AD 5 EU administrators competition 2026: dates, tests, preparation
The generalist administrators competition (AD 5) is the main gateway into the EU institutions: no field of specialisation, no professional experience required.
Applications closed
- Application deadline
- Last verified
- 1,490places on the reserve list
- more than 170,000applications submitted
- under 0.9%theoretical success rate
Places: notice EPSO/AD/427/26. Applications: EPSO news of 11 March 2026. Selectivity: the ratio of the two.
ContentsKey dates
Key dates
Applications for 2026 are closed; the testing phase is under way, in two parts since the EPSO announcement of 30 June 2026.
This page tracks the competition with its verified official parameters, from the test calendar to the pass scores for each test.
- Notice published
- Application deadline
- expected in October to November 2026Reasoning tests (part 1)
- postponed to 2027EU knowledge, digital skills, EUFTE (part 2)
Test calendar: EPSO announcement of 30 June 2026 (tests split in two parts); individual invitation letters give the exact dates.
Who can apply, and for which posts
The notice conditions come down to four points, with no professional experience required.
- Be an EU national and enjoy the full rights of an EU citizen.
- Hold a diploma attesting completed university studies of at least three years, awarded no later than 30 September 2026.
- Language 1: thorough knowledge of one official EU language, minimum level C1 in all five language skills.
- Language 2: satisfactory knowledge of another official EU language, minimum level B2 in all five language skills.
- No professional experience is required.
Conditions as published in notice EPSO/AD/427/26 and on the EPSO application page. Successful candidates are recruited at grade AD 5, the entry grade for administrators, by all the institutions.
The official test composition
Verbal reasoning
Numerical reasoning
Abstract reasoning
EU knowledge
Digital skills
EUFTE (written test)
Content based on the notice EPSO/AD/427/26.Scroll the table horizontally.
What this competition does not include
Since the competition model reform decided by the EPSO Management Board on 31 January 2023, selection for AD 5 rests entirely on the online written tests listed above.
- No more assessment centre: “The ‘Assessment Centre’ and its related oral tests cease to exist”.
- No oral test in the selection: interviews only take place after inclusion on the reserve list, at the request of the recruiting institutions.
- No situational judgement test, no e-tray, no group exercise in notice AD/427/26.
EPSO information note on the new competition model (31 January 2023) and notice EPSO/AD/427/26: only the tests listed in the notice count.
Try questions from the competition
Questions from our practice bank in the format of the tests. The digital skills test is open below; public samples for the other tests will follow with their test pages.
Answer key : A
The W3C Web App Manifest is a JSON document describing how a web app should behave once installed on a device. It declares name, short_name, icons (multi-sized), start_url, display ("standalone", "fullscreen", "minimal-ui"), theme_color, background_color and orientation. The browser uses it to render the splash screen and install icon.
A. Correct: PWA install metadata (W3C Web App Manifest).
B. Wrong: the Web App Manifest has no link to cookie consent; consent categories are managed by a separate consent management platform, not manifest.json.
C. Wrong: saved passwords and autofill are handled by the browser's built-in credential manager, not the manifest.json file.
D. Wrong: offline data sync is the role of the Background Sync API and service workers, not the manifest.json file.
Answer key : B
UTF-8 (RFC 3629) is a variable-width encoding (1 to 4 bytes) covering the entire Unicode code-point range. ASCII characters are encoded in 1 byte identical to US-ASCII: full backward compatibility. It is the encoding recommended by the W3C and required by the HTML standard. Source: RFC 3629, WHATWG HTML Living Standard.
A. UTF-8 is not a fixed 8-bit encoding; it is variable-width (1 to 4 bytes) per RFC 3629, unlike single-byte Latin-1.
B. UTF-8 (RFC 3629) is a variable-width encoding (1 to 4 bytes) covering the entire Unicode code-point range. ASCII characters are encoded in 1 byte identical to US-ASCII: full backward compatibility. It is the encoding recommended by the W3C and required by the HTML standard. Source: RFC 3629, WHATWG HTML Living Standard.
C. A character encoding does not encrypt data; UTF-8 has no cryptographic function, unlike TLS which handles HTTPS confidentiality separately.
D. UTF-8 does not compress text; it can be the same size as ASCII or larger than UTF-16 for many non-Latin scripts.
Answer key : B
Article 50 of the AI Act sets labelling and transparency obligations for AI-generated content.
A. False: Article 50 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 specifically imposes transparency duties on synthetic content and deepfakes, independent of the Annex III high-risk classification.
B. AI Act Article 50: transparency obligations for systems interacting with humans, synthetic content and deepfakes; explicit labelling is required.
C. False: Article 50 requires disclosure and labelling, not deletion of the content within any deadline.
D. False: no printing or physical-copy submission obligation exists under Article 50; the requirement is digital disclosure to the audience.
Answer key : B
A professional tone adapts to the relationship: from 'Dear Ms Smith' to 'Dear Mary' and then 'Hi Mary' as closeness grows.
A. Too informal for a first professional contact with someone unknown to the sender.
B. 'Dear Mr/Ms [Surname]' is the standard professional salutation in British English.
C. Inappropriately casual slang, unsuitable for any professional correspondence.
D. Inappropriately casual and overly familiar for someone the sender does not know.
Answer key : B
WCAG 2.2 SC 1.4.3 (Contrast (Minimum), AA) requires a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for "large" text (at least 18 pt, or 14 pt bold). SC 1.4.6 (Contrast (Enhanced), AAA) raises these thresholds to 7:1 and 4.5:1. Luminance follows the WCAG formula on sRGB components.
A. 3:1 is the AA threshold for large text, not normal text.
B. Correct: 4.5:1 (normal text AA, WCAG 2.2 §1.4.3).
C. 7:1 is the AAA threshold (1.4.6), not AA.
D. 21:1 is the theoretical maximum (black on white), not a normative threshold.
Answer key : C
Under NIST SP 800-145, in SaaS the consumer uses the provider's applications running on a cloud infrastructure, without managing the underlying infrastructure or platform. Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace are canonical examples. IaaS provides virtual machines, network and storage; PaaS provides an application runtime (Heroku, App Engine).
A. IaaS delivers raw resources (virtual machines, storage); the customer manages the operating system and middleware, which is not the case here.
B. PaaS provides an application runtime on which the customer deploys code; this is still too low-level.
C. Under NIST SP 800-145, in SaaS the consumer uses the provider's applications running on a cloud infrastructure, without managing the underlying infrastructure or platform. Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace are canonical examples. IaaS provides virtual machines, network and storage; PaaS provides an application runtime (Heroku, App Engine).
D. On-premises means hosting at the customer's own site, the opposite of a provider's cloud.
Questions written by Erudiam from official EU sources; EPSO does not publish past papers.
How Erudiam prepares you
Parameters aligned with the notice: every mock exam uses the official durations, pass scores and weightings, including the combined pass scores.
Spaced repetition (FSRS) focuses your revision on what you get wrong, test by test, in step with the actual test timetable.
The readiness index (ERI) tells you whether you are ready for part 1, then for part 2, rather than giving you a meaningless overall average.
Frequently asked questions about the AD 5 competition
No. Applications closed on 10 March 2026 at midday, Brussels time. The next AD 5 cycle has not yet been announced in the EPSO schedule.
In two parts since the EPSO announcement of 30 June 2026: the reasoning tests are expected in October to November 2026, then EU knowledge, digital skills and the EUFTE in 2027. Individual invitation letters give the exact dates.
1,490 places on the reserve list, for more than 170,000 applications submitted: a theoretical success rate under 0.9%.
No. The notice requires EU citizenship, a diploma attesting at least three years of university studies and two official EU languages (minimum C1 and B2); no professional experience is required.
No. Since the reform of 31 January 2023, the assessment centre and oral tests have been removed from the selection; interviews only take place at the recruitment stage, after the reserve list.
The reasoning tests (verbal, numerical, abstract) act as a filter; the final ranking combines verbal reasoning, EU knowledge, digital skills and the EUFTE according to the official weightings shown in the table on this page.
Official reference and sources
Content based on the notice EPSO/AD/427/26 (C/2026/711). Official parameters last verified: 3 August 2026. Page last modified: 3 August 2026.
Prepare for every test, not just the reasoning tests
Training covers all six tests of the competition, with spaced repetition and per-test tracking.