CCA Exam Guide 2026: cost, format, passing score and study plan

CCA exam facts

Independent community project, not affiliated with or endorsed by CNCF or The Linux Foundation.

CCA exam domains and weights

How many questions and how long is CCA?

The CCA exam has 60 questions and a time limit of 90 minutes, as stated in the Linux Foundation's exam instructions and checked on 23 October 2026. Delivery is: online, proctored, multiple-choice. That leaves roughly 90 seconds per question if you spread the time evenly. The questions are spread over 8 exam domains, and the published domain weights tell you how much of the paper each domain accounts for, so heavier domains deserve proportionally more of your practice time. GoldenKube is an independent community project, not affiliated with or endorsed by CNCF or The Linux Foundation, so confirm every figure on the official page before you book.

CCA spreads its questions over eight domains, so expect only a handful on any single topic such as eBPF or BGP; depth in one area cannot make up for gaps in several others.

Pacing matters more than raw speed on a multiple-choice paper. A simple routine is to answer what you know on the first pass, flag anything that needs a second look, and use the remaining minutes on the flagged questions rather than stalling early. With about 90 seconds on average per question, a question that has taken more than twice that is a good candidate for flagging.

Practice should mirror the exam shape: one question at a time, a committed answer, then the explanation. GoldenKube's practice mode works this way and brings missed questions back until you answer them correctly, which is closer to how recall is tested than rereading notes.

What is the passing score for CCA?

The Linux Foundation lists the CCA passing score as 75% (checked 23 October 2026). Treat the percentage as the target and aim comfortably above it in practice. The heavier a domain is weighted, the more of the exam it decides, so neglecting a large domain is the costliest way to fall short. The largest CCA domain, Architecture, carries 20% of the exam, and the next, Network Policy, carries 18%. Together they make up 38% of the exam, so plan to be reliably above the line in both before you book, and treat every smaller domain as the place to pick up the remaining points.

Use the passing score as a calibration tool. When you practise, track your accuracy per domain instead of one overall number, and treat a domain you keep missing as a gap to close before booking. A single good overall percentage can hide a weak, heavily weighted domain.

The official certification page is the authority for the passing score and can change, so read it again on the week you register. The source links below point to the exact pages this guide was checked against.

How much does CCA cost and how long is it valid?

The CCA exam fee is $250 (USD), listed on the official certification page and checked 23 October 2026. The certification is valid for 2 years, so plan for it to lapse unless you renew it; the official page is the place to confirm how renewal works. Prices and bundles can change, so treat the figure here as the list price on the checked date and confirm it at checkout. CCA is one of the certifications in the Golden Kubestronaut program that GoldenKube helps you prepare for. Budget for the exam fee itself, and remember that a certification only helps while it is current, so decide up front when you would renew it and what that renewal would cost.

Validity is the part people forget when planning a program such as Golden Kubestronaut: with 2 years of validity, the order you take the exams in decides when each one needs renewing, and taking CCA early in a long sequence can mean renewing it before you finish the rest.

CCA is a Golden-tier certification; its official page recommends Kubernetes and basic networking knowledge without making it a formal prerequisite, which affects the study time to budget rather than the fee.

GoldenKube practice itself is free: 10 guest answers, then a free account, no credit card. The exam fee is paid to the Linux Foundation, not to GoldenKube.

How hard is CCA?

CCA is hard because it is wide. Eight domains share the exam: Architecture 20%, Network Policy 18%, Service Mesh 16%, Network Observability, Installation and Configuration, Cluster Mesh and eBPF 10% each, and BGP and External Networking 6%. The three biggest are only 54% together, so 46% of the paper sits in domains that candidates tend to treat as optional extras. The topics also stack on Kubernetes networking: if you cannot explain how a Service routes traffic, identity-based policy and Cluster Mesh will not make sense. The eBPF and BGP domains are small but use unfamiliar vocabulary. This guide does not quote pass rates; the practical test is explaining each of the eight domains in two sentences without notes.

CCA has the widest domain list of the practice certifications: eight domains, with Architecture at 20%, Network Policy at 18% and Service Mesh at 16% leading, then Network Observability, Installation and Configuration, Cluster Mesh and eBPF at 10% each, and BGP and External Networking at 6%. No domain is so large that it can carry the exam, so you need working knowledge across every one of them.

The material sits on Kubernetes networking, so weak foundations in Services, CNI and NetworkPolicy make everything harder. On top of that come Cilium specifics: the agent and operator, identity-based policy and how it differs from the standard NetworkPolicy, Hubble flows, multi-cluster connectivity and the role of eBPF in the datapath. The eBPF and BGP domains are small, but they use vocabulary that is unfamiliar if you have never worked with them.

Spend your first session on how traffic flows between Pods in a cluster without Cilium, because every Cilium feature is defined as a change to that picture. Then add one feature per session, and use the Cilium documentation diagrams to anchor each one.

Registration, scheduling and retakes

Register through the official CCA certification page on the Linux Foundation site. Delivery is described as: Online, proctored, multiple-choice. Prerequisites: None (page recommends Kubernetes and basic networking knowledge). Retake policy: One retake per exam purchase if a passing score is not achieved. These statements were checked on 23 October 2026 against the pages listed under Resources. The rules for identification, the testing environment and rescheduling are set by the Linux Foundation, so read its candidate documentation for the current requirements before you book. Book a slot only after your practice results are stable across every domain, leave a buffer between your last study session and the exam, and keep the confirmation details somewhere you can find them quickly.

The Cilium documentation is versioned, so use the stable docs and check the official page for the curriculum that applies; the curriculum row above shows only what the Linux Foundation publishes.

A retake is covered by the stated policy, but treat the first attempt as the real one and use the weights above to decide where your remaining study time goes.

A 3-week CCA study plan

This 3-week plan orders the CCA domains by how much of the exam they carry and how much each one builds on the others. Each week has one focus, and the table lists the domains it covers. The intent is to read the official material for a domain, then answer practice questions on it, then read the explanations for every miss. Adjust the pace to your background: someone who already works with the technology daily can compress it, and someone new to it should stretch each week. Keep a short list of the questions you missed and reread it on the last day, since repeated misses mark the real gaps.

Spend roughly the same share of time on a domain as it carries in the exam, then add extra time wherever your practice accuracy is lowest. In GoldenKube you can focus on a single domain, or let smart practice pick the domain where you are weakest.

In the last few days, stop learning new material. Run mixed practice, review only the questions you missed, and sleep properly before the exam.

Resources

Start from the official CCA certification page, which holds the current domain list, the fee and the booking link. For the subject itself, use the project's own documentation, Cilium documentation (docs.cilium.io), which is the best single source for terminology and behaviour. Then use GoldenKube practice questions on the CCA practice page to test recall, and revisit the documentation for every explanation that surprised you. Official pages are the source for facts that can change, such as the fee and the format, so check them again in the week you book. The links are listed below this section, and each fact in this guide was checked against them on the date shown above.

• Official CCA certification page and exam details on the Linux Foundation site.
• Cilium documentation (docs.cilium.io).
• GoldenKube CCA practice questions, free to start with 10 guest answers.

Frequently asked questions