How to Get on Survivor

Casting director Jesse Tannenbaum has said a quick TikTok-style clip is pointless, because it is too short to show who you are. What casting wants, in his words:

"We want to get to know who you are, we want to hear about your life."

Quoted in Newsweek, September 2024.

• Length: no longer than 3 minutes (CBS casting, video tips).
• File: under 50MB, as mpg, mpeg, avi, mp4, wmv, mov, 3gp or mkv. The upload step of the CBS application sets the limit.
• Photo: the application also asks for a current picture of yourself, under 5MB, as png, jpeg, jpg or gif.
• Applied before? Videos go into storage after each season is cast, so you re-apply with a new one. An application from the past 12 months is already saved (CBS casting FAQ).

• Age: 18 or older (CBS casting FAQ, checked November 2026). The casting terms of use also require you to be at least the age of majority where you live, so a few places are higher: 19 in Alabama and Nebraska, and 21 in Mississippi and Washington, D.C. (CBS, September 2026). An April 2026 casting call also listed 19 in Wyoming (WFSB). In Canada it is 19 in British Columbia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon (CBS, September 2026).
• Social media: not required. None of CBS's published rules mention it. Rocksroy Bailey wasn't on social media when Survivor 42 aired (TV Insider, 2022), and Sarah Wade's Instagram was private when Survivor 44 was announced (Newsweek, 2023).
• Citizenship: United States or Canadian citizens, with a valid US or Canadian passport (CBS casting FAQ). Rules before the Season 49 casting call were US-only (Newsweek, 2024).
• Not a union performer: the terms of use exclude members of SAG-AFTRA, ACTRA or any other performing artists' union or guild.
• Health and background: "excellent physical and mental health", and applicants authorize a background check.
• Not eligible: employees of CBS and the production companies, and their immediate families and households.

• No rejection notice. CBS only calls the people it wants to move forward, year round, and says it can't contact everyone else (CBS casting FAQ). Silence means not this time.
• Next rounds: written application forms, then interviews with producers, in Los Angeles or remote (CBS, 2026). CBS says phone interviews pick up in September.
• Time off: filming and travel take about 46 days (CBS casting FAQ).

Survivor casts two alternates a season and usually flies them to Fiji with the cast. They go through the same pre-game sequester, a week with no outside contact and no talking to other players. Jeff Probst has said alternates are there "in case somebody gets sick or has a panic attack and can't begin the game", and that it is very rare. An alternate who isn't needed is "most likely" invited back to play the following year.

On Season 49 two cast members were removed for breaking the rules, and the alternates, Jason Treul and Michelle "MC" Chukwujekwu, were told they were playing 12 hours before the marooning.

Probst to Entertainment Weekly, via TV Insider, August 2025.

Sophie Segreti, an alternate for Survivor 48, said there is no phone in the pre-game. Davie Rickenbacker got the call that he was playing Survivor 37 about 40 hours before it began. Not every season flies them out: for Survivor 41, alternates were kept at home.

Parade, September 2025.

The best documented way onto the crew is the Dream Team: about 25 production assistants hired by the challenge department, who test the challenges, help the art department and shadow other teams. Executive producer Matt Van Wagenen calls it where the show promotes from:

"It's where we find our next camera operator, our next producer, our next AD."

The show has recruited Dream Team members through film schools. Loyola Marymount University, January 2022.

Only the winner gets $1 million, the one figure CBS has made official. On Season 51 it becomes $2 million if a castaway calls the coin toss right. Everyone else is paid by how long they last, on a scale CBS has never published. The most recent first-hand figures are Corinne Kaplan's (Gabon, Caramoan), from a 2021 podcast.

• Runner-up: $100,000. It was the same in 2002, when CBS paid Lex and Tom second-place money after a botched question at Survivor: Africa's final four (Reality Blurred).
• Third: $75,000 by Kaplan's account; other reports say $85,000.
• On the jury: Kaplan made $45,000 for seventh place in Gabon, a jury seat.
• Earlier exits: $20,000 for her twelfth place in Caramoan.
• First boot: about $2,500 by Kaplan's account; other reports say $3,500.
• Finale: $10,000 more for showing up. Vytas Baskauskas lost his after leaving the post-vote sequester early (Reality Blurred, 2015).

Kaplan's figures via TV Insider, May 2025, and Screen Rant, February 2025. Treat any full pay table you see online as reported, not confirmed.