What JKPSC CCE is
The Combined Competitive Examination, conducted by the Jammu and Kashmir Public Service Commission, is the Union Territory’s own version of a state civil services exam, recruiting into the Jammu and Kashmir Administrative Service (KAS) Junior Scale, the Jammu and Kashmir Police (Gazetted) Service and the Jammu and Kashmir Accounts (Gazetted) Service through one combined process and merit list. It sits in the same family as BPSC CCE and UPPSC PCS: a Prelims, Mains and Interview structure modelled on UPSC CSE, run at the Union Territory level rather than nationally.
J&K’s own cycle has run on an unusually long and sometimes disrupted timeline. The most recent completed cycle’s Preliminary Examination was held on 23 February 2025 and its result declared on 21 March 2025, but the Main Examination notification for the 80 vacancies that cycle carries (35 KAS Junior Scale, 30 Police Gazetted Service, 15 Accounts Gazetted Service) was not released until 13 February 2026, nearly a year later. The Main Examination itself was then rescheduled: tentatively set for 25 April 2026, JKPSC pushed it to 23 June to 1 July 2026 by a notice issued 13 April 2026, after the published date sheet clashed with other ongoing exams and left candidates no gap before the optional subject papers. Candidates preparing for this exam should treat every date here as subject to further revision and check the JKPSC website directly before making travel or leave plans around it.
Who can apply
A bachelor’s degree in any discipline from a recognised university is the academic requirement. A valid Jammu and Kashmir domicile certificate, issued by the competent authority, is mandatory and is checked both at application and at document verification; this is a harder requirement than most mainland state PCS exams, which typically only prefer rather than require in-state domicile. The age band for Open Merit candidates is 21 to 32 years, reckoned as on 1 January of the notified year, with reserved category and in-service candidates allowed up to 34 years and PwBD candidates up to 35 years, as the specific notification states. Confirm the exact age band against the current notification rather than a past cycle’s figures, since the reckoning date moves with each cycle.
How the exam runs
The Preliminary Examination is objective: two papers of General Studies, Paper I and Paper II (the CSAT-style paper), each carrying 200 marks, with 0.33 marks deducted for each wrong answer. It produces the ranking for advancing to the Main Examination and does not itself count towards the final merit. Run your expected attempt pattern through the negative marking calculator before deciding how much to guess.
The Main Examination is descriptive, run across eight papers worth 1,750 marks in total: a qualifying General English paper (300 marks, requiring roughly a quarter of the marks to pass), an Essay paper, four General Studies papers that mirror the UPSC syllabus but weight Jammu and Kashmir’s own history, culture and geography within them, and two papers on an optional subject the candidate chooses. Only the seven papers after the qualifying English paper count towards the merit used for the Interview call.
Candidates who clear the Main Examination sit a Personality Test (Interview) before JKPSC. The final rank combines Main Examination marks and Interview marks.
Preparing the application
JKPSC specifies exact photograph and signature requirements in each notification rather than a fixed year to year standard, so check the current notification’s dimensions and file size before uploading. The photo resizer on this site can resize your photograph to whatever specific target the notification states. The application fee is Rs 1,200 for Open Merit candidates and Rs 700 for reserved categories, with PwBD candidates exempted, figures that have held for the current cycle but should still be checked against the notification you are applying under.
On exam day
Arrive at least an hour before the reporting time on your admit card, with the printed admit card, a government photo identification matching the name and photo on the admit card, and one recent passport size photograph. No electronic devices are permitted, and only material issued by the centre may be used during the exam.
For candidates comparing this with other recruitment in Jammu and Kashmir
JKPSC CCE is the gazetted, administrative-service route into Jammu and Kashmir’s government. Most of the Union Territory’s non-gazetted and support-staff vacancies instead go through JKSSB recruitment, a separate written-exam body with its own advertisements, pattern and selection process; a candidate who does not hold a postgraduate-equivalent profile or is looking at technical, paramedical or clerical posts should check that page rather than this one.
The official JKPSC website, linked above, carries the current notification, exact age and category-wise requirements, syllabus and schedule for the cycle you are applying to.