UPSC Rank-wise Service Allocation: What Rank Gets IAS, IPS, IFS

In the Government's service allocation for CSE 2024, the last unreserved IAS vacancy went to rank 80. The last IAS allotment in each reserved category was rank 265 for EWS, 447 for OBC, 468 for SC and 456 for ST. For the IFS the unreserved line was rank 136, and for the IPS rank 203.

These figures are worked out from the Department of Personnel and Training's (DoPT) rank-wise lists, which show the rank, category and allotted service of each candidate in them. The tables below cover CSE 2019 to 2024, the latest list for each year.

The CSE 2025 service allocation has not been published yet. When we checked DoPT's CSE Plus site on 13 October 2026, its latest list was the 5th iteration for CSE 2024, posted on 2 July 2026. UPSC declared the CSE 2025 final result on 6 March 2026; for CSE 2024, the first allocation list followed on 5 August 2025, after the final result of 22 April 2025.

How a rank becomes a service

UPSC does not allot services. Its final-result notice says appointments will be made according to the vacancies available and the rules of the examination; the allotment itself is done by the Government. Three things decide your service:

1. Your rank. The CSE 2026 notice says candidates are allotted to services keeping in view their ranks in the examination and the preferences they expressed.
2. Your preferences. You list, in order, only the services you want. The notice says you will be considered only for the services you list, and if you list none you will not be considered for allocation at all. You cannot change the order once submitted, except in the window UPSC opens after the mains result for candidates called for the interview.
3. The vacancies in your category. The Government reports each service's vacancies by category. For CSE 2024 the final-result notice listed 180 IAS, 55 IFS and 147 IPS vacancies.

If you want the IAS or IPS, the notice also asks for a cadre preference. Cadre allotment is a separate step that comes after the service is decided, so it affects where you serve, not which service you get. A candidate already selected or appointed to the IPS through an earlier examination cannot opt for the IPS again, under the notice.

Rank alone does not decide it

Because preferences differ, the list does not run in a neat order. In DoPT's CSE 2024 list, rank 23 was allotted the IPS and rank 25 the IFS, while ranks 24 and 26 went to the IAS. In CSE 2022, ranks 5 and 6 were allotted the IFS. A candidate who puts the IFS or IPS first and gets it leaves an IAS place for someone further down.

This is also why the table shows the last rank, not a cut-off. A rank just above the last IAS allotment did not guarantee the IAS: it depended on what that candidate preferred and what was left.

How to read the tables

• General means the unreserved vacancies. It includes reserved-category candidates who got an unreserved vacancy on their own merit; DoPT marks them with “$”.
• Candidates with a benchmark disability are not counted. They are allotted against vacancies reserved for them, which can reach far down the list.
• The latest iteration is used. DoPT revises each year's list as candidates' documents and medical status are cleared. For CSE 2024 it published five iterations, from 5 August 2025 to 2 July 2026. An allotment marked “*” is provisional and may be upgraded if a higher-ranked candidate's candidature is not cleared.
• The reserve list is left out. Candidates added later from UPSC's reserve list appear in a separate section of DoPT's list with no rank.

Check your own rank

The rank to service explorer takes a rank and a category and shows, for each year from CSE 2019 to 2024, every service that a candidate of that category at that rank or further down the list was allotted. It covers all the services, from the IAS to the Group B services.

Two cautions before you use these numbers as a target. First, they are past results, and the line moves every year with the vacancies and the choices of the candidates above you. Second, the rank you need for a service is a matter of the final total: the final cut-off page and topper marks show what totals the ranks were built on. Every service you can join is described in other services through UPSC CSE.