CCNA 200-301 v2.0: what changes on February 3, 2027

The short version

Cisco published the 200-301 CCNA v2.0 exam topics on May 20, 2026 and said the refreshed exam would be available on February 3, 2027. A second blog post on July 1, 2026 fixed the other side of the date: the last day of testing for v1.1 is February 2, 2027. There is no overlap. The day the calendar turns, every CCNA candidate sits v2.0.

The exam code does not change: the new PDF is titled "Implementing and Administering Cisco Solutions (200-301 CCNA) v2.0". The length does not change either: 120 minutes in both PDFs and on Cisco's exam page. What changes is the blueprint. Cisco's words, from the May 2026 post, are "the first major CCNA blueprint change since 2019" and an exam that "will test learners' practical skills". The July post says v2.0 "isn't a total overhaul" but "takes a different approach to the depth of each topic", with "practical assessments, security and AI woven throughout, and more troubleshooting tasks".

Everything below comes from the v1.1 and v2.0 exam topics PDFs, the v1.1 release notes, three posts on Cisco's Learning blog and Cisco's exam pages and policies. Where Cisco does not publish something, such as the passing score or the number of questions, we say so.

Change 2: what is new in v2.0

Comparing the two PDFs text against text, these topics appear in v2.0 and had no equivalent in v1.1:

• Hypervisors, virtual machines and containers as an explicit topic (1.2), and virtualized hosts and network appliances as access-port endpoints (2.2).
• Troubleshooting DHCPv4 client, server and relay on IOS devices (1.7). v1.1 asked only for client and relay.
• PoE, IoT appliances and voice phones as edge-host port attributes (2.2).
• Validating network documentation with CDP and LLDP (2.3) and troubleshooting with show commands, extended ping, traceroute and packet capture output (2.4).
• OSPFv3 for IPv6 alongside single-area OSPFv2 (3.3), with neighbor adjacencies explicitly "excluding authentication".
• AAA client configuration with TACACS+ and RADIUS (4.1), replacing the v1.1 "compare AAA concepts".
• SFTP and SCP for configuration and software files (4.2), replacing TFTP and FTP.
• DNS record types A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, NS and PTR (4.4).
• Storm control and RA guard added to Layer 2 security (4.7), next to DHCP snooping, dynamic ARP inspection and port security.
• Agentic AI in network operations (5.1) and selecting a prompt for a generative AI system, considering data classification, output format, persona and instructions (5.2).
• Ansible "to execute commands" (5.5), a hands-on verb where v1.1 only asked you to recognize capabilities.

Change 3: what was dropped

These v1.1 topics do not appear in the v2.0 PDF: comparing TCP to UDP (1.5); two-tier, three-tier and spine-leaf topologies (1.2); NTP client and server mode (4.2); QoS per-hop behavior (4.7); TFTP and FTP (4.9); the wireless LAN controller GUI and WPA2-PSK configuration in the GUI (2.9, 5.10); Cisco wireless architectures and AP modes (2.6); REST APIs and CRUD (6.5); JSON (6.7); Terraform by name (6.6); controller-based and software-defined overlay, underlay and fabric (6.2, 6.3), which survive only as "network management approaches" in 5.3; and the security program concepts of threats, vulnerabilities, user awareness and password policy elements (5.1, 5.2, 5.4). BPDU filter is gone from the spanning-tree topic; root guard, loop guard and BPDU guard stay.

The PDF warns that "additional related topics may be included in any given exam version", so dropped means unlisted, not forbidden. Cisco has not published an official v1.1-to-v2.0 release-notes document that we could find; this comparison is ours, made from the two PDFs.

Change 5: the AI section

The v2.0 exam description adds a sentence v1.1 did not have: "you may be required to evaluate output and recommendations from agentic AI and digital network assistants to support network operations and troubleshooting activities". Section 5.0 (10%) then lists six topics: the role of agentic AI in network operations; selecting a prompt for a generative AI system, considering data classification, output format, persona and instructions; device-based, cloud-based, controller-based, automation-based and infrastructure-as-code management approaches; SNMP; Ansible to execute commands; and syslog message content, severity levels and facilities.

Read the AI topics as judgment questions, not product questions. The likely shape is an assistant's suggested fix or diagnosis that you must check against show output or a routing table, and a choice between prompts where one leaks a data classification or omits the output format. Cisco does not publish how many items the section has beyond its 10% weight.

Which version should you study?

How to prepare for v2.0

1. 1

   Rebuild your plan around five sections

   Give infrastructure and switching half of your time, routing a fifth, services and security a fifth, and the AI and operations section a tenth, matching 25/25/20/20/10.

2. 2

   Practice the verbs

   For every topic that says troubleshoot, configure or diagnose, do it on a lab or simulator: a trunk that will not form, a DHCP relay that drops requests, an OSPFv3 adjacency stuck in a state, an ACL that blocks the wrong traffic.

3. 3

   Learn the additions as a block

   OSPFv3, AAA client configuration, SFTP and SCP, DNS record types, storm control, RA guard, hypervisors and containers, and the six AI and operations topics. They are new to everyone, so they are where question writers will look.

4. 4

   Use questions written to the v2.0 topics

   Older banks still ask about NTP, QoS and JSON and still weight routing at 25%. Practice on exams weighted 25/25/20/20/10 and read every option's explanation.

Start with the 10 free CCNA v2.0 questions. If you are building a broader IT base first, the A+ Core 1 practice test and the Security+ 30-day plan cover the networking and security fundamentals that v2.0 assumes. All courses are on the catalog.