What happens if you fail your Cyber Essentials assessment?

It's not public, and it's not final. If your assessment doesn't pass, you're told exactly which controls didn't meet the standard, so you can fix them and resubmit. Certification bodies typically allow a short window to correct and resubmit before you'd need to restart the process from scratch.

In practice, most fails come down to one or two specific hard-fail items rather than broad non-compliance: a missing MFA setup somewhere, an operating system past its support date, or a patch that missed the 14-day window. Once you know precisely what failed, closing the gap is usually quick.

The better outcome is finding these out before you've paid for a formal assessment, not during it. Run the free 5-minute readiness check first, or read what a full gap analysis involves if you want the full picture before you commit to a certification timeline.