UPSC ISS Cut Off: Previous Year Trends and Full Analysis (2015 to 2025)

This page is the most complete and honest record of UPSC Indian Statistical Service cut off marks available in one place. Every figure here is taken directly from the official UPSC ISS cut off documents and the official list of recommended candidates, from 2015 to 2025. We do not publish guessed numbers. We publish the real data and explain what it means for you.

If you have just written the exam and want to understand your own chances, read our UPSC ISS 2026 expected cut off guide first. This page gives you the full numbers behind it. You can also enter your own marks in our UPSC ISS marks calculator to see your position against this data instantly.

How the ISS cut off actually works

Before reading the tables, understand the structure, because most websites explain it poorly.

The written exam is 1000 marks across six papers. General English is 100 marks, General Studies is 100 marks, and the four Statistics papers are 200 marks each, which is 800 marks together. The interview, called the Personality Test, is 200 marks. The grand total is 1200 marks.

There are two different cut offs, and confusing them is the most common mistake.

The first is the written qualifying cut off. This is the minimum aggregate, out of 1000, that you need just to be called for the interview. The second is the final cut off. This is the total, out of 1200, of the last candidate who is actually recommended for selection. These two numbers are very different, and you should always know which one a website is quoting.

There is also a minimum mark in every single paper. You must score at least a fixed percentage in each of the six papers, or you are removed from the list no matter how high your total is. In recent years this minimum has been 15 percent to 20 percent for the General category.

General category cut off, 2015 to 2025

This is the core table. The written column is the qualifying mark out of 1000, and the final column is the final selection cut off out of 1200.

What this table tells you in plain words. The final cut off for the General category has stayed in a band of 608 to 660 in the last four years, and 2025 was the highest in this entire record at 660. The number of candidates recommended swings a great deal, from 50 in 2020 to only 11 in 2021, and then around 30 to 35 in the years after. Fewer seats in a year push the cut off higher.

UPSC ISS 2026 vacancies

For the 2026 examination, UPSC has notified 28 vacancies in the Indian Statistical Service. Out of these, 2 vacancies are reserved for Persons with Benchmark Disability. One is a carried forward vacancy reserved for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing category, which can be interchanged in terms of the Department of Personnel and Training order dated 15 January 2018. The other is a fresh vacancy reserved for the Special Learning Disability or Multiple Disability category, which is not to be interchanged.

With 28 seats, the 2026 intake is slightly smaller than the last few years, where it was around 29 to 35. A smaller intake tends to keep the cut off firm or push it a little higher. We will add the official 2026 cut off to the tables on this page once the final result is declared.

Category wise final cut off (out of 1200), 2019 to 2025

The Economically Weaker Section category began from 2019, so earlier years do not have it.

A useful observation. Reserved category cut offs are not always far below the General cut off. In 2025 the Scheduled Caste final cut off was 634, which is very close to the General cut off of 660, because only a few candidates competed for that seat and the ones selected scored high. So a high score is needed across categories, not only in General.

Category wise written qualifying mark (out of 1000), 2019 to 2025

What the interview actually scores (out of 200)

This is the section no other website gives you, and it is the most useful for planning. We studied the actual interview marks of 189 recommended candidates from 2020 to 2025.

Across all six years, the interview marks ranged from 70 to 156 out of 200, with an average of 118 and a median of 118. Not a single recommended candidate scored above 160. Almost 89 percent of all selected candidates scored between 100 and 150 in the interview.

The honest lesson is simple. Plan your written score assuming an interview of about 110 to 130. Never expect the interview to rescue a weak written paper, because a very high interview score almost never happens.

Qualifying is not the same as getting selected

This is the most important truth hidden inside the data. Crossing the written qualifying bar only gets you the interview call. To actually get selected, your written score usually needs to be much higher.

In 2025, the General written qualifying bar was 430, but the last General candidate who was actually selected had a written score of 524. The gap between the qualifying bar and the written score of the last selected candidate has been growing over the years, from only 5 marks in 2020 to 94 marks in 2025. This means competition is rising, and you should aim for a comfortable margin above the bare qualifying mark.

Based on the last four years, the written score of the last selected General candidate has been between 468 and 524, which is about 48 to 53 percent of 1000. A safe target is to aim for at least half of the written marks.

Download the official UPSC documents

Every figure on this page comes from the official UPSC cut off documents and recommended candidate lists. You can download each year’s official PDF below and verify the numbers yourself. We update this table every year when the new official documents are released.

All documents are published by UPSC on the official UPSC website under the IES and ISS examination results section.

For the full exam pattern and syllabus, see our UPSC ISS complete guide. To understand your own chances this year, read the UPSC ISS 2026 expected cut off guide.

This is the StatChakravyuh way. Practice. Improve. Repeat.

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