MS-900 Complete Guide: Microsoft 365 Fundamentals

Microsoft Certified: Microsoft 365 Fundamentals (MS-900) was the Fundamentals-tier exam that covered the entire Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) SaaS product suite. It retired on March 31, 2026, and the retirement covered the entire certification, not just the exam. Microsoft has explicitly stated that "No new Certification is planned" — there is no successor. You can no longer book or sit MS-900, and there is no longer any Microsoft 365 Fundamentals credential to earn in its place. This article is kept as a record of what MS-900 covered: the scope of the retirement, what it means if you already hold the badge, the four domains and the license SKU lineup it tested, and what options remain for anyone who wants to learn Microsoft 365 today.

Another distinctive trait of MS-900 was that it was also tuned for IT sales reps, SaaS sales reps, consultants, and procurement. Sales and SE roles at Microsoft partners and SI firms commonly took it alongside AZ-900 as a "cloud-era business card." Unlike other Fundamentals exams, MS-900 emphasized business value and license selection over technical depth — which is exactly the audience left without a replacement credential by the retirement.

Retired March 31, 2026 — Certification-Wide, With No Successor

MS-900 retired on March 31, 2026. Two points matter about the scope. First, the retirement covered the whole certification — Microsoft Certified: Microsoft 365 Fundamentals — not just the exam, so the credential itself is gone from the active catalog. Second, and unusually, Microsoft has not named a successor. The official certification page states plainly that "No new Certification is planned."That is different from the Azure-side retirements of the same period (AI-900 → AI-901, AI-102 → AI-103, AZ-204 → AI-200), where a replacement exam or certification was announced alongside the retirement. For Microsoft 365 Fundamentals, nothing was announced to take its place.

If you already hold MS-900: a retirement means the exam can no longer be taken; it is not a revocation of badges already earned. MS-900 was a Fundamentals credential with no expiry date, so there was never a renewal assessment to lose. Treat it as a credential you still hold but can no longer point people at, and be aware that hiring managers will increasingly not recognise it as a current certification.

MS-900 Exam Basics (As of Retirement)

The MS-900 spec mirrored AZ-900 / DP-900 / SC-900. 45 minutes, 40-60 questions, passing score 700 / 1000, $99 (about 13,200 yen), available in 13 languages including Japanese, and no expiry. It was delivered via Pearson VUE — either online with OnVUE or at a test center — and required no coding. These are the figures as of retirement; they no longer describe anything you can book.

The four domains below are a record of what MS-900 tested as of its retirement. You cannot sit the exam, but the outline still works as a table of contents for understanding Microsoft 365 systematically.

Domain 1: Cloud Concepts (5-10%)

This is the lowest-weighted introductory domain, covering the same foundational concepts as AZ-900. You're tested at the conceptual level on when to use SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS, the public, private, and hybrid cloud models, CapEx vs. OpEx, and the shared responsibility model. Anyone holding AZ-900 — which is still a current exam — had essentially already covered this domain.

Domain 2: Microsoft 365 Apps and Services (45-50%)

The highest-weighted domain, covering the main Microsoft 365 SaaS lineup. The services it covered break down into 6 categories.

1) Productivity Apps: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, and Forms. You're tested on the difference between Microsoft 365 Apps (formerly Office 365 ProPlus, the locally installed version) and the web versions, plus the conceptual integration with Microsoft 365 Copilot.

2) Collaboration: Microsoft Teams (chat, meetings, calling), SharePoint Online (team sites, portals), OneDrive (personal storage), Loop (collaborative canvas), and Viva (employee experience). Teams gets especially heavy coverage — expect frequent questions on core features like channels, tabs, app integrations, Live Events, and Town Hall.

3) Email / Calendar: Exchange Online (mail platform), Outlook (client), and Exchange Online Protection (EOP, spam filtering). You need to distinguish Exchange Online as the Microsoft 365 mail platform from Outlook as the client that consumes it.

4) Microsoft 365 Copilot: Explicitly added to the exam scope in the 2024 update. Recurring topics: Copilot integration in Word / Excel / PowerPoint / Outlook / Teams, accessing organizational data via Microsoft Graph, building custom agents with Copilot Studio (formerly Power Virtual Agents), and the Copilot license positioning ($30 per user per month). Copilot had become the key differentiator on MS-900 in its final revisions.

5) Device Management: Microsoft Intune (formerly Endpoint Manager), covering Mobile Device Management (MDM) and Mobile Application Management (MAM). Representative features include BYOD support, integration with Conditional Access, and automated Windows 11 provisioning via Autopilot.

6) Power Platform Integration: Power BI (BI), Power Apps (low-code apps), Power Automate (RPA and workflows), and Power Pages (websites). Tested at the conceptual level as the integration layer linking Microsoft 365 and Azure.

Domain 3: Security, Compliance, and Privacy (25-30%)

This domain partially overlaps with SC-900, covering security and compliance specifically in the Microsoft 365 context. The core is Microsoft Entra ID (the Microsoft 365 identity platform), Microsoft Defender for Office 365 (phishing protection for mail / Teams / SharePoint), Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps (SaaS CASB), and Microsoft Purview (sensitivity labels, DLP, Insider Risk, eDiscovery).

Recurring topics in this domain include Service Trust Portal (Microsoft's compliance document repository — free downloads for SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, etc.), Compliance Manager (a dashboard tracking regulatory compliance progress), and the Privacy by Design principles. More recent topics like Microsoft's Responsible AI principles and EU Data Boundary (keeping EU data within the region) on Microsoft Cloud are also fair game.

Domain 4: Pricing, Licensing, Support, and Lifecycle (10-15%)

This domain covered Microsoft 365 license SKUs, and it was the part that mapped most directly to sales and procurement work. It came down to 4 main families.

A frequent test target is "the difference between E3 and E5." E5 adds higher-tier features on top of E3 — Microsoft Defender XDR, Microsoft Purview Premium, Power BI Pro, and Microsoft Teams Phone — at roughly double the monthly per-user price. On top of that, the Microsoft 365 Copilot license (+$30) is sold as an add-on to existing SKUs, requiring an underlying E3, E5, or Business Premium subscription. Support plans (Standard / Professional Direct / Unified Enterprise) and lifecycle policies (Modern Lifecycle / Fixed Lifecycle Policy) also appear at the conceptual level.

Before Retirement, Official Resources Alone Were Enough

MS-900 was fully passable using only Microsoft's official resources: the Microsoft Learn MS-900 learning path, the free voucher from Virtual Training Day: Microsoft 365 Fundamentals, and the official Practice Assessment. Working professionals who already used Microsoft 365 day-to-day could realistically pass in as little as 1-2 weeks. All of that was tied to the exam, so with the retirement the voucher route and the Practice Assessment are gone as well. The underlying Microsoft 365 product documentation and Microsoft Learn training remain free, and that is where the content lives now.

The 4-Week Study Roadmap Used Before Retirement (For the Record)

This is what the standard preparation looked like, kept here as a record of how the material was usually sequenced — it is no longer a plan you can execute toward an exam. Week 1: Domain 1 and the first half of Domain 2 (Teams / Exchange / SharePoint) via Microsoft Learn. Week 2: the rest of Domain 2 (Copilot / Intune / Power Platform) plus Virtual Training Day Part 1. Week 3: Domain 3 (security and compliance) plus Virtual Training Day Part 2 to earn the voucher. Week 4: Domain 4 (licensing) and the Practice Assessment repeated to 80%+. For license SKUs, printing Microsoft's official Modern Workplace Bundle Comparison page and taping it to your desk was the popular trick — and that page is still a useful reference for the licensing work itself.

With MS-900 Gone: How to Learn Microsoft 365 Now

There is no drop-in replacement, and it would be wrong to name one: Microsoft explicitly says no new certification is planned for Microsoft 365 Fundamentals. What does exist is the following. The content itself is still fully documented — the Microsoft Learn training modules and the Microsoft 365 product documentation that MS-900 was built on remain free and are still updated, so you can learn Teams, Exchange, SharePoint, Intune, Copilot, and the license SKUs without an exam attached. For adjacent Fundamentals credentials that are still current, AZ-900 (Azure Fundamentals) and SC-900 (Security, Compliance, and Identity Fundamentals) both remain bookable, and each overlaps part of what MS-900 covered — AZ-900 the cloud-concepts domain, SC-900 the Entra ID and Purview material. Neither one covers the Microsoft 365 SaaS and licensing content that was MS-900's core.

On the administration side, MS-102 (Microsoft 365 Administrator Expert) is still bookable, but it is not the successor to MS-900: it sits at Expert tier, assumes hands-on tenant administration, and is itself scheduled to retire on November 30, 2026, with Microsoft 365 Certified: AI Services Administrator Associate (Exam AB-650) announced as its successor. It is a serious jump from a Fundamentals exam, not a next step of similar difficulty. For Microsoft 365 security, SC-401 (Microsoft Certified: Information Security Administrator Associate) is current — it is the successor to the retired SC-400, and Microsoft also points MS-500 holders toward SC-200 / SC-300 / SC-401. For Teams, MS-721 (Collaboration Communications Systems Engineer Associate), and for endpoint management, MD-102 (Endpoint Administrator Associate) — check the official pages for their current status before planning around either.

Frequently Asked Questions

Exam information in this article is based on the official Microsoft Learn MS-900 page and the official Study Guide. This article is not an official Microsoft Corporation product, and there is no partnership or sponsorship relationship of any kind. Microsoft, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, Exchange, Outlook, Microsoft Intune, and Microsoft Copilot are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies. Information reflects officially published materials as of May 24, 2026. Always confirm the latest details on the official pages.