AWS retires SAP-C02 Solutions Architect Professional exam on 16 November 2026

What is changing

AWS is retiring the current version of its Certified: Solutions Architect – Professional exam, SAP-C02, and replacing it with SAP-C03. According to a post on dev.to, the last day to sit SAP-C02 is 16 November 2026, and SAP-C03 testing begins the following day, 17 November 2026. Registration for the new exam opens on 27 October 2026, the same day AWS plans to publish the full SAP-C03 exam guide. AWS has also committed to offering SAP-C03 in every language the current exam supports.

The current exam

SAP-C02, the version candidates can book today, runs 75 questions in 180 minutes. Sixty-five questions are scored and ten are unscored, and there is no way to tell which is which during the test. Question formats are multiple choice and multiple response, with no penalty for guessing. The passing score is 750 on a scale from 100 to 1,000, the fee is USD 300, and the credential is valid for three years. AWS recommends two or more years of hands-on experience designing and running solutions on its platform before attempting the exam.

The current domain weighting:

• Design for New Solutions — 29%
• Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity — 26%
• Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions — 25%
• Accelerate Workload Migration and Modernization — 20%

What SAP-C03 adds

Per AWS's September 2026 announcement, as summarized on dev.to, the core architecture skills carry over while existing tasks have been refreshed to match current practice. The new skill areas include:

• Generative and agentic AI (11 new skills), covering AI agent architectures built with Amazon Bedrock AgentCore and content filtering with Amazon Bedrock Guardrails
• Resilience engineering, spanning AWS Fault Injection Service, AWS Resilience Hub, Amazon Application Recovery Controller and automated runbooks via AWS Systems Manager
• Cloud-native patterns (7 new skills), including durable workflows with AWS Step Functions and service-to-service networking with Amazon VPC Lattice and Amazon ECS Service Connect
• DevSecOps and observability (6 new skills)
• Data and analytics (3 new skills), such as lakehouse designs using AWS Lake Formation and Apache Iceberg, and cross-account data sharing with AWS Clean Rooms
• Post-quantum cryptography, using AWS KMS with the ML-DSA and ML-KEM algorithms

The transition is already visible inside SAP-C02: its current guide lists an "emerging topics" area covering responsible AI controls such as Bedrock Guardrails and AgentCore Identity, which appear as unscored pretest questions.

What remains unknown

SAP-C03's domain weights, question count, duration and price have not been published yet. Those details arrive with the full exam guide on 27 October 2026, and the dev.to post advises treating any SAP-C03 percentages circulating before then with suspicion.

How to decide

The post lays out two paths. Candidates who can be ready by mid-November should take SAP-C02: its guide is final, study materials are mature, and AWS says a credential earned on SAP-C02 remains active until its normal expiry date. Those just beginning preparation should plan for SAP-C03 instead, since the core architecture topics carry over and can be studied now, with the new areas layered on once the guide is out. Anyone targeting SAP-C02 should book with margin to spare — 16 November 2026 is a hard cutoff, and a single reschedule could push a candidate past it. AWS's Solutions Architect – Professional page is the authoritative place to confirm details before booking.

Why it matters

The roughly three-week gap between the new exam guide's release and the old exam's retirement compresses decision-making for anyone mid-preparation, forcing a choice between sprinting to finish SAP-C02 or stretching study plans to cover a substantially broader syllabus. The content shift also signals what AWS now expects professional architects to know: agentic AI on Bedrock, formal resilience engineering practice, lakehouse data patterns and readiness for post-quantum cryptography — topics that barely featured in the previous blueprint. For employers and training providers, courseware and internal certification programs will need rebuilding once the SAP-C03 guide lands on 27 October. Current holders lose nothing, since AWS says existing SAP-C02 credentials stay valid for their full three-year term, but the market value of SAP-C02 prep materials collapses after 16 November 2026.