"How do I get into the EU institutions?" is one of Europe's most-searched career questions and one of its worst-answered — buried under acronyms (EPSO, AD, AST, CAST, NoC) before anyone explains the map. This page is the map: the routes, the requirements, the money and the first step, each with a deep-dive linked where the detail lives.
One selection office, three doors
Permanent EU staff selection is centralised in EPSO, the European Personnel Selection Office, which runs competitive selections — competitions — on behalf of the Parliament, the Council, the Commission, the Court of Justice and the rest of the institutions. The 2026 cycle is the largest in years: a record-sized AD5 generalist competition and an unprecedented wave of specialist competitions in ICT, audit, law, building management and communication.
The three doors, in one paragraph each:
AD5 — the graduate route. Any university degree qualifies you for the entry grade of the administrator career: policy, analysis, drafting, project management. Selection is a ranked computer-based battery — reasoning gates plus EU Knowledge, Digital Skills and a written test — detailed in the complete preparation guide.
AD7 / AST — the specialist route. For professionals with a relevant degree and experience: smaller candidate pools, a field-related MCQ as the ranking instrument, higher entry grade. The map of open fields lives in the specialist guide.
CAST — the always-open route. Contract-agent selection with no cycle and no ranking: register, get invited when a service wants your profile, pass three reasoning tests valid for ten years. The full mechanics are in the CAST 2026 guide — and the AD5 vs CAST comparison settles which to prioritise.
The requirements, demystified
The formal bar is lower than the folklore suggests: EU citizenship, a degree appropriate to the track, and two EU languages — with the post-2023 regime letting most candidates pick both from all 24 official languages, ending the old English-French presumption. No prior Brussels experience, no diplomatic connections, no age limit. The full checklist, including the degree-timing rules for final-year students, is in the eligibility guide.
What the requirements page cannot convey is where selection is actually decided: the tests. The scoring arithmetic concentrates your fate in a handful of components — which is precisely why structured preparation beats credential-polishing.
The money, honestly
Entry-grade AD5 base pay sits in the mid-€4,000s monthly, before the allowance architecture that makes EU packages compound: expatriation allowance, household and child allowances, and one of Europe's stronger pension schemes; senior grades reach five figures. The salary and benefits guide walks the whole package with official figures — worth reading early, because compensation is the most common underestimated variable in the apply-or-not decision.
Where to start, concretely
- Pick your door with the track comparison — five minutes.
- Register for CAST regardless — the always-open option costs one evening.
- Check the calendar — what is open right now and what is announced.
- Test your level today — the free practice tests across all five test types, and the daily Question of the Day, tell you in one session how far the bar is.
The 2026 recruitment wave is the widest door the institutions have opened in a decade. The candidates who walk through it will mostly be the ones who started before it felt urgent.
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