The Partnership has an annual validity: two months before the end of the period, companies can apply for renewing their partnership for an additional year, and will receive a Loyalty Discount of 30% on the Partner fees.

The ISTQB^® Partner Program recognizes organizations around the world that have supported the professional development of their software testing staff through ISTQB^® certification. The Program includes four levels of partnership (Silver, Gold, Platinum and Global) and the partnership level of an organisation is determined through the number of certification points it has accumulated, which relate to the ISTQB^® Certificates held by staff.

The levels defined for the Program are Silver, Gold, Platinum and Global. In order to be eligible for the ISTQB^® Partner Program, a company has to achieve a certain number of certification points, that defined the level of Partnership.

The process to follow is described in How to become a Partner.

Organisations may be eligible to become ISTQB^® Partners if they have employees or external consultants working for them who provided services for more than 70% of their time and have passed ISTQB^® certification exams. This applies equally to training providers.

Note that the Program is applicable only to legal entities within an organisation and that the partnership registration is managed by the National ISTQB^® Member Board or by an Exam Provider involved in the delivery of ISTQB^® Exams.

An organisation will apply for partnership in a country where it has a legal entity and, if successful, its partnership will be publicised on the ISTQB^® website, and include details such as company name, and country. The Partner may also choose to publicise its Partnership status elsewhere, with a link back to the official ISTQB^® website.

In order to join the Partner Program, the company must achieved as thresholds 5 points for the Silver Level, 14 points for the Gold Level and 30 points for the Platinum Leve. Furthermore, it is required to have a minimum of 1 Advanced Level Certificate for the Gold level and 3 Advanced Level Certificates for the Platinum level.

For more information, see Eligibility Points and Thresholds.

The process to follow for the renewal is described in How to renew your partnership.

The partnership registration is managed by a Member Board, that is the Board approved by ISTQB^®, or by an Exam Provider, which is a company involved in the delivery of ISTQB^® Exams. The Partnership will be managed for the location where the company applies the request.

The Partnership can also be managed through the ISTQB directly, e.g. to cover areas, that are not covered by a Member Board or an Exam Provider.

For each level, the points are accumulated for every test professionals who have passed an ISTQB^® certification exam: the amount of points are 1 for Foundation Level certification, 3 for Advanced Level certification and 5 for Expert Level certification.
The points defined a number that is compared to the thresholds required and defined the reached level.

Yes. The process to follow is described in How to change your Partnership Level.

Fees connected to the partner program cover a validity period of the Partner level, that you have applied for and will be invoiced at the beginning of a validity by your Selling Body on the ISTQB-side, after eligibility for your desired level has been confirmed.

Registration is free and includes processing your application form and performing the eligibility check and all communication up to the invoicing of your partnership.

To discover the amount of the fees, see Partner Fees.

To achieve the Global level, a company must have a minimum of 2 locations with Gold Partner level and 1 location with Platinum Partner level, at least in two different countries.

In case a company wants to terminate a Partnership prematurely, it can follow the process described in the Rules section.

In case of premature termination of the partnership, no fees will be refunded.

You can find the list of benefits here.

The Eligibility Grid is a form through which a company can calculate the Partner Program Level: inserting the number of employees/consultants who hold certificates, it discover for which level is eligible and the number of points reached.

For discover your Partnership level, see Eligibility Grid.

At any point in time, when having questions on the Partner Program, approach your local Board or the nearest Exam Provider.

Should you not know who that would be, you can also contact the ISTQB® Partner Program Manager.