Prep
What this AZ-900 study guide covers
This AZ-900 study guide follows the skills measured that Microsoft published for the exam as of July 20, 2026. Microsoft's change log rates that update as minor: it touched compute and networking services, management and deployment tools, and monitoring tools, while the skill areas themselves are marked as unchanged.
You will find the exam facts, the official weights, a 3-week plan (and a 2-week version), the free resources worth your time, and how we suggest using practice questions. Every exam fact comes from Microsoft Learn unless we say otherwise.
AZ-900 leads to the Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals certification. Microsoft rates it as a beginner exam and calls it a common starting point for a career in Azure.
| Skill area | Official weight | Study days in our plan |
|---|---|---|
| Describe cloud concepts | 25-30% | 3 |
| Describe Azure architecture and services | 35-40% | 6 (plus checkpoint) |
| Describe Azure management and governance | 30-35% | 4 |
| Final review and timed practice | - | 1-2 |
AZ-900 exam facts
| Item | AZ-900 |
|---|---|
| Exam time | 45 minutes (Microsoft advises allowing 65 minutes of seat time) |
| Number of questions | Not published for AZ-900. Microsoft says most of its exams contain 40-60 questions |
| Passing score | 700 on a scale of 1 to 1,000 (a scaled score, not 70%). No penalty for wrong answers |
| Prerequisites | None |
| Delivery | Proctored, through Pearson VUE (students and educators can book through Certiport) |
| Languages | 13, including English, Spanish, German, French, Japanese and Portuguese (Brazil) |
| Validity | Does not expire. Microsoft states that fundamentals certifications do not expire |
| Retakes | First retake after 24 hours; later retakes have longer waits |
Microsoft sets the price by the country where you take the exam and shows it only when you book. Third-party price trackers list US$99 in the United States. Check your local price on the booking page.
Unlike associate-level exams, AZ-900 does not give you access to Microsoft Learn during the exam. You need to know the material.
The skills measured and their weights
Microsoft gives each skill area a weight range. Your study time should follow it:
- Describe cloud concepts (25-30%): cloud computing, the shared responsibility model, public, private and hybrid cloud, the consumption-based model, serverless, the benefits of cloud services, and IaaS, PaaS and SaaS.
- Describe Azure architecture and services (35-40%): regions, availability zones, resource groups, subscriptions and management groups; compute and networking; storage tiers, redundancy and migration tools; identity, access and security, including Microsoft Entra ID, Conditional Access, Azure RBAC, Zero Trust and Microsoft Defender for Cloud.
- Describe Azure management and governance (30-35%): cost management, the pricing calculator and tags; Microsoft Purview, Azure Policy and resource locks; the portal, Cloud Shell, CLI, PowerShell, Azure Arc, infrastructure as code and ARM templates; Azure Advisor, Service Health and Azure Monitor.
The architecture and services area is the largest and the most detailed. It is also where people lose marks by mixing up similar services, such as availability sets and availability zones, or VPN Gateway and ExpressRoute.
The 3-week AZ-900 study plan
This plan assumes 5 to 7 hours a week and some general IT background. It follows the official weights: about a week per skill area, with extra time for architecture and services.
| Days | Skill area (weight) | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1, days 1-3 | Cloud concepts (25-30%) | Read the skills measured list. Work through the cloud concepts modules on Microsoft Learn. Make sure you can explain shared responsibility for IaaS, PaaS and SaaS, and when to use public, private and hybrid cloud. |
| Week 1, days 4-5 | Architecture and services (35-40%) | Core architecture: regions, region pairs, sovereign regions, availability zones, and the hierarchy of management groups, subscriptions and resource groups. Create a free Azure account and a resource group. |
| Week 2, days 1-2 | Architecture and services | Compute and networking: virtual machines, scale sets, availability sets, Azure Virtual Desktop, containers, functions, App Service, virtual networks, peering, VPN Gateway, ExpressRoute, public and private endpoints. |
| Week 2, days 3-4 | Architecture and services | Storage services, tiers and redundancy options; AzCopy, Storage Explorer, Azure File Sync, Azure Migrate and Data Box. Then identity and security: Entra ID, SSO, MFA, passwordless, Conditional Access, RBAC, Zero Trust, defence in depth, Defender for Cloud. |
| Week 2, day 5 | Checkpoint | Take Microsoft's free Practice Assessment and note your weakest area. |
| Week 3, days 1-2 | Management and governance (30-35%) | Cost factors, the pricing calculator, cost management and tags; Purview, Azure Policy and resource locks. Apply a tag and a lock in your free account. |
| Week 3, days 3-4 | Management and governance | Portal, Cloud Shell, CLI and PowerShell, Azure Arc, infrastructure as code, ARM templates; Advisor, Service Health and Azure Monitor (Log Analytics, alerts, Application Insights). |
| Week 3, day 5 and exam | Review | Timed practice sets, rework every miss against the skills list, try the exam sandbox, then book the exam. |
Two-week version: if you already use Azure or another cloud at work, merge weeks 1 and 2 into one week of architecture and services, and keep week 3 as it is. If you are new to IT, stretch the plan to 4 or 5 weeks instead of cutting topics.
Free resources worth using
AZ-900 is one of the few exams you can prepare for well without paying for anything except the exam itself:
- The official study guide and skills measured list on Microsoft Learn. It is your checklist.
- The self-paced Microsoft Learn training path for AZ-900. It follows the skills measured closely.
- A free Azure account to click through the portal. Fundamentals questions are about describing services, but seeing them makes the names stick.
- Microsoft's free Practice Assessment for AZ-900, which shows the style and wording of questions.
- The exam sandbox, which lets you try the question formats in the real exam interface.
How to use practice questions
We recommend using practice questions from the first week, not just at the end. Answer a short set after each topic. For every wrong answer, find the matching bullet in the skills measured list and write one sentence on why the right answer is right. That closes gaps faster than rereading modules.
In week 3, switch to timed sets. With 45 minutes and up to around 60 questions, you have well under a minute per question, so speed matters. Book the exam when you score comfortably above the pass line on questions you have not seen before.
Start with our free AZ-900 practice test, then use Microsoft's Practice Assessment as a second opinion. Our guide to spaced repetition explains how to keep service names fresh between sessions.
Is AZ-900 hard?
AZ-900 is a beginner exam, and the questions ask you to describe services rather than configure them. Most of the difficulty comes from the number of similar-sounding services and from the short time limit. People new to cloud find the governance tools (Policy, locks, Purview, Advisor) the least intuitive, because they rarely meet them outside work.
Two scoring details help. First, the 700 pass mark is a scaled score, so it does not mean you need exactly 70% of questions right; Microsoft says easier question sets need more points and harder sets fewer. Second, there is no penalty for guessing, so never leave a question blank. Your score report shows a bar for each skill area, which tells you where to focus if you need a retake.
Microsoft does not publish pass rates, so we cannot give you one.
Is AZ-900 worth it, and what comes next
AZ-900 is not required for any other Microsoft certification. Its value is as a structured, low-cost introduction to cloud and Azure, and as a signal to employers that you know the vocabulary. Because fundamentals certifications do not expire, there is no renewal cost.
If you work, or want to work, as an administrator, the usual next step is AZ-104. Our AZ-104 study guide shows how the two connect. If you are comparing cloud providers, see our AWS certification path.