Claude Certifications

Anthropic's Claude Certification Program has four proctored exams across three roles: Claude Certified Associate, Foundations (CCAO-F) for people who use Claude as a productivity tool; Claude Certified Developer, Foundations (CCDV-F) for engineers who build and ship Claude applications; and two architect exams, Claude Certified Architect, Foundations (CCAR-F) and Claude Certified Architect, Professional (CCAR-P). Pearson VUE delivers all four, online or at a test center, and as of September 2026 only people at Claude Partner Network organizations can register. This hub helps you choose an exam, get a seat, prepare with free material and keep the credential current; the exam pages and the knowledge base teach the objectives.

Pick your exam

There are four exams at two levels: three Foundations exams (Associate, Developer, Architect) and one Professional exam (Architect). Compare them side by side, match one to the work you do most days, then open its study guide or a knowledge-base page from the cards at the end of this section.

The four exams side by side

All figures come from the four official exam guides (Version 1.0, effective July 2026) and the Anthropic Partner Academy certification pages and FAQ.

Only the CCAR-F guide's Exam Details table has an "Exam structure" row; the CCAO-F, CCDV-F and CCAR-P tables have none. Every guide says it "is subject to change without notice", so check the guide on your exam's certification page before you book.

What do you produce with Claude most days?

Pick the row that describes your normal week, not the job title you would like next. The first column is our summary of each guide's audience; the second quotes each guide's audience statement and the third quotes whom the guide excludes. The quotations come from the Intended Audience section of the CCAO-F guide, the CCDV-F guide, the CCAR-F guide and the CCAR-P guide.

Our decision rules for the close calls, read off the blueprints and the FAQ:

• Configuring Claude Code for a team is most of your work. Choose CCAR-F over CCDV-F. The CCAR-F blueprint gives Claude Code Configuration & Workflows 20%. The CCDV-F blueprint gives its Claude Code domain 3.1%; CLAUDE.md files and settings.json also appear in the Configuration Management skill (4.1%), which also covers model version pinning and prompt versioning. Even counting both in full gives 7.2% (our arithmetic), far below CCAR-F's 20%.
• You write application code but rarely design systems. Choose CCDV-F. Its largest domain, Applications and Integration, is 33.1% of the exam.
• You lead architecture decisions with clients, executives, security or legal. Choose CCAR-P. Governance, Safety & Risk Management and Stakeholder Communication & Lifecycle Management are 14% each, 28% together (our arithmetic).
• Your firm needs certified practitioners for its partner tier. Choose CCDV-F, CCAR-F or CCAR-P. The FAQ lists those three as counting toward Claude Partner Network eligibility, and the certifications page marks CCAO-F: "Does not count toward Claude Partner Network tier eligibility."

Is Foundations a prerequisite for Professional?

No. The certification FAQ says "there's no formal prerequisite, so you can take Professional without holding Foundations. Foundations does not convert or upgrade to Professional automatically." The CCAR-P guide agrees: "There are no mandatory prerequisites or courses required to sit this exam."

The FAQ separates the two architect exams this way: "Foundations proves an architect can build with Claude. Professional proves they can design and govern Claude solutions at enterprise scale." The July 23, 2026 launch announcement reads differently: "Every path to getting credentialed starts with a foundation-level certification and advances to the professional-level." Treat Foundations as the recommended start, not a gate: the FAQ calls it "the natural place to start". As of September 2026, a Professional level exists only for the Architect role; the certifications page lists no Professional exam for Associate or Developer and says "Start at Foundations, then advance to Professional where available."

Study guides and knowledge base

How the exams work

The four exams share one item format, one 120-minute time limit, one scoring scale and one set of delivery rules; only CCAR-F adds a scenario structure. This section follows an exam from the item types through delivery and the pass mark to the score report and the non-disclosure agreement.

Item formats

All four exam guides (for example the CCAO-F guide, Section 5) give the same item format: "Multiple-choice and multiple-response items; each item states how many responses to select". The certification FAQ describes the same exams as "multiple choice and scenario-based multiple response questions".

What that means in practice (our advice, each with its sourced reason):

• Read the instruction line first. Each item states how many responses to select; pick exactly that many.
• Expect multiple-response items even though no official sample shows one. Every published sample question in the four guides has a single correct answer.
• Do not count on partial credit. The guides, the FAQ and the Policies page do not say whether multiple-response items earn partial credit.
• Answer every item. The Early Access version of the CCAR-F guide (linked from the early-access request page as archived in March 2026) said "Unanswered questions are scored as incorrect; there is no penalty for guessing." (PDF) The four July 2026 guides do not contain that sentence, and nothing in them says a blank earns credit, so answering every item is the safe choice.

To see the item style, work the official sample questions on the exam pages (CCAO-F, CCDV-F, CCAR-F, CCAR-P). How many each guide publishes, and where each guide says they come from, is in A study method built from the guides' own advice.

Scenario structure (CCAR-F only)

The CCAR-F guide lists "4 scenarios drawn from a bank of 6" as its exam structure: "Each scenario presents a realistic production context that frames a set of questions. During the exam, 4 scenarios are presented and picked at random from the full set of the 6 scenarios below." The six are Customer Support Resolution Agent, Code Generation with Claude Code, Multi-Agent Research System, Developer Productivity with Claude, Claude Code for Continuous Integration, and Structured Data Extraction. Each scenario names its primary domains; the CCAR-F page covers them in The six scenarios.

Our advice: because the four scenarios are picked at random, prepare all six. The guide does not say how many of the 60 items each scenario carries. Its sample questions cover four scenarios, three questions each; none covers Developer Productivity with Claude or Structured Data Extraction.

Timing

Every exam has a 120-minute time limit. The FAQ adds: "Plan for about 135 minutes of total seat time, which includes check-in, instructions, and a brief post-exam survey."

The guides and the FAQ do not mention a scheduled break. The Exam Policy lists as prohibited "Taking unscheduled breaks during the Exam, unless requested and approved in advance". Pearson's general Candidate Rules Agreement adds: "If you take an unscheduled break at any time, the test time will not stop." For online candidates, Pearson's Anthropic OnVUE page lists leaving the webcam view as prohibited "unless your exam confirms you are on an approved break (not all exams offer breaks)". Our advice: plan to sit the full 120 minutes without a break.

Delivery: online or at a test center

You choose the delivery mode when you schedule with Pearson VUE. The guides list delivery as "Proctored: online proctored and/or test center, per program policy" (CCAR-P guide, Section 5).

Some government IDs rule out OnVUE and send you to a test center, and Pearson has suspended delivery to residents of Iran in both modes; the country list is in Country, age and language limits. A test center is also Anthropic's second option when a corporate device or network will not run the exam, after "a personal computer on a personal network" (computer and network setup page).

Rules that apply in both modes: exams are closed book and English only, and the FAQ says "Browser translation tools are not permitted under the Pearson proctoring platform." The Exam Policy prohibits "Using AI products or services to assist you during the Exam". For OnVUE on Windows, the setup page lists "Claude" among the applications to close before the exam and explains that the name "here refers to the Claude desktop application."

The guides (Section 12 of the CCAO-F guide, for example) list "mobile phones, smart watches, headphones, study materials, and any recording device" as prohibited and say "Permitted items, if any, such as scratch paper provided by the proctor, are specified by Pearson VUE." For online exams, Pearson's Anthropic OnVUE page allows the digital whiteboard and excludes "physical whiteboards or writing materials of any kind", so do not plan on paper if you test online. Pearson's whiteboard page adds: "If connectivity is lost during the exam, the whiteboard will be wiped clean."

Missing an OnVUE requirement on exam day can cost you the exam fee (Pearson's Anthropic OnVUE page). The full list of costly rules, with Pearson's wording, is in Policies that cost candidates money.

Scaled scoring and the pass mark

The guide wording below is from Section 9 of the CCAO-F guide; the CCDV-F and CCAR-P guides (Section 9) and the CCAR-F guide (Section 10) use the same sentences.

• The pass mark is 720 on a scale of 100 to 1,000 for all four exams. It is a scaled score, not a percentage of items.
• You are measured against a standard, not against other candidates. Each guide calls its exam "a criterion-referenced assessment: each candidate is measured against a fixed performance standard, not against other candidates."
• The standard was set by experts. The guides say "The passing score was established through a formal standard-setting study in which trained subject matter experts judged the level of performance expected of a minimally qualified candidate."
• Forms differ, scores are equated. The FAQ says "Scaled scoring equates scores across exam forms that may have slightly different difficulty." Of the four guides, only CCAR-F carries an equating sentence.
• Domain weights describe scored items. The guides say "The percentages indicate the approximate proportion of scored items drawn from each domain." They do not say how many items are scored or whether unscored items exist, and none of them publishes a conversion from raw score to scaled score. Any per-domain item count is therefore an estimate.

Our decision rule: study to the blueprint's objectives rather than to a target percentage. Neither the guides nor the FAQ give a percent-correct equivalent for 720, and the guides say "You pass by demonstrating the knowledge and skills defined in the blueprint, not by outperforming a percentage of peers."

What the score report contains

Each guide (Section 9 of the CCAO-F guide, for example) says: "Your result is reported as a pass or fail status with a scaled score from 100 to 1,000. Your score report also shows the percentage of items you answered correctly within each content domain." Those domain percentages "are not used to determine your pass or fail result, which is based on your total scaled score." The FAQ suggests one use for them: "You can use the section breakdown to decide what to review before a retake."

When and where the result appears, and how the Credly badge arrives, are covered in Scoring, results and badges.

The non-disclosure agreement

Each exam guide's Confidentiality and Non-Disclosure Agreement section (Section 13 of the CCAO-F guide, for example) says: "Before the exam begins you must accept a confidentiality and non-disclosure agreement." By accepting, "you agree that all exam content, including questions, answer options, and scenarios, is the confidential and proprietary property of Anthropic, and that you will not disclose, reproduce, or distribute any portion of it." Declining is not a neutral choice: "If you do not accept the agreement, the exam session ends and no refund is issued."

The obligation reaches beyond the exam room:

• The Policies page says: "By taking an exam you agree not to share, reproduce, or discuss the questions in any form, including in study groups and online forums."
• The Exam Policy says: "For the avoidance of doubt, Exam Content is considered Anthropic’s Confidential Information."
• The same Exam Policy lists among prohibited activities "Seeking or obtaining unauthorized access to any Exam or Exam Content, including use of unauthorized publication of Exam questions or answers".
• The guides warn that "Cheating, attempting to access prohibited resources, or disclosing exam content may result in invalidation of your result, revocation of your credential, and a ban from future exams."
• For cheating or fraud, the Policies page says Anthropic may ask you to retake the exam, require future exams at a test center rather than online, invalidate your result, suspend or revoke a certification, or bar you from the program.

Our decision rule: prepare from the exam guides, the official documentation and the official sample questions. Skip any source that claims to sell real or recalled exam questions, and do not post questions you remember after your exam.

Who can sit the exams

Four things decide whether you can book a seat: your employer, the email address you sign in with, your age and where you test. This section takes each rule in turn, then covers how a firm joins the Claude Partner Network and the free route for anyone who cannot register.

Eligibility today (as of September 2026)

The certification FAQ answers "Do I need to work at a partner organization to take an exam?" with: "Yes. Certification is available to people at Claude Partner Network organizations." It adds that "Registration requires a partner email address on a recognized company domain" and that "personal email addresses will not work." Asked whether customers or non-partners can get certified, it says: "Certification is currently available only to organizations in the Claude Partner Network."

Three other official sources agree. The Partner Academy certifications page says "Earn the credential built exclusively for Anthropic Partners." Pearson VUE's Anthropic page says "Certification is open to organizations in the Claude Partner Network and counts toward partner program standing." The July 23, 2026 launch announcement says "Exams are available to members of the Claude Partner Network."

Your work email domain

Access is decided at sign-in, by the domain of the email address you use.

• The error. "You aren't signed in with a partner company employee email." means, per the FAQ, "The email domain you signed in with is not yet recognized on your organization's partner record."
• The fix. The FAQ says: "First, check that you are signed in with your company email rather than a personal address." If you are and still see the error, email [email protected]. "Adding a domain requires a record change on our side and takes 7 to 10 days to take effect, so send the request before you plan to sit the exam."
• Subsidiaries and regional domains. Certifications earned on a domain that is not recognized, including subsidiary and regional domains, do not credit to the partner account. A firm with several domains emails [email protected] its parent company domain and the other domains that should roll up to it.
• Missing discount. The same cause shows up at checkout: "If you're on one of these tiers and still see full price, your company domain may not be linked to your partner record."

Country, age and language limits

Unless linked otherwise, the quotations below are from the certification FAQ.

• Age. "You must be at least 18 years old to take a Claude Certification exam." Age is verified at check-in against your government-issued ID.
• Countries. The Policies page says "Exams aren't available everywhere, and Anthropic may exclude specific countries or regions."
• IDs that rule out online testing. The FAQ says candidates with a government ID from Belarus, Cuba, North Korea, Russia, Syria, or restricted regions of Ukraine "are not eligible for OnVUE online proctoring" and must test at a Pearson test center.
• Iran. Following OFAC's suspension of General License G, Pearson suspended exam delivery for residents of Iran, online and at test centers, effective 12:00 AM EDT on September 8, 2026. The FAQ adds: "If your primary residence is not in Iran, you can still test. You'll need to provide an ID at check-in showing that your primary residence is outside Iran." Pearson's Anthropic OnVUE page lists Iran among the countries whose IDs are prohibited for online testing; the FAQ handles Iran separately.
• Language. "The exam and prep content are available in English only."

How an organization joins the Claude Partner Network

As of September 2026, the "Join the network" button on claude.com/partners opens the partner application form. The form lists three qualifying criteria for the company:

1. "Be a registered business with 10 or more employees"
2. "Operate in a supported region"
3. "Offer consulting, implementation, or managed services to customers"

It also says: "Building a product on Claude rather than delivering services? Get started with the Claude API instead." The form does not list which regions are supported.

Anthropic's own descriptions of who may join have changed over 2026:

Our reading of them together: membership is free, the live form is the current test for joining, and a new member starts at the Registered tier. Tier matters to candidates because it sets the exam discount, from full price at Registered to 50% or more above it (see Partner-tier discounts). The Services Track post sets these thresholds for the three tiers above Registered:

Three details for firms counting heads:

• Who counts. The Services Track post defines the measure as "How many of the firm’s people hold a current Anthropic certification and have used Claude in the past 90 days."
• Which exams count. CCDV-F, CCAR-F and CCAR-P count toward Claude Partner Network eligibility; the Associate exam (CCAO-F) does not.
• Sources differ on Global Premier. The July 23 announcement restates the top tier as "1,000 certified practitioners, 100 customers across three regions, and 15 public customer endorsements", without the joint business plan. The Services Track post also says "Detailed requirements for each tier are published at claude.com/partners"; as of September 2026 that page does not list them, so the post itself is the published source for the thresholds.

Independents and people outside a partner firm

Neither the FAQ, the Policies page nor the partner application form describes a route to the exams for an individual outside a partner organization. The FAQ's answer to "Can customers or non-partners get certified?" is "Certification is currently available only to organizations in the Claude Partner Network." The partner application form asks that the company "Be a registered business with 10 or more employees", so a consultant working alone does not meet the form's first criterion as written. The certifications page offers non-partners one link: "Not an Anthropic partner? Apply to become one".

If you work at a partner firm, what decides access is your sign-in, not your title (see Your work email domain). A certification you earn stays yours: the Policies page says "Your certification belongs to you, not to your employer. It stays with you if you change jobs, and a partner can't reassign it to another person." The Terms still let Anthropic suspend access and revoke a certification if "your Partner is no longer in good standing with the Program or Anthropic".

The free alternative: Claude Academy

If you cannot register, you can still learn the material. Claude Academy, announced on August 20, 2026 and available at academy.claude.com, describes itself as: "Learn to use AI safely, effectively, and with intention. Free courses, tutorials, and use cases from Anthropic’s education team." Its FAQ says "You don’t need a paid plan, and you don’t need a work account": you can browse the catalog without signing in, and signing in with a free Claude account saves your progress and lets you earn certificates of completion (badges).

Partner candidates keep studying on the Partner Academy for now; the Claude Academy FAQ says: "If you’re learning through the partner program, Skilljar stays your learning home for now." Which courses map to which exam is in Free preparation.

Registration, step by step

Three platforms are involved. You register and pay on the Anthropic Partner Academy, which runs on Skilljar. Pearson then sets up your Pearson VUE account, where you schedule and sit the exam, online through OnVUE or at a Pearson test center. If you pass, Credly issues the digital badge. Anthropic's Exam Registration Guide (PDF) walks through the screens and says "the registration process is the same for every Claude certification exam."

Anthropic Partner Academy (Skilljar)     Pearson VUE                              Credly
exam page > sign in > pay         -->    account > schedule > sit the exam  -->   claim the badge
                                         (OnVUE online or a test center)          (if you pass)

The steps below follow the Exam Registration Guide for steps 1 to 12, with additions from the certification FAQ, the Policies page, Pearson VUE's Anthropic pages and each exam guide's Registration and Scheduling section.

1. Partner Academy: open your exam's page. Go to the Anthropic Partner Academy certifications page and open the exam you want. The FAQ says: "Each certification page has the exam guide, the prep courses, and the registration link."
2. Partner Academy: read the rules. Download the Exam Guide and review the Certification Terms and Conditions and the Certification Exam Policy. Registering means you agree to those two documents and the Anthropic Usage Policy.
3. Partner Academy: sign in. Click "Register for the exam". You are taken to the Anthropic partner sign-in page; enter your company email.
4. Partner Academy: check the price. On the Certification Examination page, the Register button shows the exam fee "along with any discount applied based on your partner tier." If your firm is Select, Preferred or Global Premier and you see full price, stop and fix the domain link first (see Your work email domain).
5. Partner Academy: pay. Confirm the order and click "Review and Pay". Payment is by credit card, before you are sent to Pearson.
6. Partner Academy: registration complete. You land on the "Welcome and what to expect" page, which holds your scheduling instructions and links to the exam guide and policies. Your registration has a time limit: the FAQ says it "is valid for 5 years" and that "You can schedule and take the exam at any time within that window." The Policies page words it more loosely ("There's no deadline for sitting the exam, so you can schedule it whenever you're ready"), but the 5-year validity is the limit to plan by. You do not have to book at once.
7. Email: Pearson account details. Pearson VUE sends two emails from [email protected]: "Web Account Created" with your username and "Notice of Automatic Web Account Creation" with a temporary password. The Registration Guide says they usually arrive shortly after registration and to check your spam folder if you do not see them. (Pearson's own Anthropic page describes a single email with your username and password for first-time Pearson candidates.) Do not pay a second time to trigger the emails; the FAQ's warning about being charged twice, written for registrations made before the move to Pearson, is in the last row of The rules, what missing them costs, and where they are written. For other registration and scheduling problems, the FAQ points to Pearson support.
8. Pearson VUE: sign in. Sign in at pearsonvue.com/us/en/anthropic with the username and temporary password. The first time, Pearson VUE walks you through a short account setup (steps 9 to 11) before you reach your dashboard.
9. Pearson VUE: accept the terms. Review Pearson VUE's privacy policy and Candidate Agreement, check every box and click Agree. You cannot continue without accepting all terms.
10. Pearson VUE: set a password. 12 or more characters, uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers or symbols, and not containing your username.
11. Pearson VUE: security questions. Choose three and answer them in the Roman alphabet; the answers cannot contain your username or password.
12. Pearson VUE: schedule. On the dashboard, under "Schedule an exam", select your exam and choose online proctoring (OnVUE) or a Pearson test center, then a date. Before you book online, "Run and pass the System Test on the same device and network you’ll use on exam day" (the Anthropic system test link is on Pearson's OnVUE page).
13. Email: keep the confirmation. If you reschedule later, the FAQ says to "be sure you receive an email confirming your new exam date." Make any change at least 48 hours before your appointment; the sources disagree on the window, as Canceling or rescheduling: every source's number shows.
14. Exam day: check in. Online, begin check-in 30 minutes before your appointment; at a test center, arrive as early as your confirmation email says. Bring a "valid, unexpired, government-issued photo identification" whose name matches your registration exactly.
15. Exam day: sit the exam. Accept the confidentiality and non-disclosure agreement, then you have 120 minutes. Your score appears on screen at the end; see When you get your result.
16. Credly: claim the badge. If you pass, Credly emails you to claim your badge; see Credly badges: how they are issued.

If you do not pass, the retake starts again at step 1: "To retake an exam, register for it again in Anthropic Partner Academy." Pearson then "will limit the dates you can select based on the required waiting period between attempts" (FAQ). The waiting periods and attempt limits are in The rules, what missing them costs, and where they are written; what retakes cost is in Retake pricing.

Fees and partner discounts

What you pay depends on the exam, your firm's partner tier and how many attempts you need. This section covers the list prices, the tier discounts, past free periods and price changes, what retakes cost, and how payment and refunds work. All prices below are as of September 2026, in US dollars. The certification FAQ says "Prices are in USD before any partner-tier discount."

Exam fees

All four sources agree on every price. The guides, the FAQ and the certifications page state it in USD; the exam page's Purchase button shows the dollar figure alone. The Certification Terms and Conditions say "you are responsible for any taxes applicable to your payment transactions." The Terms also reserve "the right to introduce or change fees for Courses or other Program materials". The Exam Registration Guide says the Register button "shows the exam fee along with any discount applied based on your partner tier", so budget from the figure on that button on the day you pay.

Partner-tier discounts

The FAQ sets the rule: "Discounts follow your organization's Claude Partner Network tier. Registered-tier partners pay full price. Select, Preferred, and Global Premier partners receive 50% off, applied automatically at checkout. Through December 31, 2026, Global Premier partners receive a 100% discount on all certification exams; after that date, the standard 50% discount applies."

The discounted amounts are our arithmetic from the list prices and the FAQ's percentages. The Exam Registration Guide says "The price and any discount shown reflect your partner tier, so your total may differ from other candidates’." Checkout is the final word.

How to work out your firm's tier and fix a missing discount:

• Check the tier. The public Partner Directory filters partners by Global Premier, Preferred and Select. Inside the firm, "The Claude Partner Hub allows each partner to see its own standing against the published requirements, refreshed daily" (Services Track post). The thresholds for each tier are in How an organization joins the Claude Partner Network.
• Full price on a discounted tier. The FAQ's diagnosis is that "your company domain may not be linked to your partner record." The fix and its 7 to 10 day lead time are in Your work email domain. The discount is applied at checkout, so sort this out before you pay.

Free periods and price changes

Some things cost nothing at any tier. The Partner Academy's certifications page tells candidates to "prepare with free courses on the Anthropic Partner Academy", Claude Academy's courses are free to anyone (see Free preparation), and on-time renewal has no fee (see Renewal).

Retake pricing

Each attempt carries the exam fee. The guides (for example the CCAR-F guide, Section 12) say "The exam fee applies to each attempt." The two live candidate pages agree that your tier discount carries over:

• Certification FAQ: "A retake is the full exam fee. Your partner tier discount applies to retakes."
• Policies page: "Each attempt costs the standard exam fee, and any partner discount you'd get on a first attempt applies to retakes the same way."

To budget for a bad run: you can take the same exam up to four times in any rolling 12 months, each time at the full fee less your tier discount.

The waiting periods, the reset when an exam moves to a new version, the free retake after a confirmed faulty question and the rule that a pass cannot be retaken are in The rules, what missing them costs, and where they are written. A lapsed certification also means the full exam at the full fee; see Renewal.

Payment and refunds

Unless linked otherwise, the quotations in this list are from the certification FAQ.

• How you pay. "You pay for the exam by credit card through Anthropic Partner Academy before you're directed to Pearson to schedule." The Policies page says to "pay at the time you register."
• Team purchasing. Asked whether a team can buy in bulk or consolidate billing, the FAQ answers "Not yet." It says a voucher storefront, where partners could buy vouchers with discounts applied and track usage, is "in progress".
• Refunds after canceling. The Policies page gives a full refund for a cancellation at least 48 hours before your appointment (the sources' differing windows are in Canceling or rescheduling: every source's number). The FAQ adds that "Cancelling in Pearson only cancels your scheduled date and time"; to get the money back, "email [email protected] to request a refund." Canceling in Pearson and requesting the refund are two separate steps.
• No refund. Declining the non-disclosure agreement ends the session "and no refund is issued" (exam guides). Misconduct sanctions come "without obligation to refund any Exam-related fees" (Exam Policy). Late changes and no-shows forfeit the fee; the 24-hour versus 48-hour conflict is in Policies that cost candidates money.

The Terms set a general rule: "Except as set forth in the Program materials or as required under applicable law, no refunds will be provided for Courses or other Program materials once access is granted." Our reading: the Policies page's full refund for a cancellation at least 48 hours ahead is the kind of exception that "Except as set forth in the Program materials" allows, so for exams the Policies page and the FAQ's refund route are the operative rules.

Policies that cost candidates money

Several rules can cost you the exam fee before you answer a single question. When you register you accept three documents, and the Policies page says plainly: "When you register for an exam you agree to the Certification Terms and Conditions, the Certification Exam Policy, and the Anthropic Usage Policy. If anything on this page conflicts with those documents, those documents apply." The four exam guides (Version 1.0, July 2026) and the live program pages disagree on some rules. Where they do, this section shows every version and the plan that protects your fee. Everything here is as of September 2026.

Canceling or rescheduling: every source's number

Plan on 48 hours. It is the stricter number: the Policies page and the FAQ apply it to every appointment, and Pearson's Anthropic page states it for test center appointments. The archives show the change came after the July guides: the Policies page still read 24 hours on August 21, 2026, and Pearson's page switched between the August 24 and August 31, 2026 captures. Treat the guides' 24-hour line as out of date. After any reschedule, check that a confirmation email arrived: the FAQ warns that without it "your exam rescheduling may not have completed successfully and you risk forfeiting your exam authorization."

The rules, what missing them costs, and where they are written

Earlier steps (email domain, checkout, Pearson account) are in Registration, step by step and Fees and partner discounts.

Scoring, results and badges

All four exams report a scaled score from 100 to 1,000, and 720 passes every one of them. How the scale, the criterion-referenced standard and the score report work is explained under Scaled scoring and the pass mark and What the score report contains. This section covers what candidates ask next: how many correct answers that means, when the result arrives, and what the badge is.

What the scaled score does not tell you

• The guides and the FAQ publish no raw cut score. They give the pass mark only as a scaled 720, and scaled scoring equates forms of slightly different difficulty (see Scaled scoring and the pass mark), so the number of correct answers needed can differ from one form to another. Two candidates who published their results for the pre-Pearson Architect, Foundations exam reported 44 of 60 correct scaling to 738 (John Weidner, Very Good Ventures) and 48 of 60 scaling to 822 (AK). These are single self-reported data points, not a conversion table.
• No official pass rate. The FAQ, the Policies page, the four guides, the Exam Policy, the Terms, Pearson's Anthropic pages and the July 23, 2026 announcement publish no pass rate or first-attempt figure. Treat a pass rate quoted elsewhere as unofficial unless it links to an Anthropic source.
• Retakes. A pass cannot be retaken to raise the score; the retake rules are in Policies that cost candidates money.

When you get your result

• On screen, at the end of the exam, whether you test online or at a test center. Test-center candidates also receive a printed score report.
• By email: a copy of the score report follows.
• In your Pearson VUE account: per the FAQ, on the Dashboard, under My account, "View Score reports".
• Older results: score reports for exams taken on ProctorFree before June 30, 2026 are no longer available. Anthropic says it is still working through pre-migration Architect, Foundations cases where no result arrived.

Before the June 30, 2026 move, one candidate on the old platform wrote that "it took a week or two to get my results." WenHao Yu, who sat CCAR-F at a Pearson test center (report published August 29, 2026), described seeing the result on screen: "Two hours later, the screen shows a score: 882."

Credly badges: how they are issued

Since June 30, 2026, badges are issued through Credly. Existing certifications were transferred to Credly at the move, and holders were emailed to accept their badge.

1. Pass. Credly emails you to claim the badge; the FAQ says it "usually arrives within minutes for online proctored exams and takes a little longer for test center exams."
2. Accept it. You can then share it on LinkedIn or anywhere else, and download a PDF certificate from your Credly account.
3. Add a personal email to your Credly profile. Anthropic recommends this so you keep access to your badges if you change employers; the certification belongs to you, not your employer.
4. Badge problems go to Credly, at support.credly.com, not to Pearson.
5. After expiry, show the dates. The Terms say "You may not represent yourself as currently certified after expiration, including by listing the Certification without clearly indicating the Certification period."

Every Anthropic badge template on Credly

As of September 23, 2026, the Anthropic organization on Credly publishes exactly five badge templates: one per exam, plus one non-exam partner badge. Names below are Credly's own spelling (with a hyphen). None can be requested from Credly directly; each is issued by Anthropic's program.

Two labels on Credly do not match Anthropic's own pages. Credly lists the Professional exam's level as "Intermediate", while the Partner Academy certifications page calls that tier Professional; and Credly says "Foundational" where Anthropic says Foundations. The four certification templates were last updated on Credly on August 3, 2026, and each links back to its exam page on Anthropic Partner Academy.

The non-exam badge: Claude Partner Badge: Claude Code

This is a partner-only specialty badge earned through coursework and an assessment, not a proctored exam.

• Where: the free learning path at anthropic-partners.skilljar.com/path/partner-badge-claude-code, "built for consultants who have the foundation but need the operational playbook."
• What: 8 teaching courses mapped to the stages of a client engagement (Product Foundations; Installation and Environments; Deployment Architecture; Configuration and Customization; Extensibility; Security and Governance; Administration and Measurement; Delivery Methodology), then a capstone and an assessment. The Partner Badges page shows "10 Courses" because it counts the capstone and the assessment; Credly and the path page say 8 courses.
• The capstone: four guided exercises (multi-file refactoring, test generation, CI/CD integration, troubleshooting), submitting code, a decision log and a metrics snapshot.
• The assessment: the assessment page says "Thirty-four questions, single and multi-select, pulled from all eight courses." The assessment page says passing it earns the badge; Credly's criterion is the whole path (8 courses, the capstone and the assessment). The path and assessment pages do not state a pass mark.
• Time, as stated on the path page: "~12 hours" on Skilljar plus "~10-15 hours" for practice exercises and artifacts.
• Not stated on the path page, the Partner Badges page or Credly: whether this badge counts toward Claude Partner Network tier standing.

Badges that are not certifications

• Claude Academy completion badges. The public Claude Academy issues free certificates of completion when you pass a course's quizzes. They do not expire and each has a public verification link. They are not certifications, and none of the five Credly templates above is an Academy course badge; Anthropic's own wording on the difference is in The free alternative: Claude Academy.
• Early Access history. In March 2026, the Early Access page promised Architect, Foundations passers "a CCA-F badge that is shareable on LinkedIn", and a separate course on the legacy Skilljar site "exists solely for the purpose of issuing Early Adopter badges to folks who participate in the EAP / Beta program" (now marked not available). One Early Access candidate reported holding both a normal certificate and an early adopter certificate: "The normal expires in 6 months, while the early adopter has no expiration date." That 6-month term no longer applies; see Credentials earned under older rules. Neither type appears among today's Credly templates.

Renewal

A Claude certification lasts 12 months. Renewing on time is free; letting it lapse means sitting the full exam again at the full fee. The guides give the reason for the short term: "Because the underlying technology evolves rapidly, the credential is time-limited so that holders maintain current knowledge." The guides, the Policies page and the FAQ agree on those basics. They differ on the details, and the Exam Policy words the lapse rule differently, so the table puts each source side by side, as of September 2026.

What each source says

Reading the differences

• "Non-proctored" and "open-book" most likely describe one assessment (our reading). Every source that describes it puts it on Anthropic Partner Academy and makes it free: the guides and the FAQ say no proctor, the Policies page says open-book and online. Only the Policies page adds unlimited retakes and the rule that the extension runs from your current expiration date.
• The "required Courses" wording does not match today's exams. The Exam Policy's lapse wording mentions required courses, but the CCAO-F, CCDV-F and CCAR-P guides each state there are no mandatory prerequisites or required courses, and none of the four guides names a required course. The guides, the Policies page and the FAQ all describe a lapse the same way: the full exam at the full fee. Plan on that.
• The format is not published yet. None of these sources gives the renewal assessment's length, pass mark, or how early it opens. The FAQ promises details "before the first certifications come up for renewal". The sources also do not say whether "12 months" counts from the exam date or the badge date; they say "awarded" and "earn".

What a lapse costs beyond the fee

• Your firm's count. Claude Partner Network tiers count only people who hold a current certification (the Services Track announcement's definition is in How an organization joins the Claude Partner Network). An expired credential is no longer current, so it stops counting. This applies to CCDV-F, CCAR-F and CCAR-P: the FAQ lists the Associate exam among "Exams that do not count towards Claude Partner Network eligibility", so a lapsed CCAO-F does not change the firm's count.
• Your partner organization may be told. The Terms let Anthropic tell your partner organization "whether your certification is active, expired, suspended, or revoked." Today the Partner Portal shows only the organization's total certification count, updated weekly; the FAQ says "Partners cannot currently see a detailed breakdown."
• Your profile. After expiry you may not present yourself as currently certified; see Credly badges.

Credentials earned under older rules

Free preparation

The official preparation courses are free; the proctored exam is what costs money, and Anthropic keeps course completion and certification apart (its own wording is in The free alternative: Claude Academy). The CCAO-F, CCDV-F and CCAR-P guides each say no single course is required. What follows is what Anthropic publishes to prepare you, and which exam each official source attaches it to, as of September 2026.

Two academies, two purposes

The older public catalog at anthropic.skilljar.com is still live and still lists free courses; anthropic.com/learn and the old docs course links now lead to Claude Academy.

Free courses, and which exam each official source attaches them to

Key: P means the exam's official prep path page (CCAO-F, CCDV-F, CCAR-P) says "Before starting this course, we recommend you complete" this course. L means the course appears on the official Architect, Foundations prep-courses page. CPN means it is in the Claude Partner Network Learning Path, which Anthropic describes as an introductory foundation and a first step toward certification. Lengths are Claude Academy's stated figures, which the Academy FAQ calls "estimates to help you plan".

Adding up the stated lengths (our arithmetic): the courses recommended before the CCAO-F path total 10 hours (2.5 + 4 + 3.5); before the CCDV-F path, 25.5 hours; before the CCAR-P path, 21 hours; and the seven CCAR-F courses, 34 hours. The certifications page's underlying course registry (in the page source, not the visible text) also tags Introduction to Claude Cowork (14 lessons, 1 quiz, 2.5 hr) for CCAO-F, and the Bedrock, Google Cloud and MCP Advanced courses for CCAR-P.

The official prep path for each exam

All three dedicated paths are free to register on Anthropic Partner Academy. Minutes are as listed on each path page.

Official documentation and repositories worth reading

How to study with this guide

This guide has three layers: exam pages, a knowledge base and a quick reference. The first table shows when to use each; the method after it turns the exam guides' own How to Prepare advice into five steps.

How the pages fit together

Start on your exam page, follow its links into the knowledge base only where an objective is weak, and finish on the quick reference.

A study method built from the guides' own advice

Three of the four guides (CCAO-F, CCDV-F and CCAR-P) open their How to Prepare section the same way: "There is no single required course. Anthropic does not guarantee that any particular resource ensures a passing result." They then say "Candidates are encouraged to combine hands-on experience with the resources below:". The CCAR-F guide instead opens with "To prepare for this certification exam:", lists seven items, and adds four hands-on Preparation Exercises in a section of their own. The five steps below follow the order of the CCDV-F and CCAR-P lists and quote each guide's own wording. CCAO-F puts its prompt-practice item before its build item, and CCAR-F's seven items are placed under the steps they fit.

1. Self-assess against the blueprint

• CCAO-F, CCDV-F and CCAR-P: "Study the exam blueprint in Section 6 and self-assess against each objective".
• CCAR-F has no such line, but its blueprint gives you the checklist: 30 task statements across five domains, carrying 113 "Knowledge of" and 127 "Skills in" bullets (our count), plus appendix lists of technologies that might appear, in-scope topics and out-of-scope topics. The guide says "Exam items are written against these objectives."
• On this site: go through your exam page's Blueprint section and mark each objective as one you could explain to a colleague, one you only recognize, or one that is new. Spend your time on the last two groups.

2. Read the documentation the guide names

• CCAO-F: "Review official Anthropic documentation and help articles for Claude features such as Projects, Artifacts, Memory, Skills, and Code Execution". Projects and artifacts appear in the blueprint objectives; Memory, Skills and Code Execution do not appear as features in any objective, so read those three for context.
• CCDV-F: "Review official Anthropic documentation for the Claude API, models, prompt engineering, Claude Code, Skills, and MCP".
• CCAR-P: "Review official Anthropic documentation for the Claude API, models, prompt engineering, MCP, and Skills".
• CCAR-F names no documentation to read. Its seven items ask you to build, configure, design and test, practice, study and review; steps 3 and 4 below quote them.
• On this site: the knowledge-base pages teach these topics with links to the official pages; the Free preparation table lists the documentation itself.

3. Build something real

• CCAO-F: "Build real workflows: configure a Project with instructions and knowledge sources, and evaluate outputs for accuracy and bias".
• CCDV-F: "Build and operate at least one Claude application that exercises the API, integrates one or more tools, applies basic prompt and context engineering, and includes simple security and evaluation practices".

• CCAR-F: the first four of its seven items are hands-on builds.

  • "Build an agent with the Claude Agent SDK: implement a complete agentic loop with tool calling, error handling, and session management. Practice spawning subagents and passing context between them."
  • "Configure Claude Code for a real project: set up CLAUDE.md with a configuration hierarchy, create path-specific rules in .claude/rules/, build custom skills with frontmatter options (context: fork, allowed-tools), and integrate at least one MCP server."
  • "Design and test MCP tools: write tool descriptions that clearly differentiate similar tools. Implement structured error responses with error categories and retryable flags. Test tool selection reliability with ambiguous requests."
  • "Build a structured data extraction pipeline: use tool_use with JSON schemas, implement validation-retry loops, design schemas with optional/nullable fields, and practice batch processing with the Message Batches API."

  Then work the guide's four exercises, which it says are "designed to reinforce knowledge across one or more exam domains": Build a Multi-Tool Agent with Escalation Logic; Configure Claude Code for a Team Development Workflow; Build a Structured Data Extraction Pipeline; Design and Debug a Multi-Agent Research Pipeline. They are reproduced on the CCAR-F page.

  One freshness note for the Claude Code item: the guide's task statement 3.2 describes allowed-tools in skill frontmatter as a way "to restrict tool access during skill execution". The current Claude Code skills documentation says the field grants permission for the listed tools, so Claude can use them without prompting you, and "It does not restrict which tools are available". Removing tools while a skill is active is the job of disallowed-tools (as of September 2026). Answer in the guide's terms on the exam, and build with the documented behavior; see Agent Skills.

• CCAR-P: "Build and operate at least one end-to-end Claude solution, including RAG, evaluation, and observability".

4. Practice the judgment calls

• CCAO-F: "Practice structuring prompts, decomposing tasks, and iterating to improve outputs" and "Practice responsible-use judgment: data sensitivity, appropriate use cases, and when to escalate or seek human review".
• CCDV-F: "Practice the developer competencies: writing prompts and system instructions, building agents and workflows, configuring Claude Code, managing tokens and cost, implementing guardrails, and creating custom tools or MCP servers".
• CCAR-F: "Practice prompt engineering techniques: write few-shot examples for ambiguous scenarios. Define explicit review criteria to reduce false positives. Design multi-pass review architectures for large code reviews."; "Study context management patterns: practice extracting structured facts from verbose tool outputs, implementing scratchpad files for long sessions, and designing subagent delegation to manage context limits."; and "Review escalation and human-in-the-loop patterns: understand when to escalate (policy gaps, customer requests, inability to progress) versus resolve autonomously. Practice designing human review workflows with confidence-based routing."
• CCAR-P: "Practice architectural decision-making: model selection, integration protocols, and security trade-offs".
• On this site: every objective carries a "Decide" rule and a list of "Traps"; the decision rules collect them for revision.

5. Work the official samples, and study the rationales

• CCAO-F, CCDV-F and CCAR-P: "Complete the sample questions in Section 8 to familiarize yourself with item style". Each of these guides has three samples, and says "They are not drawn from the live item bank."
• CCAR-F has twelve samples: "These are drawn from the practice test and include explanations to aid learning."
• There is no official practice exam now. The FAQ says the old one "was retired in the move to Pearson".
• Mind the format gap. The samples are all single-answer; the live exam also has multiple-response items (see Item formats).
• Learn the reasoning, not the answer key. A candidate who published their Architect, Foundations result, AK, put it bluntly: "You can score 980 on the mock and still fail if you memorised answers without the reasoning."

Each exam page reproduces its samples verbatim, with the answer and Anthropic's rationale hidden until you open them: CCAO-F, CCDV-F, CCAR-F and CCAR-P.

If you do not pass

Use the domain percentages on your score report (see What the score report contains) to find your weakest domains, and go back to step 1 for them. The first wait is 14 days, and each attempt costs the full exam fee, less any partner-tier discount; see Policies that cost candidates money.

For week-by-week pacing, use the Study plan on your exam page; for course lengths and path totals, see Free preparation.

Program timeline

The program has changed several times since March 2026, so older blog posts and study guides can contradict the current rules. Each date below comes from an official page, an official document, or a dated archive capture of one. Where only an archive proves a date, the row says so.

Dates still ahead (as of September 2026)

Frequently asked questions

Short answers, each linked to the section that covers the topic in full.