PMP Exam Day Checklist 2026: What to Bring & What to Avoid

I have sat the PMP exam, coached more than two hundred candidates through their exam day, and watched preventable mistakes derail otherwise well-prepared people more times than I care to admit. The pattern is consistent. People over-invest in content review and under-invest in operational readiness. They walk into the test centre or log into the proctored session having no idea what counts as a permitted snack, whether their kitchen counter is legal as a test surface, or what to do when the screen freezes on question 47.

This article is the operational checklist I give every candidate I coach. It is not a strategy article - I have a separate piece on [PMP exam day strategy](https://www.techademy.com/pmp-exam-day-strategy) for question-handling tactics. This one is about logistics. What to pack. What to eat. What to wear. What the proctor will say. What happens during the breaks. What to do if your laptop loses power, your neighbour starts coughing, or your cat walks across the keyboard.

I have organised it as two parallel checklists - in-person at a Pearson VUE centre, and online with the OnVUE proctoring software - because the rules diverge significantly. Read whichever section matches your booking, and skim the other one if you might switch formats. The last sections on the 24-hour pre-exam routine, food and sleep, and post-exam steps apply to both formats. Print this article, tick the boxes the night before, and you will eliminate one entire category of exam-day failure modes.

The week before the exam is for tapering, not cramming. I tell my candidates to switch from heavy content review to light reinforcement. Here is the operational schedule I recommend:

• Day 7 (one week out): Confirm your booking on the PMI portal. Re-read the confirmation email. Check your name on the booking matches your photo ID exactly. If it does not, fix it now, not on exam morning.
• Day 6: Test your computer if you are sitting online. Run the OnVUE system test from your actual exam location. If you are going in-person, drive or take public transport to the centre at the same time of day as your exam slot.
• Day 5: Do one full-length practice exam under timed conditions. This is your last serious diagnostic. After this, no more full practice tests.
• Day 4: Review your weakest performance domain. Read your [brain dump sheet](https://www.techademy.com/pmp-brain-dump-sheet) and rehearse it from memory.
• Day 3: Light review only. Re-read the [PMP mindset guide](https://www.techademy.com/pmp-mindset-guide). Watch one short video on [earned value examples](https://www.techademy.com/pmp-earned-value-examples) if EVM is a weak area.
• Day 2: Pack your bag (in-person) or set up your room (online). Lay out clothes. Confirm transport.
• Day 1 (day before): Do nothing exam-related after lunch. Take a walk. Eat a normal dinner. Aim to be in bed by 10pm.

The discipline is to stop studying. Cramming the day before lowers performance by raising anxiety and disrupting sleep. I have never seen anyone fail because they did not study on the last day, and I have seen people fail because they did.

Pearson VUE centres are strict and consistent across geographies. Here is the exact pack list:

• Two forms of ID. One must be a government-issued photo ID with signature (passport, driving licence, national ID). The second can be a credit card with your signature, an employee badge, or another secondary ID. The names on both must match the name on your booking exactly. Maiden names, missing middle initials, and nicknames have all caused candidates to be turned away.
• Your booking confirmation. Printed or digital, both are accepted at most centres, but printed is safer in case of phone issues.
• A simple wristwatch (optional and only if non-smart). Many centres provide a clock or timer on screen, so a watch is not necessary. Smartwatches are prohibited.
• A bottle of water and a small snack for the breaks. These go in the locker, not into the exam room.
• Light layers. Test centres are often over-air-conditioned. A cardigan or jumper that can be put on and off without rustling helps.

What you cannot bring into the exam room: any electronics, any paper notes, watches with smart features, hats (unless religious headwear), bags, wallets, water bottles, food, jewellery beyond a wedding ring, or anything with writing on it. Pockets must be empty.

The centre provides: scratch paper or a small whiteboard with marker, noise-cancelling headphones if you request them, the workstation, and a basic calculator on screen.

I want you to be able to picture the entire morning so nothing surprises you. Here is what happens at a typical Pearson VUE centre.

You arrive 30 minutes before your scheduled start time. The receptionist checks your ID against the booking, takes a digital photograph of you, captures your palm vein scan (in many countries) or signature, and assigns you a locker. You empty every pocket into the locker. Phone off. Watch off. Then the receptionist signs you in to a queue and you wait in a small lobby with the other candidates.

When your station is ready, a proctor leads you into the exam room. You may be asked to roll up sleeves to show no notes, turn out pockets, and lift trouser cuffs. Sit at your station. The proctor unlocks the workstation and starts your exam. From this point you are on the clock.

The exam is 230 minutes for 180 questions, split by two optional ten-minute breaks. The breaks come automatically after questions 60 and 120. You do not have to take them. Once you leave the room for a break, you cannot return to previous questions in that section.

The single most useful thing you can do at the centre is to walk in slowly and breathe out slowly twice before you click Begin. The first ten questions of the exam are where most people lose nerve. A calm start protects the next 220 minutes.

When you finish, the screen shows a brief survey, then a pass/fail indication, and then a printed performance summary which the receptionist hands to you on the way out.

There are five mistakes I see in-person candidates make repeatedly. First, arriving late. Centres run on a tight schedule and a candidate who arrives less than 15 minutes before the start may be turned away. Plan for traffic and queues.

Second, bringing prohibited items into the lobby and trying to argue them in. Smartwatches, fitness trackers, and Bluetooth earbuds count as electronics. Take them off in the car park if you have to.

Third, wearing a complicated outfit. Layered, fitted clothes without large pockets work best. Hoodies with kangaroo pockets can attract extra checks. A wedding ring is fine. A watch is unnecessary.

Fourth, drinking too much water in the hour before the exam. The exam room toilet visit costs you time. Hydrate steadily through the morning, not in one gulp at the front desk.

Fifth, engaging with other candidates in the lobby about the exam. Their anxiety is contagious. Plug into your own headphones or stare at the wall. Stay in your own head.

OnVUE is the online proctoring software PMI uses. Technical setup is where most online failures start. Here is my pre-flight checklist:

• Computer: A laptop or desktop with a working webcam and microphone. Tablets and phones are not supported.
• Operating system: A currently supported version of Windows or macOS. Linux is not supported. Chrome OS is generally not supported for this exam.
• Internet: A wired Ethernet connection is strongly preferred. Wi-Fi works if your signal is stable. Minimum 1 Mbps up and down, ideally much higher.
• Browser and admin rights: You install the OnVUE app at exam time. You need administrator rights on the machine to install it. Work laptops are often locked down and fail this step. Use a personal machine.
• No second screen. If you have a multi-monitor setup, physically unplug or disable the secondary monitors. The proctor will check.
• No virtual machines, remote desktop, or screen sharing. OnVUE blocks these.

Run the OnVUE system test from PMI's exam portal at least 48 hours before your exam, using the same machine and network you will use for the real exam. If anything fails, you have time to fix it. If you wait until exam morning, you do not.

I keep a printed one-page checklist of these technical items by my desk and tick them off the night before any online exam.

The room rules for OnVUE are stricter than most candidates expect. You are responsible for these and the proctor will fail you on the spot if any are violated.

Before the exam starts, the proctor will ask you to use your webcam to do a full room scan. You will walk the camera around the room, point it at the ceiling, under the desk, and at the walls. This is invasive and not negotiable. Plan to do it without breaking your phone or your laptop.

The check-in process is more involved than at a centre. You log in 30 minutes before your scheduled start. You take photos of yourself, your ID, and the four walls of your room with your phone, uploading them through the OnVUE app. You then close all applications on your computer, launch the secure browser, and wait in a queue for a proctor.

The proctor connects to you, asks you to do a live room scan with the webcam, and verifies your environment. This can take 10 to 30 minutes depending on queue length. Be patient. Once approved, the exam begins.

During the exam, the proctor watches you. You will be flagged for: looking off-screen for extended periods, reading questions aloud or muttering loudly, anyone else entering the room, leaving the camera frame, eating, drinking from a non-transparent container, or interacting with anything outside your laptop and water glass.

You get the same two 10-minute breaks as in-person candidates, after questions 60 and 120. During breaks, you can leave the room and use the bathroom, but the timer continues and re-check-in is required if you take longer.

When you finish, you submit the exam, the pass/fail indication appears on screen, and your detailed report is emailed to you within a few hours.

What you do in the 24 hours before the exam has more impact than what you study in the week before. My routine for candidates is structured.

The evening before, finish work by 6pm. Have a normal dinner with nothing experimental in it - no new spicy dishes, no large amounts of alcohol, no street food. A glass of wine if that is your normal habit is fine. Pack your bag (in-person) or do a final room check (online). Lay out clothes. Set two alarms.

Wind down by 9pm. No more exam material. Watch something light, read fiction, or talk to family. Aim to be in bed by 10pm. The classic candidate failure here is doomscrolling exam forums on Reddit until midnight. Do not do this. The people posting at midnight are not the calm passers.

On exam morning, wake up at least 2.5 hours before exam start. Eat a real breakfast - protein, complex carbs, modest fat. Drink water but not excessive amounts. Skim your brain dump sheet once and put it away. Travel to the centre, or set up your room, with time to spare.

Avoid arguments, stressful phone calls, or work fires on exam morning. If your manager calls about a Sev-1, decline politely and call back after the exam. Your career will survive a four-hour delay.

I have watched smart people fail this exam because they were under-fuelled or over-caffeinated. The biology matters.

Sleep. Aim for at least seven hours the night before, eight is better. If you cannot sleep, lie down with eyes closed in a dark room. Resting horizontally still gives most of the cognitive benefit even if you do not sleep. Do not take sleeping pills the night before unless you have used them before and know how you feel the next day.

Breakfast. Eat 90 to 120 minutes before the exam. Good options: porridge with nuts and berries, eggs on wholegrain toast, a bowl of yoghurt with fruit and granola. Avoid: pastries alone, sugary cereals, large amounts of fruit juice. You want stable blood sugar across four hours, not a 10am crash.

Coffee or tea. If you normally drink it, drink your normal amount. Do not introduce caffeine for the first time on exam morning. Do not double your dose. Both can spike anxiety and send you to the bathroom mid-exam.

Water. Hydrate steadily through the morning. About 250 to 500ml in the two hours before the exam. Bring more for the breaks.

Mid-exam snack. During the breaks, a small piece of dark chocolate, a banana, or a handful of nuts can stabilise focus. Skip anything heavy or sugary that will spike then crash.
 

Scratch paper rules differ by format and are commonly misunderstood.

At a Pearson VUE centre, you are issued a small whiteboard and a non-permanent marker, or a few sheets of laminated paper. You can write anything you want during the exam. You can erase between sections. You hand the materials back at the end. You cannot bring your own paper.

For online OnVUE, the rules are tighter and have shifted in recent years. The current PMI policy allows a small handheld whiteboard with marker, or a permitted note-taking device specified at check-in. You show it to the camera before and after the exam. Do not have any pre-written notes on it - the proctor will ask you to erase if there is anything on the surface at the start.

You cannot bring your own scratch paper to online exams. You cannot use a notepad. You cannot use the back of envelopes. The proctor will fail you if they see physical paper in use.

Practice your brain dump on your allowed surface in the days before the exam. A laminated A5 whiteboard fits roughly the formulas and frameworks you actually need. Do not try to write down everything - prioritise EVM formulas, the process group/knowledge area matrix, and any specific weak-area shortcuts.

The PMP exam has two automatic 10-minute breaks built in. They appear after question 60 and after question 120. You do not have to take them. The clock pauses during the official breaks.

If you take a break, you cannot revisit questions from the previous section. This is important. Make sure you have reviewed and finalised your answers in the current section before clicking Take Break.

Outside the two official breaks, there are no extra breaks. If you need the bathroom mid-section, the clock continues, and at a centre you must signal the proctor. For online exams, you generally cannot leave the camera frame between official breaks without ending the exam.

At Pearson VUE centres, the official breaks let you visit the bathroom, drink water, eat your snack, and stretch. Do not waste them sitting in the room. Get up, move blood around, return refreshed.

For online breaks, you can leave your seat but the proctor expects you back within 10 minutes. Re-check-in is required and can eat into your break time. Plan to be back in your seat with two minutes to spare.

This is the section nobody wants to need and many people end up needing. Here is the protocol.

At Pearson VUE: Raise your hand and stay calm. The proctor will pause the clock, investigate, and either restart your workstation or move you to a new one. PMI tracks these incidents and you will not lose time. If the centre cannot resume, they will reschedule you at no charge.

Online OnVUE: If you lose connection during the exam, the OnVUE software is designed to resume from the last saved answer when you reconnect. Reboot the OnVUE secure browser, log back in, and a proctor will reconnect with you. Do this quickly but calmly. If the disconnection is short, you usually lose only the time it takes to reconnect. If it is long, contact PMI support afterwards to document the issue and request a remedy.

If your power goes out: This is why I recommend a fully charged laptop and, if possible, a UPS or laptop battery that gives you 30 minutes of buffer. If power dies, the exam pauses on the server. Reconnect when you can.

If your camera freezes: The proctor will see this and will likely message you. Refresh the camera permissions in the OnVUE app. If it does not recover, the exam will be paused.

In all cases, do not panic and do not try to debug for ten minutes alone. Get the proctor or centre staff involved within 60 seconds. Documented incidents are usually resolved fairly.

Beyond technical failures, there are human disasters that hit candidates on exam day. Here is how I have seen them handled.

• Wrong ID name: Your booking says Jane Smith but your driving licence says Jane Marie Smith. Most centres allow this if all the names on the licence include all the names on the booking, but not the reverse. If your booking name is more complete than your ID, you may be turned away. Fix this 48 hours in advance.
• Forgot photo ID: You will not be admitted. There is no workaround. Reschedule if possible.
• Cold or flu on exam day: Reschedule. The exam fee for moving the date is much smaller than failing because you could not concentrate. PMI allows rescheduling up to 48 hours before the exam.
• Severe anxiety attack pre-exam: Take five slow breaths. Visualise yourself at the end, walking out with a Pass. If the panic persists, ask the proctor or staff for a five-minute reset. Centres are often kinder than people expect.
• Misread a question and realised after submitting the section: Move on. You cannot go back. Do not let one error contaminate the next 60 questions.
• Diarrhoea or food poisoning: Reschedule. There is no graceful way through 230 minutes of exam in that state.

When you finish, you see a brief on-screen indication of Pass or Did Not Pass. This is not your final certificate. PMI verifies the results, sometimes within minutes, sometimes within hours.

If you pass, you receive an email from PMI within a day with your digital badge, certificate, and credential ID. Add it to LinkedIn immediately. Update your CV. Tell your manager and your professional network. Start logging PDUs for future renewal - see our PMP renewal guide.

If you did not pass, you receive a performance report showing where you scored below, at, or above target. Read it carefully. Schedule a debrief with yourself within 48 hours while the experience is fresh. Note which question types tripped you up. Then take a week off study to reset. Our retake guide walks through the comeback plan.

Either way, after the exam, eat a proper meal, sleep, and do not check social media for project-management content for 24 hours. You earned the break.