How to Get Articleship in Big 4: Eligibility, Process and Tips

To get articleship in a Big 4 firm, you first need to pass both groups of CA Intermediate and finish ICITSS, because ICAI does not let you start practical training before that. Then you apply to the Indian CA firms in the Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG networks through their careers sites, campus or post-result drives and referrals, and usually clear a test and two or three interviews.

You sign your articles with a practising Chartered Accountant, so the firm you actually join is the network's Indian CA firm. Check that name on your offer letter.

TL;DR

• Eligibility: both groups of Inter passed and ICITSS completed. Articleship lasts two years under the new scheme.
• Apply through the firms' India careers sites, college or result-time drives, referrals and ICAI regional vacancy notices.
• ICAI's campus placement is for newly qualified CAs, not for articleship.
• Expect a written or online test plus technical and HR interviews. The rounds differ by firm and year.

Who are the Big 4 in India, and which firm do you actually join?

The Big 4 are Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG. In India, their audit work runs through Chartered Accountant firms registered with ICAI that belong to each network, often under a different name. Deloitte Haskins & Sells sits in the Deloitte network, S.R. Batliboi & Co. in EY's, B S R & Co. in KPMG's, and the Price Waterhouse firms in PwC's.

This matters because ICAI registers your articles under a member in practice, who becomes your principal. If an offer comes from a consulting company in the same network, ask which CA firm and which partner will sign your articleship deed before you accept.

Big 4 articleship means articleship with one of these network CA firms, under one of its partners.

When can you start articleship under ICAI's new scheme?

ICAI's own FAQ on the new scheme is clear: you can start practical training after passing both groups of the Intermediate exam and completing the four-week ICITSS course. Practical training lasts two years. Passing only Group I is not enough under the new scheme.

Finish ICITSS before your result

ICITSS has to be completed before practical training begins, and you can take it while you are still an Inter student. Book it before your result comes out. If you pass and a firm wants you to join within weeks, a pending ICITSS is the one thing that can hold you back.

If you are not sure you have both groups in hand, our post on CA Inter passing marks explains the 40 per cent per paper and 50 per cent aggregate rule.

Both groups and ICITSS are the gate. Without them, no firm can register you.

How do you apply for Big 4 articleship?

1. Pick a service line and a city first: audit and assurance, direct tax, indirect tax or advisory. An application that names one team reads better than one that says anything.
2. Apply on the firm's official India careers site and set an alert for article assistant or articleship openings.
3. Ask your college placement cell whether any network firm hires article assistants through it.
4. Ask seniors who did articleship there for a referral. A referral gets your CV read. It does not get you through the interviews.
5. Watch the articleship vacancy notices that ICAI regional councils and branches publish, and apply only through the firm's own email or portal.

ICAI campus placement is not for articleship

Students often mix this up. ICAI's campus placement programme is for newly qualified Chartered Accountants. Its 65th round, for example, ran in August and September 2026. As an Inter student, you will not find articleship there.

Apply to a named team in a named city, use every channel the firm itself runs, and leave campus placement for after you qualify.

What should your CV show?

Keep it to one page and put these near the top:

• Your Inter result and the number of attempts, stated plainly. Firms ask, and a mismatch in the interview hurts more than a modest score.
• ICITSS completed, with the month.
• Excel skills you can show in a test: lookups, pivot tables, basic formulas. Write only what you can do live.
• Any internship or work in a family business, with one line on what you did.
• The service line and city you want.

An honest one-page CV with a clear service line beats a two-page list of everything you have ever done.

What are the interview rounds like?

Firms do not publish a fixed process, and it changes by office, team and year. A typical sequence has three stages:

• A written or online test on aptitude, English and basic accounting.
• A technical interview with a manager or senior on Inter subjects linked to the team: accounting standards and auditing for assurance, income tax and GST for tax.
• A final conversation with HR, and sometimes with a partner, about your goals, exam plan and availability.

How I would prepare

Revise the Inter subjects for the team you applied to, not all eight papers. If your CV calls a subject a strength, expect questions on it, because what you wrote about yourself is the easiest thing for an interviewer to probe. Read one recent annual report of a listed company and be able to walk through its balance sheet.

Prepare for a test and two interviews, focused on the service line you chose.

Big 4 or a mid-size firm: which is better for articleship?

Neither suits every student. These are the trade-offs I would weigh:

• Big 4 clients are mostly large companies, and you work in one service line with a defined role in a bigger team.
• A mid-size firm usually puts you on smaller clients, but you may see audit, tax returns and company law filings in the same year.
• Peak-season hours can be long in both. Ask about study leave and exam-time policy at the offer stage, not after joining.
• The Big 4 name helps when you look for jobs as a newly qualified CA, but your Final result and what you can do in an interview matter more.

Choose the firm whose work you want to learn and whose hours still leave room for Final.

What stipend do Big 4 firms pay?

ICAI sets only the minimum monthly stipend, and the figures by city and year are in our CA articleship stipend post. The firms do not publish their own figures, and the numbers floating on social media disagree with each other, so I am not quoting any. Ask for the monthly figure and the second-year figure in your offer letter.

Once you join, you and your principal execute the articleship deed (Form 102) on stamp paper, and you file the registration form (Form 103) on ICAI's Self Service Portal. ICAI's articleship FAQ says a late filing after 30 days attracts a fee. Our full articleship guide covers the rest of the process.

Articleship hours eat into Final preparation, so practise in short, checked bursts. Gradehunt's CA Final test series lets you write a paper by hand in the evening and upload it. An ex-examiner checks it within 48 hours with step-wise marks, and the first paper is checked free.