ITIL 5 Foundation Exam Questions (2026): Sample Questions With Worked Answers
ITIL 5 Foundation exam questions are short, closed-book multiple choice items that test whether you recognise an ITIL concept when it is described in plain words. The exam has 40 of them, you get 60 minutes, and you need 65% to pass, which is 26 correct answers. The ten sample questions below are written in the same styles, and each one comes with a worked answer that explains why the wrong options are wrong.
These are CertCrush practice questions, not questions from the live exam. PeopleCert does not publish its exam bank, and any site claiming to sell "actual" ITIL 5 questions is selling dumps.
ITIL 5 Foundation Exam Format at a Glance
PeopleCert publishes these figures for ITIL Foundation (Version 5):
| Detail | Specification |
|---|---|
| Questions | 40, multiple choice |
| Duration | 60 minutes |
| Pass mark | 65% (26 of 40) |
| Book policy | Closed book |
| Languages | English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish |
| Available since | February 2026 |
PeopleCert does not publish syllabus weightings on its certification page. Several prep sites quote exact percentages per topic, so treat them as that site's estimate, not an official figure.
Exam Tip: There is no negative marking. A blank answer scores the same as a wrong one, so answer all 40 questions before the clock runs out.
For the cost, the renewal rules and what the syllabus contains, read our ITIL 5 Foundation explainer.
The Four Question Styles You Will See
ITIL Foundation papers from PeopleCert have long used four question styles, and the Version 5 exam keeps the same multiple choice format. Knowing the style tells you how to read the stem.
| Style | What it looks like | How to approach it |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | A question with four options, one correct | Find the concept being described, then match it |
| Negative | A stem asking which option is NOT true | Circle the NOT, then find the three that are true |
| Missing word | A sentence with a blank | Read all four options in the blank before choosing |
| List | Four numbered statements, pick the correct pair | Eliminate one false statement and two options disappear |
List questions take the longest. Rule out one statement you are sure is false and at least two answer options go with it.
ITIL 5 Foundation Sample Questions: Lifecycle and Framework
Question 1 (standard)
Which of these is one of the eight lifecycle activities in ITIL (Version 5)?
- A. Engage
- B. Acquire
- C. Plan
- D. Improve
Answer: B. Version 5 defines eight activities: Discover, Design, Acquire, Build, Transition, Operate, Deliver and Support. Engage, Plan and Improve were activities in the ITIL 4 service value chain, which Version 5 replaced.
ITIL 4 Trap: Candidates upgrading from ITIL 4 lose marks here more than anywhere else. The old six-activity value chain is the distractor, so learn the eight Version 5 activity names cold.
Question 2 (missing word)
ITIL (Version 5) widens the framework from IT service management to ______ management.
- A. enterprise architecture
- B. digital product and service
- C. software development
- D. IT asset
Answer: B. Version 5 covers digital products as well as services, which is why the lifecycle now starts at Discover and runs through Build. The other three are real disciplines, but none of them describes the scope of ITIL.
Question 3 (missing word)
The lifecycle activities are not a fixed sequence. Organisations combine them into ______ to suit the work in front of them.
- A. service levels
- B. guiding principles
- C. value streams
- D. practices
Answer: C. A value stream is a series of steps an organisation takes to create and deliver a product or service, and it draws on whichever activities that work needs. Practices are the organisational resources used to do the work, and guiding principles are recommendations for decisions. Service levels are targets, so they do not fit either.
Question 4 (list)
Which TWO of these are components of the ITIL service value system?
- Guiding principles
- Governance
- Service level agreements
- Incident records
- A. 1 and 2
- B. 2 and 3
- C. 3 and 4
- D. 1 and 4
Answer: A. The service value system includes the guiding principles, governance, the value chain, practices and continual improvement. A service level agreement is a document and an incident record is data, and neither is a system component. Statement 3 is false, which removes options B and C straight away.
Question 5 (negative)
Which of these is NOT one of the six capabilities in the ITIL AI Capability Model (the 6C Model)?
- A. Curation
- B. Cognition
- C. Automation
- D. Coordination
Answer: C. The six capabilities are Creation, Curation, Clarification, Cognition, Communication and Coordination. Automation is the distractor because it sounds like the obvious AI capability, but it is not one of the six Cs. Foundation tests that you can name them. The deeper treatment sits in the separate ITIL AI Governance certification.
ITIL 5 Foundation Sample Questions: Guiding Principles and Key Terms
The seven guiding principles carry over from ITIL 4, and the exam tests them through short scenarios rather than asking for a definition. Expect several questions where you match a situation to a principle.
Question 6 (standard)
A team plans to replace its ticketing tool. Before choosing a new one, the manager asks the team to review which parts of the current tool and process already work well. Which guiding principle is the manager applying?
- A. Focus on value
- B. Start where you are
- C. Keep it simple and practical
- D. Think and work holistically
Answer: B. Start where you are means assessing what already exists and reusing what works, rather than rebuilding from nothing. The scenario is about an existing tool and process, which points straight to it.
Question 7 (standard)
A team is asked to automate an approval process that currently has six manual sign-offs, several of which add nothing. The team lead insists on removing the unnecessary steps before any automation is built. Which guiding principle does this follow?
- A. Collaborate and promote visibility
- B. Optimise and automate
- C. Focus on value
- D. Start where you are
Answer: B. Optimise and automate says to simplify and improve work before automating it, because automating a wasteful process only makes the waste faster. Removing steps before building automation is the principle described almost word for word.
Question 8 (standard)
A service desk team puts its current work, blockers and priorities on a shared board that the business can see, so decisions are made on the same information. Which guiding principle is this?
- A. Progress iteratively with feedback
- B. Keep it simple and practical
- C. Collaborate and promote visibility
- D. Think and work holistically
Answer: C. Making work visible to the people who depend on it is the core of Collaborate and promote visibility. The shared board and the business audience are the clues. Think and work holistically is about how the parts of a system fit together, not about who can see the work.
Question 9 (standard)
A team releases a new self-service portal in small monthly increments and changes each release based on what users report. Which guiding principle is the team applying?
- A. Progress iteratively with feedback
- B. Optimise and automate
- C. Focus on value
- D. Start where you are
Answer: A. Small increments plus user feedback that changes the next release is Progress iteratively with feedback. Focus on value is tempting because feedback relates to value, but the scenario is describing how the work is paced, not how value is defined.
Question 10 (standard)
After a new portal goes live, staff can reset their own passwords and get back to work without calling the service desk. In ITIL terms, "staff get back to work faster" is best described as:
- A. an output
- B. an outcome
- C. a practice
- D. a value stream
Answer: B. An output is what an activity produces, here the portal itself. An outcome is the result a stakeholder gets from that output, which is staff getting back to work faster. Output against outcome is one of the most common key-term questions, because the two words look alike on the page.
What These Questions Tell You About Revision
Every question above tests one of two things: recalling a term, or recognising it in a scenario. None of them asks you to design or evaluate anything. That shapes how you should revise.
- Learn names exactly. Questions 1, 2 and 5 are lost by candidates who know the idea but not the ITIL name for it.
- Practise scenario matching for the principles. Questions 6 to 9 each have one clue word or phrase. Find it before you look at the options.
- Drill the ITIL 4 differences if you hold ITIL 4. The old value chain activities appear as distractors, and they look right to anyone who learned them first.
- Separate look-alike terms. Output and outcome, practice and principle, value chain and value stream.
A realistic target is to score 85% or more on full-length practice papers before you book. That leaves a margin of about eight questions above the pass mark for nerves and badly worded stems. Our ITIL 5 Foundation study plan sets out when in your revision to start timed papers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the ITIL 5 exam hard?
Not for most candidates who revise properly. The exam is 40 closed-book questions at recall and understanding level, and the pass mark is 65%, so you can miss 14 questions and still pass. People fail it by memorising definitions without practising scenario questions, or by relying on ITIL 4 knowledge that Version 5 has changed.
Is there a study guide for the ITIL 5 Foundation exam?
Yes. Every PeopleCert exam package includes the official ITIL Foundation (Version 5) eBook and a Learning Resource Kit containing a Learner Workbook and a Quick Reference Guide. Our guide to the official ITIL Version 5 books explains which ones you need for Foundation and which belong to the higher modules.
Are these real ITIL 5 exam questions?
No. PeopleCert does not release its live exam questions, and these are written by CertCrush to match the exam's styles and syllabus. Sites that advertise "actual" or "leaked" ITIL 5 questions are selling dumps, and memorising a dump teaches you nothing the scenario questions can reward.
Is ITIL still relevant in 2026?
Yes, and Version 5 is the reason. It adds digital product management and AI governance to a framework that was previously about IT services alone, and ITIL 4 retires on 31 December 2027. If you are deciding between the two versions, read whether you should still take ITIL 4.
Ready to Start Practising?
Ten questions show you the format. Full timed papers show you whether you are ready. The CertCrush ITIL 5 Foundation course has exam-style questions across the whole Version 5 syllabus, and every answer is explained in the same way as the ones above, including why each wrong option is wrong.
Create a free CertCrush account and take your first ITIL 5 practice set today.