculation level. The difficulty lives in the clock, not the syllabus.

Guess rather than leave blanks

Only a quarter mark comes off for a wrong answer, so if you can rule out even one option, answer. Candidates drilled on papers with a one third penalty bring the wrong instinct to this one.

Spend your study time on Parts A and C

• Part A, Reasoning, is the first tie break and is mostly non-verbal. Figure series and spatial questions are learnable to reflex.
• Part C, Mathematics, is the most closed syllabus in the paper and the best return on hours spent.
• Part B is the second tie break but unbounded, so cover current affairs and the named areas without chasing depth.
• Part D is comprehension only. Pick whichever of English or Hindi you read faster.

Claim the NCC bonus if you hold a certificate

NCC 'C' is 8 marks, four questions, in a contest settled to two decimals. Tick the box on the form, because it cannot be claimed afterwards, and carry the original to document verification or the bonus is taken back.

Use your own state's numbers, and your own gender's

CRPF's unreserved general area cut off ran from 50.21 in Nagaland to 138.62 in Rajasthan last cycle, so a target borrowed from another state means nothing. CRPF also holds only 124 of this cycle's 2,020 female posts.

Watch two websites, not one

The written admit card comes from the Commission's regional office; the one for the ground, the medical and document verification comes from CRPF about two weeks before. No printed copy, no test.

The Commission publishes previous year question papers under For Candidates, and a walk-through video and mock test in the Candidate's Corner. Those are the only materials that come from the body that actually sets the paper, and the mock test matters more than it sounds: a computer based exam loses people to the software, not the subject.

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

Papers from SSC MTS and CHSL are the nearest public substitute at a neighbouring level, with anything algebraic or trigonometric discarded. Whatever you practise on, sit it in sixty minutes with a clock running and no calculator.

There is no practice paper for the five kilometre race, and it eliminates far more candidates than the written exam does.

Apply, and read the rules

• Staff Selection Commission, where you apply and where every result appears
• Scheme of examination and syllabus
• Tentative vacancy, the force and state wise tables
• Previous year question papers
• Format of certificates, including the relaxation proformas carried to the ground
• Notice of the Constable (GD) Examination, 2025, the full rule book
• Final result, 15 January 2026, source of the cut offs above

CRPF, destination and Nodal Force

• CRPF Recruitment, where every candidate in this exam downloads the admit card for the ground, the medical and document verification
• Central Reserve Police Force
• Career prospects, the promotion ladder with years and courses
• Role of CRPF

Does CRPF conduct its own Constable examination?

Not the written one. General Duty Constables come entirely through the Staff Selection Commission's Constable (GD) examination, which fills BSF, CISF, CRPF, SSB, ITBP, Assam Rifles, the Narcotics Control Bureau and the Secretariat Security Force together. CRPF does run the physical tests, the medical and document verification for that exam as Nodal Force, for all eight. It separately recruits its own technical, tradesman and Hindi Translator cadres.

If I put CRPF first, will I get CRPF?

Not necessarily. All eight organisations must be ranked, and allocation is made on written merit cum preference against the vacancies of your own state, area and category. CRPF is 5,490 of 25,487 posts this cycle. The Commission also reserves the right to allot a force by suitability and availability whatever your preferences say, and no change of preference is allowed after you submit.

Why does CRPF have so few posts for women?

Because of how the Ministry of Home Affairs allots them. CRPF carries 124 of the 2,020 female vacancies this cycle, 2.3 per cent of its own intake, against CISF's 1,460. Last cycle, of the twenty-five states with any CRPF female unreserved general area vacancy, nineteen had six or fewer and eight had one or two.

What marks do I actually need?

The qualifying floor is 30 per cent for UR, 25 for OBC and EWS, 20 for SC, ST and ESM, out of 160, and nobody is selected on it. The real cut off is drawn state, area and category wise. For CRPF unreserved men in general areas last cycle it ran from 50.21 in Nagaland to 138.62 in Rajasthan. Find your own state's row, then allow for CRPF notifying roughly half as many posts this cycle.

How hard is the physical test?

Hard enough to be the main filter. 5 km in 24 minutes for men, 1.6 km in 8 minutes 30 seconds for women, easier only for Ladakh region candidates. Last cycle 3,94,121 candidates were called to the ground between 20 August and 15 September 2025 and 95,575 came through. Height and chest failures can be appealed the same day to the Appellate Authority at the centre; the race cannot be appealed at all.

What is the pay?

Pay Level 3, ₹21,700 to ₹69,100, plus allowances, and identical for a Constable (GD) in CRPF, BSF, CISF, SSB, ITBP and SSF and a Rifleman (GD) in Assam Rifles. Only a Sepoy in the Narcotics Control Bureau differs, at Level 1, ₹18,000 to ₹56,900.

Where do I download my admit card?

From two different places. The written exam card comes from the Commission regional office for your centre, three to seven days before the paper. The card for the physical tests, the medical and document verification comes from CRPF, about two weeks before. If it will not download, contact CRPF a week ahead or call 011-26160255. No printed copy, no test.