Last Updated: 26 June 2026
Confirmed as of today: SBI has released the PO 2026 notification (Advt. No. CRPD/PO/2026-27/09) on 18 June 2026 for 1,500 vacancies, and the online application window is open till 8 July 2026. Still pending: the exact Prelims exam date, the admit card release date, and obviously the 2026 cut-off marks, since the exam itself hasn’t happened yet.
State Bank of India’s PO exam is the one banking exam that almost every commerce, arts, and engineering graduate in the country has at least considered attempting once. This year’s notification is drawing extra attention for one specific reason — the vacancy count has jumped sharply compared to the last two recruitment cycles, which changes the competition math for anyone who was on the fence about applying.
SBI PO Notification 2026: Key Highlights
| Particular | Detail |
|---|---|
| Recruiting Body | State Bank of India (SBI) |
| Post | Probationary Officer (PO) |
| Advertisement No. | CRPD/PO/2026-27/09 |
| Total Vacancies | 1,500 |
| Notification Release Date | 18 June 2026 |
| Application Mode | Online only, through SBI’s careers portal |
| Selection Stages | Prelims → Mains → Psychometric Test, Group Exercise & Interview |
| Official Website | sbi.bank.in / sbi.co.in |
These figures are as stated in the official SBI PO 2026 notification PDF released on SBI’s careers page.
also read; HSSC CET Group D Vacancy 2026
Important Dates 2026
| Event | Date | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Notification Released | 18 June 2026 | Confirmed |
| Online Application Start | 18 June 2026 | Confirmed |
| Last Date to Apply Online | 8 July 2026 | Confirmed |
| Last Date for Fee Payment | 8 July 2026 | Confirmed |
| Admit Card Release | Not yet announced | Pending |
:
SBI PO Prelims Question Paper 2026 Out Now; Memory Based PDF, Shift Analysis & Download Link
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| Prelims Exam | Tentatively first week of August 2026 (window mentioned in notification schedule) | Tentative, not finalised |
| Mains Exam | Tentatively September 2026 | Tentative, not finalised |
| Phase III – Psychometric Test/GE/Interview | Tentatively October–November 2026 | Tentative, not finalised |
SBI’s own notification describes these exam-month windows as tentative and states that any change will be communicated only through the careers website, not through a fresh advertisement. Treat August and September as planning windows, not fixed dates, until the admit card confirms the actual day.
read more; DSSSB Recruitment 2026 Notification
SBI PO Vacancy 2026 Details (Category Wise)
Of the 1,500 total posts, 1,446 are regular vacancies and 54 are backlog vacancies carried forward from earlier cycles.
| Category | Vacancies | Includes Backlog |
|---|---|---|
| UR (Unreserved) | 588 | — |
| OBC | 390 | — |
| SC | 234 | 18 |
| ST | 144 | 36 |
| EWS | 144 | — |
| Total | 1,500 | 54 |
A separate horizontal reservation applies for Persons with Benchmark Disabilities under the RPwD Act: 15 seats for Visually Impaired, 16 for Hearing Impaired, 14 for Locomotor Disability, and 16 for the combined Autism/Mental Illness/Multiple Disability category. These PwBD seats sit inside the category numbers above, not on top of them. SBI has explicitly flagged all vacancy figures as provisional and subject to revision based on the bank’s actual requirement — so treat 1,500 as the working number, not a guaranteed final count. For context, last year’s (2025) PO drive had only 541 vacancies, so this year’s number is close to triple.
read more; Central Bank Apprentice Recruitment 2026
Age Limit 2026
Candidates must be not below 21 years and not above 30 years as on 1 April 2026 — meaning a birth date between 2 April 1996 and 1 April 2005, both dates inclusive. Age relaxation is available for SC/ST/OBC/PwBD/Ex-servicemen and other categories as per standing government norms, but cumulative relaxation across more than one category is not allowed. For the exact number of relaxation years applicable to each category, refer to the official notification PDF rather than third-party blogs, since these figures occasionally get copy-pasted incorrectly across sites.
Education Qualification
A graduation degree in any discipline from a recognised university is the basic requirement — there’s no restriction by stream, so a B.Com, B.Tech, or BA graduate stands on equal footing here. Final-year or final-semester students can apply provisionally, but they must produce proof of having completed graduation by the time of the interview. Candidates holding an Integrated Dual Degree (IDD) need the date of passing that IDD to fall on or before 30 September 2026. Those with professional qualifications such as Chartered Accountancy, Cost Accountancy, Medicine, or Engineering degrees are also eligible to apply.
Application Fee 2026
| Category | Fee |
|---|---|
| General / OBC / EWS | ₹750 |
| SC / ST / PwBD | Nil (no fee) |
Payment is accepted only through online modes — debit card, credit card, internet banking, or UPI — and any transaction charges are borne by the candidate. Once paid, the fee is non-refundable and cannot be adjusted against any future exam or selection process, even if you made an error in your form.
Documents Required Before Applying
Keep these scanned and ready before you start the form, because the session can time out if you’re hunting for files mid-application:
- 10th and 12th mark sheets
- Graduation certificate, or provisional certificate if final year
- Category certificate (SC/ST/OBC-NCL/EWS), where applicable
- PwBD certificate, where applicable
- Recent photograph and signature in the specified dimensions
- A valid, active email ID and mobile number — every future communication, including the admit card, goes only to these
How to Apply for SBI PO 2026
- Visit the official SBI careers portal at sbi.bank.in or sbi.co.in and open the “Current Openings” section.
- Locate “Recruitment of Probationary Officers 2026” against Advt. No. CRPD/PO/2026-27/09.
- Register using a working email ID and mobile number.
- Fill in personal, educational, and communication details.
- Upload your photograph, signature, and the required certificates, and take a live photo through your webcam or phone camera where asked.
- Pay the application fee online.
- Review every field carefully, submit, and download the confirmation page for your own records.
Applications submitted through any portal other than SBI’s own website are not valid, regardless of how official a third-party link might look.
| important links | |
| Apply Online | click here link activated |
:
SBI PO Prelims Expected Cut Off 2026: Category Wise Cutoff Marks, Previous Year Trend, Exam Analysis & Result Updates
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| notification | click here |
| Official Website | click here |
| notification 24 jobs | click here |
Selection Process 2026
The SBI PO selection runs across three stages, and understanding what each stage actually decides matters more than just knowing their names. Prelims is purely a screening round — its marks are not added anywhere in the final merit calculation. Roughly ten times the number of vacancies per category get shortlisted from Prelims into Mains. Mains marks then carry forward, combined with Phase III performance, to build the final merit list, with Mains and Phase III weighted in a 75:25 ratio. From Mains, candidates are shortlisted for Phase III at roughly three times the vacancy count per category. Phase III itself covers a psychometric test (used for profiling, not direct scoring), a Group Exercise, and a Personal Interview.
Exam Pattern 2026
Prelims — Objective test, 100 marks, 1 hour, covering English Language, Quantitative Aptitude, and Reasoning Ability. Each section is separately timed. There is no sectional cut-off here — only an overall cut-off applies, and ¼ mark is deducted for every wrong answer.
| Mains Component | Marks | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| Objective Test | 200 | 3 hours |
| Descriptive Test (English) | 30 | 30 minutes |
| Total | 230 | — |
Same negative marking rule applies in the Mains objective section: ¼ mark deducted per wrong answer, nothing deducted for unattempted questions. The descriptive paper runs immediately after the objective test on the same day, and it is evaluated only for candidates who clear the minimum qualifying marks in the objective sections. One change specific to this cycle: the descriptive paper’s weight has been cut from 50 marks to 30 marks, bringing the total Mains score down from 250 to 230. That single change is the reason last year’s Mains cut-off numbers (out of 250) cannot be lined up directly against whatever cut-off gets announced for 2026 — the scale itself is different, so a same-looking number this year reflects a tougher relative performance.
Syllabus 2026
Prelims:
- English Language — reading comprehension, cloze test, error spotting, sentence rearrangement, fillers
- Quantitative Aptitude — simplification, data interpretation, quadratic equations, number series, arithmetic problems
- Reasoning Ability — puzzles, seating arrangement, syllogism, blood relations, coding-decoding
Mains:
- Reasoning & Computer Aptitude
- Data Analysis & Interpretation
- General/Economy/Banking Awareness
- English Language (advanced level)
- Descriptive Test — letter writing and essay writing in English
Salary 2026 and Job Profile
Selected candidates join in the Junior Management Grade Scale-I (JMGS-I), starting on a basic pay of ₹48,480 per month plus four advance increments. Add Dearness Allowance, House Rent Allowance, City Compensatory Allowance, and other standard bank allowances, and the gross monthly pay can cross ₹80,000 depending on the posting location. The annual CTC for a metro posting works out to around ₹21.97 lakh, revised upward from the earlier ₹20.43 lakh. Beyond pay, the role comes with Provident Fund and NPS coverage, Leave Fare Concession, medical benefits, and lease rental support for accommodation in many circles.
As a Probationary Officer, the early posting usually involves branch banking work — handling customer accounts, loan processing, cash and clearing operations, and supervisory duties over branch staff — before moving into specialised verticals like credit, forex, or treasury as seniority builds. One detail that catches many first-timers off guard: unlike some clerical-cadre recruitments where a state or circle preference is sometimes considered, PO postings are explicitly “anywhere in India.” A candidate from Lucknow could just as easily be posted to a branch in Assam or Gujarat after training, and there’s no formal mechanism in the PO application to request a preferred circle.
Previous Year Cut Off Trend (For Reference Only)
| Year | Prelims UR | Prelims OBC | Prelims SC | Prelims ST |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 66.75 | 65.50 | 59.25 | 51.50 |
| 2023 | 59.25 | — | — | — |
The 2025 Mains cut-off (out of the then-applicable 250 marks) stood at 75 for UR and EWS, while the Final cut-off (normalised out of 100, combining Mains and Phase III) was 46.79 for UR. These numbers are useful for understanding the general direction of difficulty year to year, but as noted above, the Mains marking scheme has changed for 2026, so don’t treat last year’s raw Mains number as a direct benchmark this time.
SBI PO 2026 Cut Off — What’s Actually Known Right Now
Nothing official yet, and that’s the honest answer. The Prelims exam for 2026 hasn’t been conducted, so any “expected cut-off” figure circulating online — including ranges like 85-90 for General that some sites have started publishing — is an estimated/unofficial projection based on past trends and vacancy-to-applicant ratios, not a number SBI has released. Official cut-offs only get published alongside the result and scorecard for each stage, on SBI’s own careers portal, after candidates log in with their registration number and date of birth.
A Few Things Candidates Routinely Get Wrong
Applying close to the deadline is the most avoidable mistake every cycle — payment gateways slow down and registration pages lag in the last 24-48 hours before closing, and a failed transaction near midnight on 8 July leaves no recovery option. Apply with a few days’ buffer.
A second recurring confusion: candidates assume their Prelims score adds to their final ranking the way it sometimes does in other competitive exams. It doesn’t, for SBI PO — Prelims only decides who advances; it carries zero weight in the merit list.
Third, be careful about where you click “Apply Online.” Several coaching and job-alert websites carry “Apply Now” buttons that route through their own affiliate or tracking links rather than taking you straight to SBI’s server. The only verifiably safe path is typing sbi.bank.in or sbi.co.in directly into the browser and navigating to Careers → Current Openings yourself.
FAQs
Q1. Does the SBI PO Prelims 2026 score get added to the final selection marks?
No. Prelims is only a qualifying round used to shortlist candidates for Mains. Final merit is built from Mains and Phase III scores in a 75:25 ratio.
Q2. I’m still in my final semester of graduation — can I apply for SBI PO 2026, and what’s my actual deadline to show the degree?
Yes, you can apply provisionally. You must produce proof of having completed graduation on or before the date of your interview, and for candidates with an Integrated Dual Degree, the IDD passing date must be on or before 30 September 2026.
Q3. Is the application fee really zero for SC, ST, and PwBD candidates, or only for some of them?
Per the official notification, SC, ST, and PwBD candidates are exempt from the application fee entirely. General, OBC, and EWS candidates pay ₹750.
Q4. Why hasn’t SBI given an exact Prelims exam date in the notification itself?
SBI’s notification gives only a tentative exam-month window (currently pointing to early August 2026 for Prelims). The exact date and shift timing are announced later, along with the admit card, which is typically released closer to the exam.
Q5. Is there a sectional cut-off in SBI PO Prelims, and does that change in Mains?
No sectional cut-off applies in Prelims — only an overall cut-off decides who moves to Mains. In Mains, sectional cut-offs do apply on top of the overall cut-off, so scoring well in just one section isn’t enough to clear that stage.
Disclaimer: Notification date, vacancy count, category-wise breakup, application dates, fee structure, age limit, exam pattern, and salary figures in this article are based on the official SBI PO 2026 notification (Advt. No. CRPD/PO/2026-27/09) released by State Bank of India on 18 June 2026. Previous-year cut-off figures are from SBI’s officially released scorecards for those respective years. Any figure described as “expected,” “estimated,” or “tentative” in this article is unofficial and not confirmed by SBI. For the latest and final details, always verify directly at the official SBI careers portal: sbi.bank.in or sbi.co.in (Careers → Current Openings).
