Most pages about SBI PO cut-offs print a table of marks. This one does not, and the reason is simple: State Bank of India has not published category-wise cut-off marks for the Probationary Officer examination in any public document that we could open. Our rule is to reproduce a figure only when we have read it in an official document, and never to estimate one. So this page tells you what SBI does publish, what the rules of shortlisting are, and what the numbers in SBI's own result lists add up to.
The cycle used is advertisement CRPD/PO/2026-27/09 of 18 June 2026, the newest notified cycle as of 13 November 2026.
What SBI publishes after each stage
For the 2026 cycle, the SBI careers page carries these items:
| Stage | What is public | What it contains |
|---|---|---|
| Preliminary Examination | Result PDF dated 28 August 2026 | Roll numbers shortlisted for the Main Examination. No marks, no categories. |
| Preliminary Examination | "Marks secured by the candidates" page | A form asking for roll or registration number, date of birth and a CAPTCHA. Each candidate sees only their own marks. |
| Main Examination | Result PDF dated 14 October 2026 | Roll numbers shortlisted for Phase III (psychometric test). No marks, no categories. |
| Final result | Not yet declared for 2026 | For 2025 it was a one-page list of roll numbers dated 18 December 2025. |
We opened each of the PDFs and the marks page. None of them shows a cut-off table. Whatever the marks page shows after login is visible only to the candidate concerned, and we have not used second-hand screenshots or figures from other websites.
The rules that produce the cut-off
A cut-off in SBI PO is not a number fixed in advance. It is whatever the last shortlisted candidate in each category scored. The 2026 advertisement fixes how many are shortlisted:
After Prelims
- A category-wise merit list is drawn on aggregate marks out of 100.
- There is no sectional cut-off.
- About 10 times the number of vacancies in each category are shortlisted for the Main Examination.
After Mains
- A candidate must get a minimum qualifying score in each test (Tests I to IV and the descriptive paper, individually). The Bank decides these depending on the vacancies.
- A candidate must also get the minimum aggregate qualifying score, decided by the Bank.
- From the category-wise merit list on Mains aggregate marks, up to about 3 times the category-wise vacancies are shortlisted for Phase III.
Final selection
- Candidates must qualify in Phase II and Phase III separately. The minimum qualifying marks for the group exercise and interview are decided by the Bank.
- Main Examination marks (230) are normalised to 75 and group exercise plus interview marks (50) to 25. The provisional selection list is taken from the top of the merit list in each category.
- If candidates have the same marks at the cut-off point of the final merit list, they are ranked by age in descending order.
So the Prelims cut-off depends on only two things: how the candidates in your category scored on that paper, and how many seats your category has.
Vacancies, 2026 and 2025
| Category | 2026 regular | 2026 backlog | 2026 total | 2025 total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UR | 588 | 0 | 588 | 203 |
| OBC | 390 | 0 | 390 | 135 |
| EWS | 144 | 0 | 144 | 50 |
| SC | 216 | 18 | 234 | 80 |
| ST | 108 | 36 | 144 | 73 |
| Total | 1,446 | 54 | 1,500 | 541 |
Within the 2026 total, the horizontal PwBD vacancies are VI 15, HI 16, LD 14 and the "d and e" group 16. The advertisement says the vacancies are provisional and may vary with the Bank's actual requirement.
The 2026 total is about 2.8 times the 2025 total (arithmetic). More seats mean more candidates shortlisted at each stage. It does not follow that the cut-off marks fall by any particular amount, because that also depends on the paper and on who sits it.
How many get through each stage (arithmetic)
Applying the advertisement's multiples to the 2026 vacancies:
| Category | Vacancies | About 10 times, for Mains | Up to about 3 times, for Phase III |
|---|---|---|---|
| UR | 588 | 5,880 | 1,764 |
| OBC | 390 | 3,900 | 1,170 |
| EWS | 144 | 1,440 | 432 |
| SC | 234 | 2,340 | 702 |
| ST | 144 | 1,440 | 432 |
| Total | 1,500 | 15,000 | 4,500 |
These are our multiplications, not SBI's figures. What SBI's own lists contain, by our count of the roll numbers in each PDF:
- Prelims result, 28 August 2026: 15,802 roll numbers shortlisted for the Main Examination. That is about 10.5 times the 1,500 vacancies.
- Mains result, 14 October 2026: 4,367 roll numbers shortlisted for Phase III. That is about 2.9 times the vacancies, and about 28% of those shortlisted for Mains.
- Final result of the 2025 cycle, 18 December 2025: 541 roll numbers, equal to the 541 vacancies advertised that year.
The lists do not say which category a roll number belongs to, so we cannot give a category-wise count. The Prelims list being a little above ten times is consistent with the word "approximately" in the rule; the lists themselves do not explain the difference.
One way to read these counts: if all 1,500 vacancies are filled from the 4,367 called for Phase III, roughly one in three of them is selected. The larger cut is at Mains, where fewer than three in ten of the shortlisted candidates went forward.
Conditions attached to a shortlist
Being on a result list is provisional. Both 2026 result PDFs end with the same note: the result is subject to the candidate fulfilling the eligibility conditions of the advertisement and to the correctness of the information given at registration. The advertisement adds some rules that decide which category's merit list you are competing in:
- Category cannot be changed at any stage after the online application is registered.
- OBC candidates in the creamy layer are not entitled to OBC reservation and must apply as UR. The OBC (non-creamy layer) certificate must be one issued on or after 1 April 2026 and must be in hand by the date of interview.
- EWS candidates need the Income and Asset Certificate for the financial year 2025-26, valid for 2026-27, at document verification.
- PwBD reservation is horizontal, at 4%, and applies only to benchmark disabilities of 40% or more.
SBI verifies eligibility against original documents only after a candidate is shortlisted for interview, so a place on the Prelims or Mains list is not a confirmation of candidature.
Where the 2026 cycle stands
| Event | Date |
|---|---|
| Preliminary Examination | 1 and 2 August 2026 |
| Prelims result | 28 August 2026 |
| Main Examination | 12 September 2026 |
| Mains result | 14 October 2026 |
| Psychometric test (online, remote proctored) | 31 October 2026 |
| Group exercise and interviews (tentative) | from 18 November 2026 |
| Final result (tentative, per advertisement) | November or December 2026 |
As of 13 November 2026 the final result of this cycle has not been declared.
How to use this page without a cut-off number
- If you sat the exam, read your own scorecard. SBI's marks page is the only official place where your marks appear. Use it, and treat it as the record of your attempt.
- Do not plan around someone else's remembered cut-off. A figure that is not in an SBI document cannot be checked. We would sooner leave the cell empty.
- Aim at rank, not at a mark. The rule shortlists a fixed multiple of the vacancies. What matters is whether you are inside the top slice of your category on that day's paper. On Pareeksha every candidate in a cohort sits the same fixed paper, so the percentile you see is a like-for-like comparison. See how fixed-paper percentile works.
- There is no sectional cut-off in Prelims, but there is in Mains. In Prelims you can let a strong test carry a weaker one. In Mains each of the four tests and the descriptive paper has its own minimum, so no test can be dropped.
- Remember what Prelims is for. It only shortlists. Selection is decided by Mains and Phase III. See the exam pattern for the weights.
- Use the attempts rule sensibly. Only appearing in the Main Examination counts as a chance, so a Prelims attempt does not use one up.
What this page does not have
- Any SBI PO cut-off marks, for Prelims, Mains or the final list, for 2026 or any earlier year. SBI has not published them in a public document that we could open, and we do not estimate them.
- Sectional and aggregate qualifying scores for Mains, and qualifying marks for the group exercise and interview. They are decided by the Bank and were not in any document we read.
- Category-wise numbers of shortlisted candidates. SBI's result lists carry roll numbers only.
- The number of candidates who applied or appeared. We found no SBI figure for it.
- The final result of the 2026 cycle. It has not been declared as of 13 November 2026.
- "Expected" or "safe" scores. We do not publish them.
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