Salesforce Platform Developer Exam (2026): What It Really Tests

The Salesforce Platform Developer exam (formerly Platform Developer I, still PD1 to most people) needs 68% to pass. You get 60 scored questions in 105 minutes, and the exam guide says the questions align to the Summer '25 release.

That last line matters more on this exam than on most. The Apex Developer Guide is now on Winter '27, and one release in between, Summer '26, changed Apex's default security behavior from API version 67.0. The exam still tests the Summer '25 rules. We'll get to what that means below.

Everything here was checked against the official exam guide and the Apex Developer Guide on October 17, 2026. Anything we couldn't confirm on an official Salesforce page is left out.

The exam at a glance

60 multiple-choice questions, plus up to 5 unscored questions mixed in at random.
105 minutes.
Passing score: 68%.
US$200 to register, US$100 to retake, plus local taxes.
No prerequisite. Salesforce recommends the Platform Administrator certification but doesn't require it.
Proctored, at a test center or online. No notes or online materials allowed.
Questions align to the Summer '25 release.
It's the prerequisite for Platform Developer II.

68% of 60 is about 41 correct answers, so you can miss roughly 19. With up to 65 questions in 105 minutes, you have a little over a minute and a half per question, and questions that ask what a block of Apex will do use that time up fast.

The guide describes the target candidate as someone with 1 to 2 years of development experience and at least 6 months on the Lightning Platform.

The section weights, read as a study budget

Section	Weight	Roughly this many questions
Process Automation and Logic	28%	17
Developer Fundamentals	27%	16
User Interface	25%	15
Testing, Debugging, and Deployment	20%	12

Salesforce publishes percentages, not question counts, so the right-hand column is our estimate.

Process Automation and Logic and Developer Fundamentals are 55% of the exam between them. User Interface is a quarter of it, which is more than many developers who spend their days in Apex expect. Testing, Debugging, and Deployment is the smallest section and still about 12 questions.

Process Automation and Logic (28%)

This is the largest section and the most Apex-heavy. Its objectives cover variables, constants, modifiers and interfaces; control flow; SOQL, SOSL and DML; trigger best practices; governor limits; exception handling, including custom exceptions; and using declarative tools and Apex together. One objective asks you to describe how Apex transactions relate to the save order of execution, recursion and cascading.

The order of execution, the part that gets tested

Here's the stretch of the Apex Developer Guide's sequence that scenario questions usually turn on, with the guide's own step numbers:

Step 3: record-triggered flows set to run before save.
Step 4: before triggers.
Step 5: custom validation rules run, and most system validation runs again.
Step 6: duplicate rules. A block action stops the save here.
Step 7: the record is saved to the database, but not committed.
Step 8: after triggers.
Steps 9 to 13: assignment, auto-response, workflow and escalation rules, then processes and flows launched by workflow rules.
Step 14: record-triggered flows set to run after save.
Steps 15 to 18: entitlement rules, roll-up summary updates on the parent and then the grandparent, and criteria-based sharing.
Step 19: everything commits.
Step 20: post-commit logic, such as sending email, queueable jobs and future methods, and asynchronous paths in record-triggered flows.

Four traps come straight out of that list.

A before-save flow runs before any before trigger. It's easy to get backwards.
For most saves, custom validation rules run at step 5, after before triggers, so a before trigger can correct a value that would otherwise fail validation.
Workflow field updates send the record round again: before and after update triggers run one more time, and only once more. In that second run, Trigger.old still holds the values from before the original update, not the ones the workflow set. Workflow rules lost support on December 31, 2025, but existing ones still run, and they're still in the sequence.
When several triggers exist for the same object and event, Salesforce doesn't guarantee which one runs first.

Governor limits worth knowing cold

The current Apex Developer Guide lists these per-transaction limits:

100 SOQL queries, or 200 in asynchronous Apex.
50,000 records retrieved by SOQL.
20 SOSL queries.
150 DML statements.
10,000 records processed by DML.
10,000 milliseconds of CPU time, or 60,000 in asynchronous Apex.

In practice, limits are a bulkification problem. A query or DML statement inside a loop works fine for one record and hits the 100-query limit once enough records arrive in the same transaction.

Developer Fundamentals (27%)

This section covers multitenancy and MVC, declarative versus programmatic choices (with governor limits, formula fields and roll-up summaries named in the objective), and the data model, including relationships and external IDs. It also has one newer objective: the use cases and limitations of Agentforce for Developers.

A naming note on that one. Trailhead now calls the tool the Agentforce Vibes extension, formerly Agentforce for Developers, while the exam guide still uses the old name. It's Salesforce's AI-powered developer tool for VS Code: an agentic chat, inline completions in Apex and Lightning Web Component files, and code generated from natural-language prompts. Learn it under both names.

The declarative-versus-programmatic objective is written as a scenario judgment. Given a requirement, would you reach for a formula field, a roll-up summary, a flow or Apex? Knowing what each declarative feature can't do is half of that answer.

User Interface (25%)

Four objectives: preventing user interface and data access security vulnerabilities; displaying and using Lightning components, Flow and Visualforce; the use cases, benefits and events of Lightning Web Components; and writing Apex that works with page components, including Lightning components, Flow and Agentforce.

Visualforce is still in the outline. So is security. The guide's own reading list points to Security Tips for Apex and Visualforce Development, which covers cross-site scripting, unescaped output and formulas in Visualforce pages, cross-site request forgery, SOQL injection and data access control.

The Agentforce part of that last objective is smaller than it sounds. An Apex method annotated with @InvocableMethod can be called from flows and from Agentforce agents, as well as from REST and Apex. Only one method in a class can carry the annotation, it has to be static and public or global, and it takes at most one input parameter, usually a list.

The security default changed after your exam's release

From API version 67.0 (Summer '26), the Apex Developer Guide says Apex runs in user context by default, classes without a sharing declaration run with sharing, and WITH SECURITY_ENFORCED can't be used in SOQL queries in Apex. For API version 66.0 and earlier, system mode is still the default.

Your exam aligns to Summer '25, before any of that. Expect it to assume the old defaults: system mode unless you ask for user mode, and WITH SECURITY_ENFORCED as a valid clause. If you write Apex at work on a current API version, some exam answers will run against habits your org no longer has. We covered the change in Apex Defaults to User Mode in Summer '26.

Testing, Debugging, and Deployment (20%)

The objectives cover writing tests for triggers, controllers, classes and flows; when to use Salesforce DX, the Salesforce CLI and the Developer Console; debugging and monitoring flows, performance, and asynchronous and batch jobs; and the environments and process for deploying code and configuration.

The deployment number to know: unit tests must cover at least 75% of your Apex code, and those tests must pass. Classes annotated with @isTest don't count toward the calculation, and neither does a System.debug() statement on a line by itself.

Notice flows in that first objective. The exam expects you to know that flows get tested too, not only Apex.

What's not on the exam

The guide is explicit about what a candidate isn't expected to do: administer standard Salesforce applications, build mobile applications, develop and publish managed products on AppExchange, do performance tuning, or design integrations such as callouts, APIs and email services.

Integration gets its own weight in Platform Developer II, where Process Automation, Logic, and Integration is 27% of the exam. For this one, leave callout patterns for later.

How to split your study time

Start with Process Automation and Logic. Write triggers in a Developer Edition org or a Trailhead Playground, bulkify them, then break one on purpose with a query inside a loop and read the error.
Learn the order of execution well enough to sketch it from memory, including where before-save and after-save flows sit.
Don't skip User Interface because you're an Apex person. It's a quarter of the exam, and it includes Visualforce and the security tips.
Write a test for a flow, not only for Apex classes.
Learn both security models: the Summer '25 defaults the exam uses and the API 67.0 defaults you may be coding against.
Practice under time pressure, at about a minute and a half per question.

Salesforce's recommended self-study for this exam is the Study for the Platform Developer Exam trail and the Prepare for Your Salesforce Platform Developer Certification Trailmix. The recommended instructor-led course is DEX450, Build Applications Programmatically on the Salesforce Platform.

Keeping it once you pass

Platform Developer is maintained with one Trailhead maintenance badge a year, and the same badge also maintains Platform Developer II. The current one, Winter '26, is due December 4, 2026 (Pacific Time). If you already hold the certification, check your date now: Salesforce Certification Maintenance Due Date: Dec 4, 2026.

Frequently asked questions

What happened to Platform Developer I?

The current exam guide calls the certification Salesforce Certified Platform Developer, without the "I". It's still the prerequisite for Platform Developer II.

Is there a prerequisite for the Platform Developer exam?

No. Salesforce recommends the Platform Administrator certification, but it isn't required.

What's the passing score?

68%.

Are callouts and integrations on the exam?

No. The guide says candidates aren't expected to design integrations such as callouts, APIs and email services.

Does the exam test the Summer '26 user mode changes?

The guide says questions align to Summer '25, which comes before API version 67.0. Study the earlier defaults for the exam, and the new ones for your day job.

I failed. What now?

A retake costs US$100. Before you rebook, read your section results against the weights above. We wrote a full guide: Failed a Salesforce Certification? Here's What to Do Next.

Practice against the current outline

Our Platform Developer practice course has 110 original scenario questions, and every option comes with an explanation, including why each wrong answer is wrong. We re-checked the bank against the current exam guide in September 2026 and corrected what didn't hold up. You can try 5 questions free.

Start the Platform Developer practice course

If you'd like to see how we write questions first, the Platform Administrator course is free: forceacademy.io/course/platform-admin.

Sources

Salesforce Certified Platform Developer Exam Guide - Salesforce Help
Triggers and Order of Execution - Apex Developer Guide
Execution Governors and Limits - Apex Developer Guide
Apex Security and Sharing Model - Apex Developer Guide
Testing and Code Coverage - Apex Developer Guide
InvocableMethod Annotation - Apex Developer Guide
Security Tips for Apex and Visualforce Development - Visualforce Developer Guide
Explore Agentforce Vibes: Enhancing Developer Productivity - Trailhead
Salesforce Workflow Rules & Process Builder End of Support - Salesforce Help
Salesforce Certified Platform Developer II Exam Guide - Salesforce Help
Salesforce Certification Maintenance Schedule - Salesforce Help