A new way to keep your AWS Certification current 

Your AWS Certification tells employers, clients, and teammates what you’re capable of. Cloud and AI evolve fast, so staying certified should mean staying current by growing your skills on what matters to your role right now. 

Starting today, you can maintain your AWS Certification for an additional year by completing curated training and hands-on labs on AWS Skill Builder instead of retaking a full certification exam. 

How it works 

When your certification is within 90 days of expiration, you’re eligible. Here’s what the experience looks like: 

1. Choose your certification — In AWS Skill Builder, navigate to Explore > Validate your skills > Recertify and select the certification you want to maintain 
2. Complete your training — Work through curated digital courses and hands-on labs covering relevant, evolving topics tied to your certification domain 
3. Your certification extends automatically — Once you meet the requirements, your certification is extended by one year from your completion date, reflected immediately in your AWS Certification account. 

For Associate-level certifications, you’ll need to achieve 500 points, including at least one practical activity. For Professional-level certifications, it’s 700 points with at least two practical activities. Complete everything at your own pace before your certification expires — no testing center appointment, no single high-stakes exam day. 

Training that keeps your skills current, not just recertified

The courses and labs are built by the same AWS experts who develop AWS services — covering topics that reflect how the cloud is evolving right now, not a rehash of what you studied years ago. The practical activities place you in realistic scenarios where you build, configure, and troubleshoot in live AWS environments. Time spent maintaining your certification is time spent getting better at your job. 

What’s supported at launch 

This experience is available today in open Beta for the following certifications: 

• AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate 
• AWS Certified Developer – Associate 
• AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer – Associate (can be used to maintain AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate) 
• AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional 
• AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional 

Additional certifications are coming later this year, including AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate, AWS Certified Security – Specialty, and AWS Certified Machine Learning Engineer – Associate. 

How this fits with exam-based recertification 

You can still recertify by retaking your certification exam, passing a higher-level exam, or (for Cloud Practitioner) using AWS Cloud Quest. The ability to maintain your certification through training is an additional path — one that emphasizes continuous, applied learning. Both paths result in an active, valid credential. 

Cascading certification extensions 

Maintaining an AWS Certification will automatically extend the expiration date of related, lower-level certifications that are still active to match the expiration date of the certification you maintained. For example, if you maintain your Solutions Architect – Professional, your Solutions Architect – Associate extends with it to match the next expiration date (as long as it’s still active and expiring within 1 year). 

What you need to get started 

• An active AWS Skill Builder subscription (Individual or Team) 
• A certification that’s within 90 days of expiration 
• One of the supported certifications listed above 

That’s it. No additional purchase, no separate enrollment process. 

Get started 

Log in to AWS Skill Builder and navigate to Recertify to check your eligibility and start your maintenance path. 

This is an offering from the AWS Certification program, delivered through the AWS Skill Builder experience. It represents the next step in how AWS Certification evolves with you — keeping your credential active through the continuous, hands-on learning that cloud professionals have been asking for. 

Stay current. Stay certified. Start maintaining your certification today. 

This experience is currently in open Beta. We’re collecting feedback to continue improving the experience before full general availability. Have thoughts? Let us know through the post-completion survey.