What is the APPSC EO Grade 3 exam in 2026, and who can sit it?

APPSC EO Grade 3 notification 2026: what is out

APPSC issued brief notification 23/2026 on 15 September 2026 for Executive Officer Grade-III in the Endowments department, with 104 provisional vacancies and a pay scale of ₹25,220 to ₹80,910. Online applications open on 16 October and close on 5 November 2026. A brief notification gives the headline facts. The detailed one, with age, community and the break-up of posts, is due on or before 16 October.

EO Grade 3 dates for 2026, as of 23 September. The marked row is the next thing due.

The 104 are provisional. The notification says the number can change once the Endowments department confirms it. The same web note of 15 September announced 20 brief notifications with 892 vacancies between them, and this is one of them.

Two things differ from the last EO notification, 10/2025 of 12 August 2025. That one had 7 posts, all carried forward from earlier years, and its exam was written on paper with OMR answer sheets. The 2026 exam is online, in what the commission calls CBRT mode: you answer on a computer. The notification also says there will be no screening test, however many people apply. If the exam runs in more than one session, the commission may adjust marks between sessions so they compare fairly, and it will publish how.

So the rules of 10/2025 are a guide, not the rulebook for 2026. Where this page quotes 10/2025, read it as what the commission asked last time.

Who can apply for EO Grade 3

To apply for APPSC EO Grade 3 in 2026 you need a bachelor's degree, and the Endowments Act keeps the post for people who profess the Hindu religion. The list below marks each rule by how sure it is: printed for 2026, carried from notification 10/2025, or not printed yet.

The religion condition, in the notification's words. Para 1.1 of notification 10/2025: "Candidates who profess Hindu Religion only are eligible to apply to the Executive Officer, Grade-III." Para 1.8 gives the reason: "As per section 29(3) of Amendment Act No.33 of 2007 of the Andhra Pradesh Charitable and Hindu Religious Institutions and Endowments Act, 1987 (Act No.30 of 1987), the Executive Officer appointed and exercising the powers and discharging the duties shall be a person professing Hindu Religion and shall cease to exercise those powers and discharge those duties when he ceases to profess that religion." Its annexure adds: "the candidates belonging to BC-C and BC-E are not entitled for appointment as Executive Officer."

The 2026 brief notification does not repeat these lines. The condition comes from the Act itself, so look for it in the detailed notification and read it there before you pay the fee.

Degree. Brief notification 23/2026 calls the date of the detailed notification the crucial date "in all aspects". Your degree has to be in hand on that date.

The upper limit for 2026. G.O.Ms.No.187 of 14 September 2026 raised the upper age from 42 to 44 for posts in all non-uniform services notified through APPSC, up to 30 September 2027, with the category relaxations on top. The uniformed posts it leaves out are in police, excise, fire, prisons, forest and transport. EO Grade 3 is not one of them. The brief notification prints no age, so treat 44 as the order's rule and confirm the EO line in the detailed notification. The APPSC age limit page explains the order.

Other age relaxations in 10/2025. Ten years for SC and ST carried-forward vacancies, three years on top of the length of service for ex-servicemen and NCC instructors, and up to five years for Andhra Pradesh state government employees.

EO Grade 3 exam pattern and marks

The APPSC EO Grade 3 exam in 2026 is one written exam of two objective papers at degree standard. Paper I, General Studies and Mental Ability, and Paper II, Hindu Philosophy and Temple System, each have 150 questions in 150 minutes for 150 marks, 300 in all. A wrong answer costs one third of the marks for that question. A 100-mark computer test follows, which you only need to pass.

Negative marks. Each question carries one mark, and each wrong answer loses one third of a mark, under G.O.Ms.No.235 Finance of 6 December 2016. Three wrong answers cancel one right one. A question you leave blank costs nothing.

The computer test. The Computer Proficiency Test is a practical test of 100 marks in 60 minutes on office software, under G.O.Ms.No.26 GA (Ser.B) of 24 February 2023. You only need to pass it: 40 marks for OC, 35 for BC and 30 for SC, ST and persons with benchmark disabilities. Notification 10/2025 said candidates would be shortlisted for this test on written-exam merit, and that no one who failed it could be appointed.

• Minimum in the written exam, 10/2025. 40 percent for OC, ex-servicemen and EWS, 35 percent for BC, 30 percent for SC, ST and persons with benchmark disabilities.
• No screening test in 2026. The 24/2021 cycle had a screening test and then a Mains. Notification 23/2026 says the exam is a single level only.

EO Grade 3 syllabus for Paper I and Paper II

The APPSC EO Grade 3 syllabus has 10 headings in Paper I and 12 in Paper II, printed in the annexure of brief notification 23/2026. Notification 10/2025 had the same headings. Paper I is general studies with a focus on Andhra Pradesh, plus reasoning and data. Paper II covers the epics and Puranas, temple traditions, Vedic culture, the teachers of Hindu schools of thought, family law and three parts of the Endowments Act of 1987.

The headings above are shortened. For the exact wording, read the annexure yourself: it is in notification 10/2025 (PDF), and brief notification 23/2026 on psc.ap.gov.in prints the same headings. The ROR Act is the law on the record of rights in land and pattadar passbooks.

The last three headings of Paper II are the law of the job itself: temple money, the officer's duties and temple land. This is where the syllabus meets the work you would do.

EO Grade 3 salary

APPSC brief notification 23/2026 gives the EO Grade 3 pay scale as ₹25,220 to ₹80,910, so a new officer starts on a basic pay of ₹25,220 a month. With dearness allowance at 37.31 percent and house rent allowance, our estimate of the gross at entry is about ₹38,665 in a district headquarters city and about ₹37,152 at the lowest rent rate, before deductions.

How the estimate is made. Basic pay is the first step of the scale in the notification. Dearness allowance is 37.31 percent from 1 January 2024, paid from the October 2025 salary. House rent is 16 percent in the 13 district headquarters cities and 10 percent in the lowest slab, from a reproduced copy of the 2022 order. Where the temple is decides the rent rate. The figures leave out the city allowance, any special pay, pension contributions and tax.

What an Executive Officer Grade 3 does

An APPSC EO Grade 3 is an Executive Officer in the A.P. Endowments Subordinate Service, for the Hindu religious and charitable institutions covered by the Andhra Pradesh Charitable and Hindu Religious Institutions and Endowments Act, 1987 (Act 30 of 1987). The official documents describe the job through that Act. Section 29 of the Act sets out the officer's duties, and the notification of 2025 quotes Section 29(3) on the officer's religion.

The exam's own syllabus shows what the job touches. Paper II asks about the income of temples and how their funds are used (Section 57), the duties of Executive Officers (Section 29) and the law on endowment lands (Sections 75 to 86, with the land records law). That is money, duties and land, each tied to a section of the Act.

We have not summarised Section 29 here, because a summary of a law can drop the part that matters. Read the section in the Act itself, the Endowments Act 30 of 1987 on India Code (PDF). Later amendments to the Act exist, so check the current text before you rely on a clause.

EO Grade 3 previous papers and past exams

APPSC held EO Grade 3 exams under notification 24/2021, a screening test on 24 July 2022 and then a Mains, and under notification 10/2025, whose written exam booklets carry the date code of 11 February 2026. The commission's final keys sit on its keys page. The last EO cut-off it published is 94.45 out of 150 for the general category, from the 2022 screening test.

The question papers and final keys are on the commission's keys to papers page and its question papers page. Our EO documents page keeps the 10/2025 and 24/2021 notifications and the 2022 cut-off notice as the commission published them.

Use the 2026 papers of notification 10/2025 first. They follow the same two papers and the same syllabus headings as 23/2026, so start your practice with them.

Before applications open on 16 October

Before APPSC opens EO Grade 3 applications on 16 October 2026, check the two conditions you already know: a bachelor's degree held on the date of the detailed notification, and the religion condition of the Endowments Act. Then read the last notification, 10/2025, in full, so the new one is easy to compare when it appears.

Save a copy of the detailed notification when it comes out and read it from start to end. A summary, this page included, sits one step away from the document, and the document is what the commission holds you to. Next, open the EO documents page and read the 10/2025 notification beside this page.

Print the free EO Grade 3 tracker (PDF) (తెలుగు). It lists every unit of both papers with boxes for the date studied and each revision, a monthly current-affairs grid, a mock log and your application checklist.

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