UPSC IES/ISS (Economic / Statistical Service) Syllabus 2026

The complete UPSC IES/ISS (Economic / Statistical Service) syllabus for 2026 — 5 sections and 47 topics in all, organised exactly as the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) prescribes. Use it as your revision checklist, then test yourself with a free UPSC IES/ISS (Economic / Statistical Service) mock below.

General English (Paper I — common to IES and ISS)7 topics

Essay writing on a contemporary national/international topic (typically 1000 words; one essay from a choice of 3-4 topics)
Précis writing — condensing a 600-800 word passage to one-third its length while preserving meaning and tone
Comprehension passage with analytical and inferential questions
Paraphrasing of a literary or argumentative passage
Error correction, sentence restructuring, idiom and phrase usage, vocabulary in context
Letter writing / report writing in formal register (occasionally appears)
Reading speed and prose discipline — the paper rewards economy of expression, not flamboyance

General Studies (Paper II — common to IES and ISS)7 topics

Indian Polity — Constitution of India, Fundamental Rights and Duties, Directive Principles, key amendments (42nd, 44th, 73rd, 74th, 101st, 103rd), Centre-State relations, Constitutional bodies (ECI, CAG, Finance Commission, UPSC, NHRC)
Modern Indian History — 1857 revolt, Indian National Congress, Moderates and Extremists, Gandhian phase (Non-Cooperation, Civil Disobedience, Quit India), Partition, post-Independence integration of princely states
Current National Affairs — Union Budget, Economic Survey themes, major policy launches (Digital India, Make in India, PLI, PM Gati Shakti), election results, Supreme Court judgments of constitutional significance
Current International Affairs — G20, BRICS+, QUAD, India-US/India-EU/India-Russia relations, WTO disputes, IMF/World Bank policy positions, India's stance at COP/UNFCCC
Economic and Social Development — poverty (Tendulkar, Rangarajan committee benchmarks), unemployment (PLFS measurement), human development (HDI components, NFHS-5 indicators), gender, education and health policy
Science and Technology in current context — ISRO missions (Chandrayaan-3, Gaganyaan, Aditya-L1), India's AI Mission, semiconductor policy, biotechnology, defence indigenisation, cybersecurity
Geography of India and the World — physical features, climate zones, rivers and dams, agriculture cropping patterns, mineral and energy resources, demographic distribution, world physical and political geography basics

Indian Economics (IES Paper VI — IES-specific)14 topics

Indian fiscal system — Union Budget architecture, fiscal deficit / revenue deficit / primary deficit definitions, FRBM Act 2003 (and 2018 amendment), GST structure (CGST/SGST/IGST, GST Council, compensation cess), 15th and 16th Finance Commission recommendations, tax-to-GDP ratio trends
Monetary management — RBI Act, Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) composition and inflation-targeting framework (4% +/- 2%), repo/reverse repo/SDF/MSF corridor, OMOs, CRR, SLR, monetary transmission
Banking sector — public vs private vs foreign vs small-finance vs payments banks, NPA recognition (IRAC norms), PCA framework, bank recapitalisation history (Indradhanush, 4R), IBC 2016 architecture, NARCL/IDRCL bad bank
Capital markets — SEBI regulatory architecture, primary and secondary markets, derivatives, FPI flows, mutual fund industry, IPO regulations, corporate bond market deepening
Planning history and NITI Aayog — Five Year Plans (1st to 12th), Planning Commission to NITI Aayog transition (2015), Aspirational Districts Programme, SDG India Index
External sector — Balance of Payments (current vs capital account), forex reserves composition, exchange rate regime (managed float), FEMA 1999, CAD financing, India's FTA strategy (UAE CEPA, Australia ECTA)
Agriculture and farm sector — MSP regime, APMC and e-NAM reforms, contract farming, Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, PM-KISAN, rural credit (KCC), agricultural marketing constraints
Industrial policy — IDR Act framework, MSME definition (revised 2020), PLI schemes (14 sectors), industrial corridors (DMIC, CBIC), startup ecosystem, Make in India Phase 2
Public sector and disinvestment — strategic vs non-strategic sector classification (New PSE Policy 2021), LIC IPO, Air India divestment, BPCL, monetisation pipeline (NMP)
Infrastructure and PPP — Hybrid Annuity Model, Bharatmala, Sagarmala, UDAN, National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP), InvITs and REITs
Social sector schemes — MGNREGA (employment guarantee), NHM/NRHM, AB-PMJAY (insurance coverage), Jal Jeevan Mission, SBM, PMAY-U/G, ICDS, Mid-Day Meal (PM POSHAN)
Poverty, inequality and unemployment measurement — Tendulkar vs Rangarajan poverty lines, MPI (UNDP/NITI Aayog), Gini coefficient, PLFS quarterly and annual reports, Periodic Labour Force Survey methodology
Demography and Census — Census 2011 baseline (delayed Census 2021), Sample Registration System, NFHS-5 (2019-21) headline indicators (TFR, IMR, sex ratio, anaemia), demographic dividend window
Regional disparities and federalism — special category status debate, North-East development, NITI Forum for North-East, devolution under Finance Commission

General Economics — Theory (IES Papers III, IV, V — IES-specific)9 topics

Microeconomics — Consumer theory (utility, indifference curves, Slutsky decomposition), production and cost (Cobb-Douglas, CES, returns to scale), market structures (perfect competition, monopoly, monopolistic competition, oligopoly — Cournot/Bertrand/Stackelberg), general equilibrium (Walrasian, Arrow-Debreu), welfare economics (Pareto efficiency, Edgeworth box, Social Welfare Function, Arrow's Impossibility Theorem)
Game theory and information economics — Nash equilibrium, dominant strategies, repeated games, adverse selection (Akerlof's lemons), moral hazard, principal-agent, signalling (Spence) and screening
Macroeconomics — Classical vs Keynesian framework, IS-LM model, AS-AD synthesis, Phillips curve (short-run vs long-run, expectations-augmented), rational expectations (Lucas critique), Real Business Cycle, New Keynesian sticky-price models
Growth theory — Harrod-Domar, Solow-Swan neoclassical growth (steady state, convergence), endogenous growth (Romer's R&D model, Lucas human capital, AK model), growth accounting and TFP
Money and Banking — money supply determinants, money multiplier, demand for money (Quantity Theory, Keynesian liquidity preference, Baumol-Tobin, Friedman), central banking theory, monetary transmission channels
Public Finance — Musgrave's three-branch framework (allocation, distribution, stabilisation), public goods (Samuelson condition), externalities (Pigouvian taxes, Coase theorem), optimal taxation (Ramsey rule, Mirrlees), fiscal federalism (Oates' decentralisation theorem)
International Economics — comparative advantage (Ricardian, Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson), Stolper-Samuelson theorem, Rybczynski theorem, factor-price equalisation, Krugman's new trade theory (increasing returns, monopolistic competition), Mundell-Fleming open-economy IS-LM, exchange rate determination (PPP, UIP, asset market approach)
Development Economics — Lewis dual-sector model, Rosenstein-Rodan big push, Nurkse balanced growth, Hirschman unbalanced growth, structuralism (Prebisch-Singer), Amartya Sen's capability approach, HDI and MPI construction, dependency theory, microfinance impact evidence
Statistics and Econometrics basics for economists — descriptive statistics, sampling, hypothesis testing, classical linear regression (OLS, BLUE under Gauss-Markov), violations (heteroscedasticity — White test, multicollinearity — VIF, autocorrelation — Durbin-Watson), simultaneous equations (2SLS), time series basics (stationarity, ADF unit root, ARIMA)

Statistics (ISS Papers III-VI — ISS-specific)10 topics

Probability theory — axiomatic foundations (Kolmogorov), conditional probability, Bayes theorem, random variables (discrete + continuous), expectation, variance, covariance, moment generating functions, characteristic functions, modes of convergence (in probability, in distribution, almost sure), CLT and Weak/Strong Law of Large Numbers
Distribution theory — Bernoulli, Binomial, Poisson, Geometric, Negative Binomial, Hypergeometric, Uniform, Normal, Exponential, Gamma, Beta, Chi-square, Student's t, Snedecor's F, log-normal, bivariate and multivariate normal, order statistics, sampling distributions
Statistical Inference — point estimation (unbiasedness, consistency, efficiency, sufficiency — Fisher-Neyman factorisation, completeness, Rao-Blackwell, Lehmann-Scheffé), Method of Moments, Maximum Likelihood Estimation (properties, asymptotic normality, Cramer-Rao lower bound), interval estimation (pivotal quantity, confidence intervals)
Hypothesis testing — Neyman-Pearson lemma (Most Powerful test), Uniformly Most Powerful tests, Likelihood Ratio Test, parametric tests (z, t, chi-square, F), non-parametric tests (sign test, Wilcoxon, Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis, Kolmogorov-Smirnov)
Linear Models — Simple and multiple linear regression (OLS estimation, Gauss-Markov, BLUE property), model diagnostics, ANOVA (one-way, two-way with and without interaction), ANCOVA, MANOVA basics, fixed vs random vs mixed effects models
Sampling Theory — SRSWR vs SRSWOR, stratified random sampling (proportional and Neyman allocation), systematic sampling, cluster sampling (single and multi-stage), two-stage and two-phase sampling, ratio and regression estimators, PPS sampling, non-sampling errors
Design of Experiments — basic principles (randomisation, replication, local control), Completely Randomised Design (CRD), Randomised Block Design (RBD), Latin Square Design (LSD), factorial experiments (2^k design), confounding and fractional factorials, response surface methodology basics
Time Series Analysis — components (trend, seasonal, cyclical, irregular), classical decomposition, moving averages, exponential smoothing (single, Holt, Holt-Winters), stationarity, autocorrelation function (ACF) and partial autocorrelation function (PACF), Box-Jenkins ARIMA modelling, seasonal ARIMA (SARIMA)
Multivariate Analysis — multivariate normal distribution, Wishart distribution, Hotelling's T-squared, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Factor Analysis (exploratory + confirmatory), Discriminant Analysis (Fisher's LDA), Cluster Analysis (hierarchical, k-means), Canonical Correlation
Indian Official Statistics — Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) organisational structure, National Statistical Office (NSO) consolidating CSO + NSSO (since 2019), National Sample Survey rounds (NSS 75 — household consumption, NSS 77 — debt and investment, NSS 78 — multiple indicator survey), Annual Survey of Industries (ASI), Index of Industrial Production (IIP — 2011-12 base), CPI/WPI methodology, GDP rebasing series (current 2011-12 base, new base year exercise underway), Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) quarterly + annual, HCES (Household Consumption Expenditure Survey) 2022-23 release, Census of India, Economic Census, Sample Registration System (SRS), Civil Registration System (CRS)

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