PSC Mastery

Kerala PSC age limits and relaxation

Kerala PSC reckons a candidate’s age as on the 1st day of January of the year in which the notification was published — not your application date and not the exam date. The Commission’s General Conditions grant 3 years’ relaxation to OBC candidates and 5 years to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, with 10 or 15 years for candidates with disabilities, and state that the upper age limit shall under no circumstances exceed 50 years.

Steps

  1. Start from the reckoning date, not today

    The Commission states: "The day of reckoning age of an applicant for a selection is the 1st day of January of the year in which the Commission published the Notification for that particular Selection." Turning the cut-off age later in the year does not change the answer.

  2. Read the birth-date window printed on the notification

    Kerala PSC prints an explicit "only candidates born between" window in each notification, with both dates included. That printed window is the governing statement for that post — it already accounts for the post’s own age band.

  3. Apply the relaxation for your category

    Per the General Conditions: 3 years for Other Backward Communities, 5 years for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, 10 years for orthopaedically handicapped candidates, and 15 years for blind, deaf or mute candidates. Ex-servicemen and certain provisional-service candidates have their own separately-stated formulas.

  4. Remember the 50-year ceiling

    The General Conditions state that under no circumstances shall the upper age limit exceed 50 years. Relaxation stops there regardless of category.

  5. Uniformed and specialist posts run their own bands

    Police, Excise and Fire posts and other special-rules posts commonly use a much narrower band than the general one. Do not carry a general figure across — check that notification. Our age calculator checks a date of birth against the windows printed on the notifications we index.

  6. A community certificate is not, by itself, eligibility

    A certificate unlocks the relaxation; the adjusted birth-date window still decides. Minimum age is never relaxed for any category.

Frequently asked questions

On what date is my age calculated for Kerala PSC?#

On 1 January of the year in which the Commission published that notification, per the Commission’s Doubts and Facts page.

How many years of age relaxation do OBC and SC/ST candidates get?#

Three years for Other Backward Communities and five years for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, per the Commission’s General Conditions — subject to the 50-year absolute ceiling.

Is there a maximum age no relaxation can cross?#

Yes. The General Conditions state the upper age limit shall under no circumstances exceed 50 years.

Do Kerala High Court posts follow these rules?#

No. The High Court of Kerala recruits directly through its own portal, with its own age windows and its own reckoning convention. Kerala PSC rules do not carry across.

Official sources

Steps last verified against official Kerala PSC sources on 25 August 2026.

Where the Commission has not published a rule, this guide says so rather than guessing. Anything marked “not officially published” is exactly that.

This is an independent guide for aspirants, written from the Commission’s own published instructions. Portal screens and rules change — always confirm on keralapsc.gov.in and in your own Thulasi profile before acting. PSC Mastery is not affiliated with the Kerala Public Service Commission.