The Short Answer
AWS is replacing the Solutions Architect – Professional exam. The last day to sit SAP-C02 is November 16, 2026, and SAP-C03 goes live the next day, November 17. Registration for SAP-C03 opens on October 27, 2026.
The format does not change: 75 questions, 180 minutes, $300. What changes is the content. SAP-C03 reorganises the exam into five new domains and adds at least 27 new skills across generative and agentic AI, cloud-native patterns, DevSecOps, and data and analytics, plus new resilience engineering and post-quantum cryptography content.
If you are already well into your SAP-C02 preparation, book SAP-C02 and sit it before November 16. The certification is the same AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional, and AWS confirms your credential stays active through its original expiration date. If you are just starting, or you would rather your certification cover Bedrock, AgentCore and modern resilience tooling, plan for SAP-C03.
Key Dates
All dates come from the AWS Training and Certification announcement of September 1, 2026.
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| October 27, 2026 | SAP-C03 registration opens (all languages); full SAP-C03 exam guide published |
| November 16, 2026 | Last day to take SAP-C02 |
| November 17, 2026 | SAP-C03 general availability begins |
SAP-C02 vs SAP-C03 at a Glance
The exam format is identical. AWS has not yet published the SAP-C03 domain weightings, passing score or the split between scored and unscored questions; those arrive with the full exam guide on October 27. Where a value below is "not yet published", treat it as unknown rather than assuming it matches SAP-C02.
| SAP-C02 (current) | SAP-C03 (from Nov 17, 2026) | |
|---|---|---|
| Questions | 75 (65 scored + 10 unscored) | 75 (scored split not yet published) |
| Duration | 180 minutes | 180 minutes |
| Price | $300 USD | $300 USD |
| Passing score | 750 / 1000 | Not yet published |
| Domains | 4 | 5 |
| Languages | All supported languages | All currently supported languages |
| Delivery | Pearson VUE, test centre or online | Pearson VUE, test centre or online |
| Recommended experience | 2+ years designing and implementing AWS solutions | 2+ years designing and implementing AWS solutions |
The Domains: Four Become Five
SAP-C02 is organised around the kind of architecture work you are doing: dealing with organisational complexity, designing something new, improving something that exists, or migrating. SAP-C03 is organised around Well-Architected concerns instead: cloud-native design, security, cost, resilience and operations.
Most SAP-C02 knowledge still has a home. Multi-account governance from Domain 1 moves under security, compliance and governance. Migration from Domain 4 is now paired with resilience and business continuity. Cost work that was spread across the old domains gets a domain of its own. The biggest shift is the new first domain, cloud-native architecture design and implementation. Judging by AWS's list of additions, that is where most of the new AI and serverless skills are likely to land.
| SAP-C02 domains (weight) | SAP-C03 domains (weights not yet published) |
|---|---|
| 1. Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity (26%) | 1. Cloud-native architecture design and implementation |
| 2. Design for New Solutions (29%) | 2. Security, compliance, and governance |
| 3. Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions (25%) | 3. Cost-optimized architecture design |
| 4. Accelerate Workload Migration and Modernization (20%) | 4. Resilience, migration, and business continuity |
| 5. Operational excellence and automation |
What Is New in SAP-C03
AWS lists six areas of new content. The skill counts are AWS's own; resilience engineering and post-quantum cryptography were announced without a count.
- GenAI and agentic AI (11 new skills): generative AI integrations with Amazon Bedrock, AI agent architectures with Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, RAG architectures, Bedrock Guardrails for content filtering, and human-oversight workflows for AI operations.
- Cloud-native patterns (7 new skills): serverless data pipelines, durable workflows with AWS Step Functions, service mesh with Amazon VPC Lattice and Amazon ECS Service Connect, container image security, multi-tenant architectures, and real-time data architectures.
- DevSecOps and observability (6 new skills): pipeline vulnerability scanning, multi-account deployment pipelines, container monitoring, AI/ML metrics monitoring, and synthetic and real-user monitoring.
- Data and analytics (3 new skills): data lakehouse architectures with AWS Lake Formation and Apache Iceberg, real-time and batch analytics pipelines, and cross-account data sharing with AWS Clean Rooms.
- Resilience engineering: AWS Fault Injection Service, AWS Resilience Hub, Application Recovery Controller, and automated runbooks with AWS Systems Manager.
- Post-quantum cryptography: AWS KMS with ML-DSA and ML-KEM.
What Stays the Same
AWS says existing task statements and skills have been updated "while retaining the core architectural competencies that the certification has always validated." In practice, the things that make SAP hard are not going anywhere: long multi-paragraph scenarios, several technically valid answers where you must pick the one that best fits the stated constraint, and a three-hour clock.
The fundamentals you study for SAP-C02 still pay off on SAP-C03: AWS Organizations and SCPs, cross-account access, Transit Gateway, Direct Connect and hybrid networking, multi-Region disaster recovery strategies, database and storage trade-offs, and cost optimisation. SAP-C03 adds to that base rather than replacing it.
SAP-C02 Already Gives You a Preview
The current SAP-C02 exam guide has an "Emerging Topics" section. It tells candidates they may see unscored pretest questions on designing security and responsible AI controls: content filtering with Amazon Bedrock Guardrails, access controls for agentic AI applications with AgentCore Identity, and human-oversight approval workflows with AWS Step Functions.
Those topics match the GenAI and agentic AI skills AWS has announced for SAP-C03. If you sit SAP-C02 now you may meet a few of these questions, but they do not affect your score.
Should You Take SAP-C02 or Wait for SAP-C03?
AWS's own guidance is simple: take SAP-C02 by November 16 if you are already prepared and want the certification now, and wait for SAP-C03 if you want it to validate cloud-native, GenAI and agentic AI, and modern resilience skills. Here is how that plays out for different people.
Take SAP-C02 before November 16 if you have been studying for weeks, your practice scores are already in the 75%+ range, and you can book a slot in the next five weeks. Almost every study course, practice exam and community write-up available today targets SAP-C02, and that body of material is the main advantage of sitting the old version. Book early: the last weeks before a retirement are when test-centre slots fill.
Wait for SAP-C03 if you are starting from zero. A realistic SAP preparation takes 6–10 weeks for an experienced architect, which does not fit before November 16. Studying SAP-C02 material now and switching later means learning the old structure and then relearning the new one.
Either way, keep renewal in mind. The certification name does not change, so an SAP-C02 pass is still AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional, valid for three years. When it is time to renew, you will be renewing against SAP-C03 or whatever follows it.
A Note on the Pearson VUE Retake Offer
Pearson VUE's current Global Retake offer (50% off plus a free retake) does not cover Solutions Architect – Professional: SAP is one of the excluded exams. If you already hold an AWS certification, the 50% voucher from your previous pass is the usual way to cut the $300 fee.
How to Prepare Right Now
For SAP-C02: work through a full course, then switch to timed, full-length practice exams. The practice exams teach the reading speed and elimination habits that the three-hour scenario format demands. Our free SAP practice exam is built on the SAP-C02 blueprint.
For SAP-C03: you can start before the exam guide is out. Strengthen the SAP-C02 fundamentals listed above, then add the new areas: build a small Bedrock RAG app with a Guardrail, run a Fault Injection Service experiment against a multi-AZ workload, and read up on VPC Lattice, Lake Formation with Iceberg tables, and KMS post-quantum keys. When the exam guide is published on October 27, map its task statements against your notes.
The Udemy course and practice exams below are currently built for SAP-C02. Check each course page for SAP-C03 updates before you buy.