The young stellar cluster illuminating the W40 HII region, one of the nearest massive star-forming regions, has been observed with the ACIS detector on board the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Due to its high obscuration, this is a poorly studied stellar cluster with only a handful of bright stars visible in the optical band, including three OB stars identified as primary excitation sources. We detect 225 X-ray sources, of which 85% are confidently identified as young stellar members of the region. Two potential distances of the cluster, 260pc and 600pc, are used in the paper.