How TCS hires, and how to get in: 2026

TCS publishes the rupee CTC for its Prime and Digital fresher bands, and the floor for Ninja, on its own careers page, so the number people hunt for on forums has been on tcs.com all along: ₹3.4 lakh minimum for a Ninja UG offer against ₹9.09 lakh at the bottom of the Prime UG range, decided by one 190 minute test. This playbook sets out the seven published eligibility rules, the pay disclosures in the annual report, the BRSR and the UK filings, and what the 23,460 fall in headcount over FY26 means for your application. Where TCS publishes nothing, on cut-offs, interview content, service agreements and notice periods, it says so and prints nothing.

Section 01

How the door opens

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TCS publishes the actual rupee CTC attached to two of its three fresher bands on its own careers page, which means the single number people usually try to find on forums has been sitting on tcs.com the whole time.

That matters more than it sounds. TCS's All India NQT Hiring page sets out what a Prime offer and a Digital offer pay, and states the floor for a Ninja offer. It also states, in one sentence, how you end up in one band rather than another: "Based on the test performance, candidates will qualify for Prime, Digital or Ninja interviews." Read that carefully. The test does not get you an interview. The test decides which interview you sit, and the band you are interviewing for has already been priced before you walk in. The pay conversation at TCS happens on test day, not in the HR round.

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All quoted wording and figures in this section are from the TCS All India NQT Hiring page and the TCS India entry level, Rebegin and recruitment fraud pages on tcs.com. tcs.com careers, checked 21 Sep 2026

The single most useful thing on this page

The gap between the bottom band and the top band is roughly 2.7 times, for the same degree, decided by one 190 minute test. TCS states the minimum Ninja CTC as ₹3.4 lakh for a UG candidate, and the published Prime UG range starts at ₹9.09 lakh. Nothing else in the fresher process moves your number by anything like that much.

So the ranking of what to spend your preparation time on is not the one most people use. Part B of the test, the Advanced section, carries 115 of the 190 minutes and is the part that separates the bands. An extra week on the advanced coding and advanced quantitative material is worth more, in rupees, than an extra month on interview polish, because the interview you are polishing for was already chosen by the test.

The eligibility rules TCS actually publishes

These are the filters that reject an application before any human reads it. TCS states them on the NQT hiring page in its own words, and they are unusually explicit compared with most Indian employers. Every row below is TCS's wording, not a summary of it.

Section 02

What it pays, from the filings

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Section 03

What the numbers say about working there, and how to prepare

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