FLDTEC 800-150: What the New Cisco Field Technician Exam Actually Covers

What Cisco Exam Actually Certifies

The 800-150 FLDTEC exam is Cisco's single gateway into the Cisco Certified Field Technician (CCT) credential, and it exists to answer one narrow question: can you show up at a customer site and physically fix, replace, or recover a piece of Cisco gear without breaking anything else in the process? It's less about designing networks and more about knowing which end of a Nexus switch to pull the fan tray from, how to pull a configuration off a dying device before you swap it, and how to bring a replacement back to a known-good state.

That focus separates it from almost every other Cisco exam on the books. Associate and Professional-level exams assume you're configuring and troubleshooting logically, often from a terminal, often remotely. FLDTEC assumes you're standing in a data center or a wiring closet with a screwdriver, an ESD strap, and a customer watching the clock.

Who This Exam Is For (and Who It's Not For)

This exam suits field engineers, TAC-adjacent hardware technicians, and depot or logistics staff who handle on-site swaps for routing, switching, data center, UCS, and collaboration hardware. If your job title includes "field engineer," "dispatch technician," or you work returns/replacement logistics for a Cisco reseller or partner, this is built for you.

It's a poor fit if you're aiming to design or operate networks at a protocol level — CCNA or the CCST Networking credential cover that ground far better. It's also not a software or automation exam; if your interest is Python, APIs, or infrastructure-as-code around Cisco gear, look toward the DevNet or CCNP Automation tracks instead.

Exam Format and Structure

Two hours is generous by Cisco's usual 90-minute standard, and that extra time reflects the exam's breadth rather than its difficulty on any single question. You're not doing deep, multi-step configuration scenarios — you're covering a lot of physical and procedural ground: cabling standards, boot processes, licensing models, image management, and hardware-specific replacement steps across five different product families. Expect a mix of straightforward recall questions (locate a serial number, identify a connector type) alongside scenario items that describe a failed device and ask what step comes next in the replacement or recovery process.

Domains and Weightings

Cisco publishes the following breakdown for the 800-150 v1.0 blueprint:

Domain 5 carries more than a third of the exam on its own, and it's the most concrete of the six: safety and ESD protocols, the actual replacement process for Catalyst switches, ISR and ASR routers, Cisco 8000 and NCS platforms, Secure Firewall, Nexus and MDS switches, the full UCS B/C/X-Series lineup, and collaboration endpoints. If you only have time to go deep on one domain, this is it — everything else on the exam is context that supports the hands-on work Domain 5 tests directly.

Cost Breakdown

The exam itself is $200 USD, payable directly through Pearson VUE or via Cisco Learning Credits if your employer purchases them in bulk. Cisco doesn't publish a separate retake fee structure for FLDTEC — a failed attempt means paying the standard $200 again, subject to Cisco's mandatory five-calendar-day wait before rescheduling. There's no bundled voucher program specific to this exam at the time of writing; regional pricing in currencies outside USD is set by Pearson VUE at checkout and can vary from the US list price.

Prerequisites and Eligibility

There are no formal prerequisites. Cisco positions this as a genuine entry point — you don't need a prior CCNA, CCST, or any other credential to sit for it. That's a deliberate choice: the CCT track exists partly to bring people into the Cisco ecosystem from adjacent hardware or IT support backgrounds who haven't necessarily worked through Cisco's associate-level curriculum first.

How the Exam Is Scored and What Passing Requires

Cisco uses a scaled scoring model for FLDTEC, the same approach it applies across most of its certification exams, and it does not publish the passing threshold or the total possible items in the same way some vendors do. Your score report after the exam shows a pass/fail result along with a breakdown by domain, which is useful for identifying weak areas even if you pass — and essential if you don't.

Renewal and Recertification

The CCT Field Technician certification is valid for three years. To recertify, Cisco gives you several options rather than locking you into retaking FLDTEC specifically: pass the current FLDTEC exam again, pass any current Associate-level exam, pass any current technology core or concentration exam, or pass a CCDE written exam or CCIE lab exam. One detail worth flagging because people assume otherwise: Continuing Education credits do not count toward CCT recertification the way they do for higher-tier certifications. You have to sit another exam.

How Cisco Exam Compares to Its Closest Alternatives

Inside Cisco's own portfolio, the nearest neighbor is CCST Networking — but the two serve different purposes. CCST Networking is cheaper, broader, and entirely conceptual; it validates that you understand networking fundamentals without testing your ability to physically service equipment. FLDTEC assumes that foundational knowledge (it's folded into Domain 1) and builds the hands-on hardware layer on top of it. Someone choosing between the two should ask whether their job involves a screwdriver or just a terminal window.

Outside Cisco, the closest vendor-neutral equivalent is CompTIA A+, which also certifies hardware installation, cabling, and device support skills but without any Cisco-specific product knowledge — no Nexus, no UCS, no IOS-XE licensing quirks. A+ is the better choice for general IT hardware support across mixed-vendor environments; FLDTEC is the better choice if your paycheck depends specifically on Cisco gear.

It's also worth knowing what FLDTEC replaced: until February 2025, this ground was covered by three separate 90-minute exams — CLTECH (collaboration), DCTECH (data center), and RSTECH (routing and switching) — each earning its own narrower CCT concentration. Cisco folded all three into this single, broader exam. If you hold one of the older CCT concentrations, it remains valid until it expires, but recertifying now means sitting FLDTEC rather than the exam you originally passed.

 Preparation Timeline

For someone already working in a field or depot support role who touches Cisco hardware regularly, two to four weeks of focused review is usually enough — most of the exam maps to muscle memory you already have, and the gap is filling in the domains you don't touch day-to-day (collaboration endpoints if you're a data center specialist, or UCS internals if you mostly handle switches). For someone entering from outside Cisco hardware support entirely, plan on six to eight weeks, with extra time on Domain 5's device-by-device replacement steps and Domain 1's addressing and cabling fundamentals if networking theory is new to you.