Training, exams and certification
Training, exams and certification
Forty questions, sixty minutes, closed book, and a pass mark of sixty-five per cent. It is also the only exam in the whole ITIL® v5 scheme you are allowed to sit without attending an accredited course — which makes it a more important decision than it looks.
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ITIL Foundation (Version 5) is the entry point to the ITIL® v5 scheme, and the prerequisite for everything above it.
| Certification | ITIL Foundation (Version 5) |
|---|---|
| Questions | 40, multiple choice |
| Time limit | 60 minutes |
| Pass mark | 65% — 26 correct answers out of 40 |
| Materials | Closed book |
| Prerequisites | None |
| Accredited training | Not required. Self-study is an option PeopleCert offers explicitly |
| Languages | Nine — Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil) and Spanish |
ITIL rounds differently from most frameworks, and the number people quote from memory is usually wrong. Sixty-five per cent of forty questions is twenty-six correct answers. Twenty-five is a fail.
| Correct answers needed | 26 of 40 | |
| Questions you can afford to lose | 14 |
Sixty minutes across forty questions is ninety seconds each, including reading. That is the same arithmetic as most Foundation papers and it catches the same people: those who know the material but have only ever answered questions at their own pace.
Foundation is the only ITIL® v5 exam you can prepare for on your own. Every module above it — Service, Product, Experience, Strategy, Transformation — requires training through an Accredited Training Organization or ITIL Official eLearning, and PeopleCert states plainly that exam results will not be released without proof of completion.
Read that twice, because it is not how every framework works. TOGAF, for instance, lets you self-study the whole way. In ITIL® v5 the course is not a recommendation for the modules above Foundation: it is part of the certification.
The practical consequence is a budgeting one. Foundation can cost you an exam voucher and your own time. Anything after it cannot.
There is a shorter door. ITIL Foundation Bridge (Version 5) is 20 questions in 30 minutes, closed book, same 65% pass mark — thirteen out of twenty. It accepts any ITIL 4 certification except ITIL 4 Specialist: Acquiring and Managing Cloud Services and ITIL 4 Specialist: Sustainability in Digital and IT, and like Foundation it does not require a course.
It grants the same thing Foundation does for the purpose of moving on: it satisfies the prerequisite for the modules above.
No. PeopleCert offers a self-study route with an exam bundle, alongside eLearning and classroom training. The course becomes mandatory only from the modules above Foundation.
Twenty-six correct answers out of forty. The published figure is 65%.
Nine: Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil) and Spanish.
No. ITIL Foundation Bridge (Version 5) — 20 questions, 30 minutes — is open to holders of any ITIL 4 certification apart from two Specialist modules, and satisfies the same prerequisite.
No. Foundation is closed book. The modules above it are open book, which is a bigger difference than it sounds.
Sources. Every figure on this page comes from PeopleCert’s own published certification pages, checked in September 2026.
Foundation is the only ITIL® v5 exam that does not require a course, so both routes work here. The Exam Bundle is the self-study one: official eBook, exam voucher and a learning resource kit. eLearning adds the interactive course and auto-marked sample papers. Both are on sale here, with eLearning+ adding the Official Mock Exam and a free re-take.
See the packagesNot sure yet? Create a free account and try 10 free practice questions first: original questions with an explanation after every answer.
BITIL.COM is an ATO (Accredited Training Organization) and an AEO (Approved Examination Organization) of PeopleCert. ITIL® is a registered trade mark of PeopleCert.
