SSC CHSL 2026 Notification: Last Date, 2,536 Vacancies, What Changed

The Staff Selection Commission published the Notice of the Combined Higher Secondary (10+2) Level Examination, 2026 on 7 September 2026. It invites applications for about 2,536 posts of Lower Division Clerk/Junior Secretariat Assistant and Data Entry Operator across central ministries, departments and offices, open to candidates aged 18 to 27 who have passed Class 12 (Science with Mathematics for DEO posts in three offices). Applications close on 7 October 2026. The exam itself has not been scheduled — SSC says the Tier-I and Tier-II dates are “to be notified later”. This guide sets out every date in the notice, what changed from CHSLE 2025, and how long a CHSL cycle has actually taken.

SSC Notice of CHSLE 2026.

The correction window lets a candidate correct and re-submit the form twice: ₹200 for the first correction and ₹500 for the second, for every category, and only if the original application and fee were received in time. An application whose fee has not reached SSC shows as “Incomplete” and is “summarily rejected”. Fee-paying candidates should check the payment status in their login before 8 October.

The sectional timer is the change a candidate will feel on the day. In CHSLE 2025, Tier-I was 100 questions in one hour, and a candidate could spend 25 minutes on Quantitative Aptitude and race through English. In 2026 each part — English, General Intelligence, Quantitative Aptitude, General Awareness — gets exactly 15 minutes, and the next part opens only when the timer runs out. Practice papers should be taken with the same four 15-minute blocks. Candidates eligible for a scribe get 20 minutes a part.

The 2026 figure is tentative. SSC says final vacancies “will be determined in due course after scrutiny”, with the post-wise and category-wise break-up to follow on its website — and it does not collect State-wise or zone-wise vacancies at all. The last cycle shows how far a number can move: CHSLE 2025 was listed at about 3,131 in August 2025 and ended at 3,522 in June 2026. In CHSLE 2024 the movement went the other way: 3,954 tentative in December 2024, 3,437 final in February 2025, and 3,421 filled after 16 MEA vacancies were withdrawn.

The pattern is clear: a CHSL cycle takes ten months or more from notice to final result, and the 2025 cycle was still open fourteen months after its notice. The 2025 Tier-I was itself notified for 8–18 September 2025 and actually held from 12 to 30 November 2025, according to SSC’s answer-key notice. A candidate applying now should plan for Tier-I several months away and a joining date well into 2027 or 2028 — and should not stop preparing because the date has not been announced.

Applications go only through the new SSC website, ssc.gov.in, or the mySSC mobile app. A candidate first completes one-time registration on the new site — the notice is explicit that registration on the old ssc.nic.in site is not valid — then fills the CHSL form, which captures a live photograph through the camera rather than an uploaded picture. SSC advises Aadhaar authentication at registration. The form asks for three exam centres in order of priority, all within one SSC region, and that choice cannot be changed later; it also asks for the language of Tier-I Parts II–IV and, for DEO aspirants, whether Class 12 was in Science with Mathematics. Fee-paying candidates must then pay by 8 October and check that the status shows the payment; an application without the fee is rejected.

With the form in, the useful thing to do before SSC announces the exam is to prepare as if Tier-I were three to four months away. The 2025 cycle’s Tier-I was held five months after its notice, and the 2024 cycle’s less than three. Keep the application printout, the registration number and the password safe: the admit card, the answer key and every result are reached through the same login.

Anyone aged 18 to 27 on 1 August 2026 — born between 2 August 1999 and 1 August 2008 — who has passed Class 12, or will have the result by 7 October 2026. SC and ST candidates get 5 extra years, OBC 3, PwBD 10 to 15. Data Entry Operator posts in three offices — the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, the Staff Selection Commission and the Ministry of Culture — need Class 12 in Science with Mathematics. Our eligibility guide covers each rule and has a checker.