What EPSO is and what AD5 is
The European Personnel Selection Office, universally known as EPSO, is the inter-institutional body that runs open competitions for permanent staff of the European Union. It selects on behalf of the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council, the Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Court of Auditors, the European Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions, the European External Action Service and the Ombudsman, and its reserve lists are also drawn on by many EU agencies. Permanent staff sit in one of three function groups: AD for administrators, AST for assistants, and AST-SC for secretaries and clerks. Alongside the permanent competitions EPSO manages the CAST Permanent database, from which the institutions recruit contract agents into function groups FG I through FG IV. AD5 is the entry level of the AD stream: the graduate gateway into a permanent EU career on the administrator ladder.
The 2026 competition, EPSO/AD/427/26
The current AD5 generalist competition was published as EPSO/AD/427/26 in the Official Journal of the European Union C/2026/711 on 5 February 2026, with an application deadline of 10 March 2026. Secondary coverage reports 174,922 candidates registered against 1,490 places on the reserve list, a threefold increase over the 22,644 who applied to the previous AD5 competition in 2019. Because eu-careers.europa.eu and eur-lex.europa.eu were unavailable to the network at the time of writing, these figures have been gathered from EPSO preparation providers and should be re-verified against the notice text on EUR-Lex before an application is filed.
The sequence of tests
The 2026 cycle is entirely remote and proctored on the TAO platform: there is no in-person Assessment Centre. Candidates sit a verbal reasoning test and a combined numerical and abstract reasoning test in a first testing window reported for October and November 2026. Those who clear the reasoning threshold are invited to Part 2 in the first half of 2027, which combines an EU knowledge multiple-choice test (reported as thirty questions in forty minutes), a digital skills multiple-choice test, and the EUFTE, a free-text essay on an EU-related theme. Part 2 is written in the candidate’s declared Language 2. Passing candidates are ranked and placed on a reserve list. Recruitment then happens institution by institution: being on the list makes a candidate eligible, but it does not guarantee an offer, and interviews at the recruitment stage are conducted by the hiring institution or agency rather than by EPSO itself.
The language regime
Every EPSO competition asks for two of the twenty-four official EU languages. Language 1 must be at C1 level and can be any of the twenty-four; Language 2 must be at B2 level and is, for the tests written in it, in practice limited by the notice to English, French or German, the working languages the institutions use most. That is why so many candidates whose mother tongue is already one of the three sit their reasoning tests in it and the EU knowledge and EUFTE portions in another.
Eligibility
A candidate must be a citizen of an EU Member State, must be of the age of majority, must have a completed university degree of at least three years in any discipline (the 2026 notice reportedly accepts a diploma obtained by 30 September 2026), and must meet the language requirement above. There is no upper age limit. The Staff Regulations set out the rest, including the requirement to enjoy full civic rights and to be physically fit to perform the duties.
Reserve list, cycle length and what comes after
A modern EPSO AD5 cycle runs roughly twelve to eighteen months from the publication of the notice to the first entries on the reserve list. Reserve lists are typically valid for a set initial period and can be extended by the EPSO Management Board, so a name placed on the list can be recruited for several years afterwards. The starting grade is AD5, whose step 1 basic gross monthly salary is reported at EUR 6,152.64 under the EU salary grid updated on 1 July 2025, before the expatriation and family allowances that often apply to a recruit posted to Brussels or Luxembourg, and before EU community tax and other deductions.
Preparing the application
The application is filed through the candidate’s EPSO account on the EU Careers portal. The site’s age-calculator tool checks that the age condition is met on the reference date the notice sets. There is no photograph or signature upload requirement in the current online procedure as reported; identity is verified at each remote proctored session and by the recruiting institution at the pre-recruitment stage.
On test day
For a remote proctored session, connect from a quiet room with a working webcam and microphone and a stable internet connection, at least thirty minutes before the start time on the invitation. Have an original government photo identification that matches the name on the EPSO profile. Second monitors, phones, smartwatches, headphones and any device or material not authorised by the proctoring rules are prohibited, as is the presence of any other person in the room. For the current Notice of Competition, timeline and any corrigenda, use the EU Careers portal and the record on EUR-Lex linked in the officialLinks above.