Territorial Army

The Territorial Army officer exam is the entry route for working graduates who want a part-time commission as a Lieutenant in the Territorial Army (TA), the volunteer reserve of the Indian Army. The Territorial Army Directorate runs the selection under the Territorial Army Commission (TAC): an online computer-based test (CBT), a Service Selection Board (SSB) interview and a medical examination. The 2026 cycle, TAC-2026, was advertised in Employment News of 18 to 24 April 2026 with 12 vacancies.

This page covers where the 2026 cycle stands, who can apply, the fee, the exam pattern, the syllabus, the selection process, pay and a preparation plan. The biggest change this year is the paper itself. Elementary Mathematics has been dropped, and the CBT now has three parts (Reasoning, General Knowledge and English) instead of four.

Table of Contents

Territorial Army Officer 2026

TAC-2026 Notification Overview

The advertisement titled "Join Territorial Army as an Officer" appeared in Employment News of 18 to 24 April 2026 and on the Indian Army website on 20 April 2026. It describes the role plainly as a part-time commitment and not a full-time career. Applications were accepted only online on the Indian Army website, from 20 April 2026 (10:00 hours) to 19 May 2026 (23:55 hours).

The notice offers 12 vacancies, 11 for men and 1 for women, and says the number can change with organisational requirement. Final selection is made in order of merit up to the number of vacancies, with separate merit lists for male and female candidates.

What changed from the 2025 cycle

• Three parts instead of four: The 2025 CBT had four parts of 25 marks each. The 2026 CBT has Reasoning (40 marks), General Knowledge (30 marks) and English (30 marks).

• No Elementary Mathematics: The 2025 notice included a matriculation-level maths part. It does not appear in the 2026 notice.

• Fewer vacancies: The 2025 notice offered 19 vacancies (18 male, 1 female). The 2026 notice offers 12.

Older pages may still show a maths section or formats from earlier years, so follow the 2026 notification.

Important Dates

The TAC-2026 CBT result had not appeared on the What's New page of the Indian Army website when this page was last checked on 21 October 2026. For reference, the 2025 cycle's CBT result came out on 1 October 2025 and its final merit list on 22 May 2026, so the later stages can take several months. Treat any expected result date as tentative and track the official page and your registered email.

Vacancy Details

The notification does not split vacancies by social category or by state. The figure is also not fixed: in the 2025 cycle, 19 vacancies were advertised, and the final merit list published on 22 May 2026 named 24 candidates (23 male, 1 female), subject to the medical examination. Treat the vacancy count as indicative of scale rather than as the exact number of commissions.

Territorial Army Eligibility

Educational qualification

You need a graduate degree from any recognised university. The notification does not restrict the subject, so graduates in arts, science, commerce, engineering and other disciplines can apply.

Age limit

You must be between 18 and 42 years old on the last day of filing the application, which for TAC-2026 was 19 May 2026. The notification does not list any category-wise age relaxation, so the same 18 to 42 window applies to every applicant.

Employment and other conditions

• Nationality: Only citizens of India, male and female, can apply.

• Gainfully employed: You must hold a regular job (central, state or semi-government, or private sector) or be self-employed. This is the condition that sets the TA apart from other officer entries.

• Not for serving personnel: Serving members of the Regular Army, Navy, Air Force, Police, GREF, Para Military and similar forces are not eligible.

• Medical fitness: You must be physically and medically fit in all respects, as set out in the Instructions to Candidates for civilian applicants on the Indian Army website.

The full rules, including the employment documents and who is excluded, are on the Territorial Army eligibility page.

Application Fee and How to Apply

The notification lists no fee exemption for any category. An application submitted without the fee, or with the fee paid in any other mode, is rejected.

1. Open the Indian Army website during the application window and use the Territorial Army officer link.

2. Fill the online form IAF (TA)-9 (Revised) Part-1 with an active email ID and mobile number, because all later communication is electronic.

3. Choose the exam centre carefully. The notification states that no request for a change of centre will be granted.

4. Pay the Rs. 500 fee online and submit the form before the closing time.

5. Keep a printout of the submitted form for your records.

Documents to carry to the SSB

Common reasons candidates drop out

• Employment proof missing: Admission is provisional at every stage. Without a valid service certificate or self-employment affidavit at the SSB, candidature can be cancelled.

• Age outside the window: Check your age on 19 May 2026, not on the exam date.

• Wrong payment mode: Fees paid outside the prescribed online modes are not accepted.

• Serving in a uniformed force: Police, paramilitary and similar personnel are not eligible even if otherwise qualified.

Territorial Army Exam Pattern

The TAC-2026 CBT is a single objective paper taken in one session of 2 hours, held at centres across India.

For every wrong answer, one-third of the marks for that question is deducted. A question marked for review is treated as unanswered. The Territorial Army Directorate can fix qualifying marks in any or all subjects at its discretion, and the notice does not publish them in advance. The standard is roughly that expected of a graduate of an Indian university.

What this means for you

• Reasoning decides the most marks: With 40 of the 100 marks, it is the section where steady practice pays off fastest.

• Guessing has a cost: Each wrong answer takes away a third of a mark, so three wrong guesses cancel one correct answer.

• Time is tight but workable: You get about 72 seconds per question on average, which leaves room for review only if GK goes quickly.

• No maths section, but numbers remain: Number series and similar reasoning questions still need comfortable mental arithmetic.

For the marking rules in detail and a suggested time split, see the Territorial Army exam pattern guide.

Syllabus Summary

The notification describes each part in one or two sentences rather than listing topics. The table below combines that official description with the topic areas you should prepare. Use it as a working checklist, not as an official list.

The Territorial Army syllabus page breaks each part into sub-topics with a suggested order of study.

Selection Process

1. Computer-based test: Candidates who are declared successful in the 100-mark CBT are called for the SSB.

2. SSB, stage one: The SSB uses a two-stage procedure. Stage one, held on the first day of reporting, covers an intelligence test and a psychological aptitude test. Candidates who do not clear it are returned without taking the remaining tests.

3. SSB, stage two: Those who clear stage one take the remaining intelligence and personality tests, which at an SSB usually include psychology tests, group tasks and a personal interview.

4. Merit list: Male and female candidates are placed in separate merit lists based on total marks in the CBT and the SSB tests. The weightage of each stage is not published.

5. Medical examination: Recommended candidates must clear a medical examination. In the 2025 cycle, the final merit list stated that medical results were not used to prepare the list, but joining depends on clearing them.

6. Pre-commission training: Up to six months of pre-commission training follows. You are commissioned only after completing it successfully.

Salary and Career Growth

When embodied for training or military service, a Territorial Army officer gets the same pay, allowances and privileges as a Regular Army officer. Pay follows the 7th CPC matrix below, and Military Service Pay is Rs. 15,500 at every rank shown.

Promotion up to Lieutenant Colonel is by time scale, subject to meeting the laid-down criteria; Colonel and Brigadier are by selection. The notification does not give an in-hand figure, and actual earnings depend on how many days you are embodied in a year.

• Training commitment: After commission you get 21 days of post-commission leave, then 30 days of training, and a two-month annual training camp every year.

• Pension: Service in the TA does not guarantee a pension. It depends on embodied service as per organisational requirement.

• Call-out: Officers can be called out for military service for longer periods when required, so discuss this with your employer early.

How to Prepare for the Territorial Army Exam

Most candidates are working full time, so a plan of 60 to 90 minutes on weekdays and longer sessions at weekends is realistic. Spread that time by marks, not by comfort.

Reasoning

Start with series, coding-decoding and analogy, which appear in almost every reasoning paper, then move to statements and conclusions and figure-based questions. Solve 30 to 40 timed questions a day and note the question types that slow you down.

General Knowledge

Read one national newspaper daily and keep monthly current-affairs notes, including defence news. For static GK, cover Indian history, geography and everyday science from school-level books before moving to harder material.

English

Practise one reading comprehension passage a day and keep a vocabulary log of new words, idioms and their use in sentences. Revise common grammar rules through error-spotting and sentence-improvement sets.

Practise in the current pattern

Once the basics are in place, move to full-length tests in the three-part, 100-question format. For timed practice, you can attempt Territorial Army mock tests on Testkart and use the section-wise analysis to see whether reasoning, GK or English is costing you marks. Review every wrong answer the same day, because negative marking makes careless errors expensive.

Start SSB preparation early

The CBT only gets you to the SSB. In the 2025 cycle, 951 candidates were called for the SSB and 24 made the final merit list. Read about the two-stage SSB procedure, practise picture perception and group discussion with friends, and be ready to explain why you want to serve while keeping your civilian career.

Cut-off Reference

The Territorial Army Directorate does not publish a cut-off. The official 2025 result lists (a four-part, 100-mark paper) show where the line fell, because they give the scores of candidates who were not called for the SSB.

These are indicative figures derived from the official lists, not an announced cut-off, and the 2026 paper has a different structure. Cut-offs change every year with difficulty, vacancies and the number of applicants, so treat these as a benchmark and aim for a clear margin above them. More detail is on the Territorial Army cut-off page, and you can track your progress against it with Testkart's full-length practice tests.