RRC Northern Railway Apprentice Recruitment 2026: 4,651 Posts, Apply by 11 December

RRC Northern Railway Apprentice Recruitment 2026 has opened 4,651 Act Apprentice training slots under Notification No. RRC/NR/03/2026/Act Apprentice, and the form runs from 11 November to 11 December 2026 on rrcnr.org. You apply online only, to one cluster, and there is no exam and no interview at all: selection is purely on the merit list, worked out from the average of your Class 10 and ITI marks. With 29 days left, the two details worth settling first are which of the six clusters you choose and whether your Class 10 marks meet the 50% rule, because the merit lists are drawn up cluster-wise, trade-wise and community-wise, and a wrong choice gets your application rejected outright, with no fee refund.

At a glance	RRC Northern Railway Apprentice 2026
Organisation	Railway Recruitment Cell, Northern Railway
Notification	No. RRC/NR/03/2026/Act Apprentice, dated 6 November 2026
Posts	Act Apprentice (training under the Apprentices Act, 1961)
Total slots	4,651 (provisional — may increase or decrease)
Clusters	6 — Lucknow, Delhi, Ambala, Firozpur, Moradabad, Jammu
Application dates	11 November to 11 December 2026 (till 11:59 pm)
Application route	Online only at rrcnr.org
Application fee	Rs 100; nil for SC, ST, PwBD and women
Age limit	15 to 24 years as on 11 December 2026
Qualification	Class 10 pass with at least 50% aggregate + ITI certificate (NCVT/SCVT) in the notified trade
Selection	Merit list (Matriculation + ITI average), then document verification and medical. No exam, no interview
Merit list	Expected February 2027
Stipend	Not stated in the notification
Training period	Not stated in the notification

RRC Northern Railway Apprentice: the 4,651 slots, cluster by cluster

The 4,651 slots are spread across six clusters. Lucknow has the most, with 1,525 slots, followed by Delhi with 1,312, Ambala with 979 and Firozpur with 740. The two remaining clusters are much smaller: Moradabad has 63 slots and Jammu has 32. The six figures add up to exactly 4,651, and they were taken from the grand totals in Annexure A of the official notification, so they are the notification's own numbers, not a secondary report's estimate.

Every slot is provisional. The notification says the numbers may increase or decrease depending on the administration's actual need at the time of finalisation, and the total includes the PwBD and ex-servicemen slots. Reservation for SC, ST, OBC, PwBD and ex-servicemen candidates is built into the trade-wise and unit-wise split in Annexure A. If the prescribed number of SC candidates is not available, their slots can go to ST candidates, and vice versa, and reserved slots that still stay empty can go to unreserved candidates; the same applies to OBC slots.

The cluster you pick matters more than it looks. The merit list is prepared cluster-wise, trade-wise and community-wise, so you compete only within your own cluster, trade and community. The notification is blunt about a wrong choice: if you apply to a cluster or unit where training slots for your trade have not been notified, your application is effectively meaningless and will be summarily rejected, and the fee will not be refunded. Check Annexure A against your own ITI trade before you pick a cluster.

Who can apply

You need to have passed Class 10 (Matriculation) with at least 50% marks in aggregate, and you need an ITI certificate in the relevant trade, issued by NCVT or SCVT. Both qualifications must already be in hand on 6 November 2026, the date the notification was issued — candidates whose Class 10 or ITI result was still awaited on that date are not eligible to apply.

The age limit is 15 to 24 years, counted as on 11 December 2026, the closing date. You must have completed 15 years of age and must not have completed 24 years on that date. The upper limit is relaxed by five years for SC and ST candidates, three years for OBC candidates and ten years for persons with disability. Ex-servicemen get up to ten additional years, to the extent of the service they rendered in the defence forces plus three years, provided they served for at least six months at a stretch. Candidates claiming reservation must produce the right certificate at document verification: a caste certificate on the central government format, a non-creamy layer certificate for OBC for 2026-27 issued on or after 1 January 2026, a discharge certificate for ex-servicemen, or a disability certificate for PwBD candidates.

The fee

The application fee is Rs 100, non-refundable, payable online only as part of the application process. The notification does not accept cash, cheque, money order, IPO, demand draft or fee stamps, and any transaction charges for the online payment are borne by the candidate. No fee is payable by SC, ST, PwBD and women candidates. Keep the e-receipt from a successful payment: if a transaction stays incomplete or pending, RRC is not responsible, and you will need to pay again.

How the selection works — merit, no exam

There is no written test and no viva. Selection is made on a merit list prepared from the average of the percentage of marks you obtained in Matriculation (Class 10, with a minimum of 50% aggregate) and in the ITI examination, giving equal weightage to both. If two candidates have the same marks, the older candidate is preferred; if their dates of birth are also the same, the candidate who passed Matriculation earlier is considered first. The final merit list is prepared cluster-wise, trade-wise and community-wise, equal to the number of slots, in descending order of marks, and is expected to be displayed in February 2027.

After the merit list comes document verification, and you will need a medical certificate in the prescribed format, signed by a government authorised doctor not below the rank of Assistant Surgeon of a central or state hospital. A mismatch between the marks or CGPA you entered in the online form and your original marksheet or certificate, found at document verification, will get your candidature rejected summarily. For boards that use a grading system, RRC takes the midpoint of the grade range, and for ITI it uses the average marks in the consolidated statement for all semesters.

How to apply

Apply online only at rrcnr.org, between 11 November and 11 December 2026, closing at 11:59 pm. Read the notification carefully before you start, and submit your form well before the closing date — the notification warns that RRC takes no responsibility if you cannot log on in the last days because of heavy load or a website jam. You can submit only one application: send in more than one and all of them will be summarily rejected, with no fee refunded. No change is allowed after final submission, so check every entry, especially the marks you enter, before you submit.

What the notification does not say

The notification does not state a stipend figure and does not state the length of the training. Section 7 covers both together under one line: "Period of Training and Stipend — As per extant rules applicable." Do not take any stipend figure from a secondary report as the notification's own figure; the official text gives none. It also gives no exact date for the merit list, only that its display is expected in February 2027, and no date for document verification. It does not say whether the provisional total of 4,651 will go up or down, only that it may change. The trade-wise and unit-wise seat split is not in the body of the notification — it sits in Annexure A, so open the PDF on rrcnr.org and check your trade and cluster there before you apply.

One point the notification states plainly, so it belongs here too: the training does not give you any right to absorption in the railway afterwards. It is not obligatory for the employer to offer you employment when the apprenticeship ends, and it is not obligatory for you to accept any employment the employer offers.

Never pay anyone who promises to get you a seat. Genuine recruitment never charges a fee beyond what the notification itself names, and this notification names Rs 100 only, or nothing for SC, ST, PwBD and women candidates, payable online through the official portal.

Two similar railway apprentice openings are running alongside this one. RRC Central Railway has opened 2,861 Act Apprentice slots, also selected by merit list with no exam, with applications closing on 2 December 2026. RRC North Western Railway has opened 2,008 Act Apprentice slots, again on a merit list, closing on 22 November 2026. If you are open to more than one railway zone, compare the cluster and unit lists in each notification before you choose where to apply.

Sources: Railway Recruitment Cell, Northern Railway, Notification No. RRC/NR/03/2026/Act Apprentice dated 6 November 2026. The figures above were read directly from the official notification PDF on rrcnr.org and cross-checked against the sources below. The cluster totals were taken from the grand totals in Annexure A of the notification. Apply only through rrcnr.org.