EPSO competitions in 2026: which are open and what each asks

The AD8 figure is the two fields together: 240 places in artificial intelligence and 254 in cybersecurity. You may only apply to one field.

Two of them.

• EPSO/AD/430/26, until 13 October 2026 at 12:00 Brussels time. It is a specialist competition at AD8: you need a degree and professional experience in the field, and what decides your place is the field test, not the reasoning tests. Supporting documents go in by 14 January 2027.
• CAST Permanent, which has no deadline at all. You register your interest, and the recruiting services search that database; if one of them shortlists you, EPSO invites you to the reasoning tests. A pass is valid for ten years.

Everything else in the table has closed. A closed competition is not a wasted year: EPSO publishes a graduate competition most years, and the format barely changes from one to the next.

They run on their own calendar, and it is long:

1. Tests. Candidates sit them remotely, with proctoring, on TAO.
2. Documents. In AD5 the supporting documents were due by 7 October 2026 at 12:00; in AD7 and AD8 the dates are in each notice.
3. Scoring in order. Each test is marked only for those who passed the previous one, and only the best-ranked candidates have their essay marked and their eligibility checked.
4. Results and reserve list. Results come at the end of the procedure, whatever stage you reached, and the list is published with names, in alphabetical order.

See how EPSO scores its tests and the pass marks of every test.

The reasoning tests are the same in every EPSO competition: 20 verbal questions in 35 minutes, 10 numerical in 20 and 10 abstract in 10.

Four things, and they change how you prepare:

• The platform. Since January 2026 the tests run on TAO, with a different screen and different tools from the ones in old practice material.
• No assessment centre in AD5. The competition is decided on the tests and the essay, and that puts the weight on formats you can practise.
• Digital skills. A 40-question test based on DigComp 2.2 that did not exist in earlier graduate competitions.
• Eligibility checked at the end. The board checks documents only for the best-ranked candidates, so anyone can sit the tests and be filtered afterwards.

Every EPSO competition is published as a notice of competition in the C series of the Official Journal of the European Union, with its own reference (EPSO/AD/430/26, for instance) and an ELI link at the foot of each page. Anything that is not in that document — a date, a number of places, a pass mark — is not binding, wherever you read it.

The Commission's internal competitions are the exception: they are published on its intranet and are open to its own staff only. See the guide to the internal competitions.