UPSC Toppers List Year-wise, From UPSC's Merit Lists

Anuj Agnihotri topped the UPSC Civil Services Examination 2025, whose final result was declared on 6 March 2026, with Medical Science as his optional subject. A year earlier Shakti Dubey topped CSE 2024 with Political Science and International Relations. The table below has ranks 1 to 3 for every year from CSE 2017 (ranks 1 and 2 for CSE 2016), and you can open ranks 1 to 10 for each year from CSE 2017.

Every name is copied from UPSC's own merit lists, and an optional subject appears only where UPSC's results note for that year names it.

Where these names come from

UPSC's final result for each year is a press note followed by the list, in order of merit, of every candidate recommended for appointment, with roll number and name. The names above come from that list for CSE 2021 to 2025. For older years we could not find the final result on UPSC's site, so the names come from other official documents:

• CSE 2017, 2019 and 2020: UPSC's marks of recommended candidates, which list every candidate with their rank.
• CSE 2018: the merit list that UPSC released with its final result through the Press Information Bureau (PIB).
• CSE 2016: UPSC's results note on PIB, which names ranks 1 and 2 only.

We checked the names for CSE 2019 to 2024 against a third list, the Government's rank-wise service allocation, and they match. The note under the table explains why CSE 2015 is not included yet.

The toppers' optional subjects

UPSC names the optional subjects of the top candidates only in some years' results notes. In those notes:

• CSE 2025: Medical Science (rank 1), Sociology (ranks 2 and 5), Commerce and Accountancy (rank 3) and Economics (rank 4).
• CSE 2024: Political Science and International Relations (ranks 1 and 2), Philosophy (rank 3) and Sociology (ranks 4 and 5).
• CSE 2022: Political Science and International Relations (rank 1), Commerce and Accountancy (rank 2), Anthropology (rank 3) and Zoology (rank 4).
• CSE 2018, 2017 and 2016: Mathematics, Anthropology and Kannada Literature for rank 1, in that order.

The same notes list the optional subjects of the top 25 candidates. For CSE 2025 they were Anthropology, Commerce and Accountancy, Chemistry, Economics, Electrical Engineering, History, Mathematics, Medical Science, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations, Public Administration and Sociology. For CSE 2024 the list also included Geography, Physics and the Literature of the Tamil language.

So rank 1 has come from five different optional subjects in the six years UPSC named one, and the top 25 from many more. Choose the subject you can write best in rather than the one a topper took; the full list of optional subjects has every subject you can choose, with links to the syllabus guides.

Women among the toppers

UPSC's notes also describe the top of the list. In CSE 2022 the top four candidates were all women. In CSE 2024 the top five were three women and two men, and in CSE 2025 one woman and four men. Earlier, Nandini K.R. topped CSE 2016, Anu Kumari was the top woman at rank 2 in CSE 2017, and Srushti Jayant Deshmukh was the top woman at rank 5 in CSE 2018.

Which service the toppers chose

A high rank lets you choose; it does not choose for you. In the Government's service allocation lists for CSE 2019 to 2024, rank 1 was allotted the IAS every year. But not every top-ten candidate took the IAS: in CSE 2022, ranks 5 and 6 were allotted the Indian Foreign Service. The rank-wise service allocation guide shows how far down the list each service went, and the rank to service explorer lets you check any rank.

What the toppers scored

UPSC publishes the marks of every recommended candidate after the final result. The written, interview and total marks of each year's rank 1, and of ranks 1 to 10, are on UPSC topper marks. The cut-offs that the last successful candidates crossed are on the mains and final cut-off page.