If you are studying for the CCNA right now, there is one date that should shape your plan: 2 February 2027 is the last day to sit exam 200-301 v1.1. The next day, 3 February 2027, the refreshed v2.0 blueprint goes live. Cisco announced the change on 20 May 2026, and it is the biggest reshaping of the CCNA in over six years.

The short answer

If you can be exam-ready before 2 February 2027, sit v1.1. Your study materials, labs and practice questions all already target it, and there is no advantage in waiting for a blueprint whose ecosystem of resources will take months to catch up. If you are starting from scratch late in 2026, or you know you will not be ready in time, plan for v2.0 and study the new topics from the beginning rather than learning v1.1 and then patching it.

  • Last v1.1 sitting 2 February 2027
  • v2.0 goes live 3 February 2027
  • Announced 20 May 2026
  • Exam code unchanged — still 200-301
  • Biggest change troubleshooting-level questions return after a five-year absence
  • Also new AI content, and a heavier emphasis on operational analysis

What actually changes in v2.0

Troubleshooting comes back

This is the headline. The CCNA dropped a dedicated troubleshooting emphasis five years ago, and v2.0 brings that style of question back. Expect to be shown a broken configuration or a symptom and asked what is wrong — not merely what a protocol does. That is a genuinely different skill from recall, and it is the part of v2.0 that most rewards hands-on lab time over reading.

AI arrives properly

v1.1 already added AI to the automation domain at a conceptual level. v2.0 goes further, reflecting how much network operations now leans on machine assistance. If you have been treating the AI bullets as skippable, that stops being safe.

The exam code does not change

Worth stating plainly, because it causes confusion every cycle: it is still 200-301. You will not see "v2.0" on your booking confirmation the way you would see a new code like N10-009 or SY0-801. The version is determined by when you sit, not by what you book. That is exactly why the date matters more than usual here.

Should you sit now or wait?

Sit v1.1 if…

You are already mid-study, you have labs running, or you can realistically be ready before 2 February 2027. There is nothing second-class about a CCNA earned on v1.1 — the certification is the same, and it carries the same three-year validity. Certifications are not retroactively downgraded when a blueprint refreshes.

Wait for v2.0 if…

You are starting more or less from zero in late 2026, or your employer will not fund a resit. Learning v1.1 thoroughly and then re-learning the changed portions is more work than learning v2.0 once. It is also worth waiting if troubleshooting is the skill you actually want from the study, because v2.0 will push you harder on it.

The one trap

Do not book for late January 2027 as a hedge and assume you can slip. If you fail a sitting on, say, 28 January, your resit will almost certainly fall after the cutover — on a blueprint you did not revise. Leave enough room before 2 February for one retake, or accept that a failure means switching to v2.0.

What stays the same

Most of it. Network fundamentals, switching and VLANs, IP connectivity and routing, IP services and security fundamentals all carry over. Subnetting remains the single highest-yield skill on the paper and is completely unaffected by the version change — if you are waiting for v2.0, subnetting is the thing to drill in the meantime, because not one minute of it will be wasted.

How to prepare either way

Whichever version you sit, the study pattern is the same. Get subnetting to the point where block size and boundaries are automatic. Learn to place any device, protocol or fault on an OSI layer before answering. Know the route-selection tie-breaks in order — longest prefix, then lowest administrative distance, then lowest metric. And do the configuration work: VLANs, OSPF adjacencies and ACLs are simulation material, and simulations cannot be bluffed.

PassNova has 200 CCNA practice questions with an explanation on every answer, plus six timed mocks. The first 15 are free to try. The full bank, an AI study tutor and a downloadable CCNA study guide come with PassNova Premium at £4.99 a month with a 7-day free trial.

For transparency, because it is your exam and not ours: PassNova's CCNA bank follows the v1.x structure and does not include a dedicated automation-and-programmability section, which is roughly 10% of the v1.1 paper. Pair it with Cisco's own exam topics for that area. And confirm the dates above against Cisco's exam page before you book — they were verified in August 2026 against several independent training providers, but Cisco is the only authoritative source for which version applies on your sitting date.