SBI Clerk Eligibility 2026-27: Age 20–28, Graduation and Relaxations

SBI’s Junior Associate eligibility rules are simpler than most bank exams in one respect — there is no limit on attempts — and stricter in others: age is counted on 1 April, graduation must be complete by 31 December, and a candidate applies for only one State/UT. This guide sets out the 2026-27 rules from SBI’s advertisements, including two relaxations few pages mention (for widowed or divorced women and for trained SBI apprentices), with a checker.

SBI advertisement CRPD/CR/2026-27/17.

One line of the advertisement does not add up. For widowed, divorced and judicially separated women SBI gives 7 years “subject to maximum age limit of 35 years for General/EWS, 38 years for OBC & 40 years for SC/ST”. A maximum of 38 or 40 is only reachable by adding the woman’s OBC (3) or SC/ST (5) relaxation to the 7 — yet the same page says “cumulative age relaxation will not be available either under the above items or in combination with any other items”. Read one way, an OBC woman in this group may be born as early as 02.04.1988; read the other way, 02.04.1991. We print both, as the checker above does; SBI has not clarified.

Ex-servicemen have the largest reservation after the vertical categories: 10% for ex-servicemen plus 4.5% for disabled ex-servicemen and dependants of servicemen killed in action — 14.5% in all. It is horizontal, so it sits inside the SC, ST, OBC, EWS and General counts. First priority goes to disabled ex-servicemen, second to dependants of defence personnel killed in action or severely disabled (over 50% disability attributable to service). The 2026-27 regular advertisement prints 760 ex-servicemen and 333 disabled ex-servicemen/dependant seats, plus backlog columns of 964 and 480.

A graduate degree in any discipline, or an equivalent recognised by the Central Government, is required. Final-year or final-semester students may apply provisionally but must show that they passed on or before 31 December 2026 (the date on the mark sheet or provisional certificate, or a certified date of web publication). Integrated dual-degree holders must have passed by the same date. Ex-servicemen who are matriculates with the Army Special Certificate of Education (or Navy/Air Force equivalent) after 15 years’ service are also eligible.

SBI’s advertisement is blunt: it “would admit to the test all the candidates applying for the post with the requisite fee” and “shall determine their eligibility only at the time of joining”. A call letter, a Main score or even a name in the final result does not prove eligibility. The documents below are what is checked, and several have date rules of their own.

The 2024-25 and 2025-26 advertisements made ineligible anyone who had “defaulted in repayment under any lending arrangement with Banks or NBFCs including credit card dues” and not regularised it by the offer letter; a candidate whose repayment was not yet reflected had to update the CIBIL record or produce lenders’ no-objection certificates by joining, or lose the offer. The 2026-27 advertisement has no such clause — we searched the full text. SBI has not published a reason, and the Bank retains its general right to verify candidates before joining.

Trained SBI apprentices get more than an age relaxation: 2.5% of the maximum Main marks — 5 of 200 — is added to their Main aggregate. In 2026-27 the apprentice must have been engaged on or after 1 January 2022, completed a year of branch experience by the last registration date and hold the NSDC/BFSI-SSC certificate. On a Main where the merit list is decided by a few marks, 5 marks is a meaningful head start.