Securities and Exchange Board of India Grade A

The SEBI Grade A exam is the recruitment process through which the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the regulator of India's securities market, hires Officer Grade A (Assistant Manager) in several streams. It is one of the most sought-after regulatory jobs for graduates and postgraduates in commerce, law, engineering, IT and economics.

This page gives you a working picture of the exam: streams, eligibility, phases, selection, pay and a preparation plan. As of 22 October 2026 we could not find a notification for the upcoming cycle, so figures from the last completed cycle are labelled as such and should be treated as indicative until SEBI publishes the new notification.

Table of Contents

SEBI Grade A at a glance

Notification status for the upcoming cycle

SEBI usually releases the Officer Grade A notification once a year on its website. The last notification we could trace was dated 30 October 2025. For the upcoming cycle, coaching and news pages differ on when the notification will appear: some expect it in October or November 2026, others later. None of these is an official date.

The practical advice is simple. Do not wait for the notification to begin preparing, because the pattern has been stable for several cycles. Do check the careers section of https://www.sebi.gov.in regularly, and keep your documents ready.

Important dates

The table below shows the schedule of the last completed cycle. It is a guide to how the calendar tends to run, not the schedule of the next cycle.

Tentative dates come from the earlier schedule and can change. Track the official recruitment page on sebi.gov.in and your registered email for confirmed dates.

Streams and vacancies

Each stream has its own qualification and its own Phase I Paper 2 and Phase II Paper 2. Choose the stream that matches your degree, because you cannot change it after applying.

These vacancy numbers add up to 135 and are taken from third-party summaries of the last notification. One source reports a total of 110, so the figures are indicative only. Earlier cycles reported by coaching sites show totals between roughly 97 and 147. The General stream has consistently been the largest. Check the new notification for exact numbers and category-wise distribution.

Eligibility summary

Eligibility is stream-specific, and the details run longer than a summary can hold, so read the full SEBI Grade A eligibility guide before applying. In brief, based on the last cycle:

• Age: Not more than 30 years on the cut-off date in the notification for the unreserved category. Last cycle relaxations were reported as 5 years for SC/ST, 3 years for OBC (non-creamy layer) and 10 years for PwBD, with ex-servicemen covered by government norms.

• General stream: A Master's degree or a 2-year PG Diploma in any discipline, or a Bachelor's in Law or Engineering, or CA, CFA, CS or CMA.

• Specialist streams: Legal, IT, Research, Official Language and Engineering each need a specific degree, and some list desirable experience.

Application fee and how to apply

The last cycle charged Rs. 1,000 plus 18% GST for unreserved, OBC and EWS candidates, and Rs. 100 plus 18% GST for SC, ST and PwBD candidates. Treat these as indicative until the new notification confirms them.

1. Read the notification fully on the official website and confirm your stream.

2. Register with a valid email address and mobile number through the application link given in the notification.

3. Fill in personal, educational and category details exactly as in your certificates.

4. Upload the photograph, signature and other documents in the sizes and formats the notification specifies.

5. Pay the fee online and save the confirmation and the final submitted form.

Common reasons for rejection are choosing the wrong stream, applying before final-year results meet the qualification rule, and mismatched details between the form and the documents.

Exam pattern in brief

The selection runs in three stages. Phase I is a qualifying screening, Phase II decides merit, and the interview completes the process. The structure below is as reported for the last cycle; the full detail sits in the SEBI Grade A exam pattern page.

Older pages may still show a different timing or structure, so follow the official notification for the final word.

Syllabus in brief

SEBI names the subjects in its notification but does not publish a detailed topic-wise syllabus. The overview below is a working summary built from the notification subjects and from the kind of questions asked in earlier cycles. The complete checklist is on the SEBI Grade A syllabus page.

Selection process

1. Phase I: A qualifying test. Candidates must clear the paper-wise and aggregate qualifying marks. Last cycle sources report 30 marks in Paper 1, 40 marks in Paper 2 and 80 marks in aggregate, but confirm this in the new notification.

2. Phase II: Marks here count toward the final merit. Candidates who clear the Phase II cut-off are called for the interview.

3. Interview: The final stage. Third-party pages report a split of roughly 85 percent for Phase II and 15 percent for the interview, but this weightage is not confirmed in the sources we could check, so treat it as indicative.

4. Document verification and medical examination: Selected candidates complete these before joining.

The key point for planning is that Phase I marks do not add to your final score. Clearing Phase I is necessary, but the real competition happens in Phase II.

Salary and career growth

The pay scale reported for the last cycle starts at a basic pay of Rs. 62,500 and runs in stages up to Rs. 1,26,100 over 17 years. With allowances, third-party pages estimate the gross monthly pay at about Rs. 1,84,000 without SEBI accommodation and about Rs. 1,43,000 with accommodation in Mumbai. These are not official figures, and they vary with city and allowances. The notification lists the official scale and benefits.

Officers join as Assistant Manager, serve a probation period, and progress through the grades of the organisation through promotions. Work is spread across departments such as market regulation, enforcement, investment management, corporate finance, legal affairs, IT and research.

How to prepare for SEBI Grade A

Preparation works best when you treat the exam as two parts: a common aptitude and awareness paper, and a subject paper that decides your rank.

Build the Phase I base

• General Awareness: Read one financial newspaper daily, and keep monthly notes on regulators, schemes, reports and indices.

• Quant and Reasoning: Practise data interpretation and puzzles in timed sets, as speed matters more than rare topics.

• English: Read editorials daily and begin handwriting-free typed essay practice early, since Phase II needs it.

Go deep on the stream paper

For the General stream, prepare Economics, Finance, Commerce and Accountancy, Management, Costing and the Companies Act as separate subjects with their own short notes. Candidates from other backgrounds should give extra weeks to the subjects they have not studied formally.

Use mock tests from the start

Take sectional tests in the first month and full-length tests later. You can attempt SEBI Grade A online tests on Testkart in the exam format and use the section-wise analysis to decide what to revise. Review each mock on the same day: list wrong answers, slow questions and questions you skipped but could have solved.

Cut-off reference

Cut-offs differ by stream and category and change every year. Third-party compilations of the General stream final cut-offs show unreserved figures of about 69.30 for the 2024 cycle and about 70.29 for the 2025 cycle. These are indicative, because we could not verify them on the official site. Use them as a benchmark only and aim well above them. The SEBI Grade A cut-off page has the stream-wise tables with the caveats.

For notifications, results and official announcements, always rely on https://www.sebi.gov.in.