{"id":561,"date":"2026-10-06T20:33:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T20:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.directcertify.com\/blog\/?p=561"},"modified":"2026-10-06T20:33:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T20:33:16","slug":"aws-certification-changes-sap-c03-dva-c03-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.directcertify.com\/blog\/aws-certification-changes-sap-c03-dva-c03-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"AWS Is Retiring SAP-C02 and DVA-C02 This Winter: Which Version Should You Sit?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two of AWS&#8217;s best-known certifications are being replaced within two weeks of each other. The Solutions Architect Professional exam, SAP-C02, can be taken until November 16, 2026. The Developer Associate exam, DVA-C02, runs until November 30. If you are partway through a study plan for either one, the cutoff is closer than the shelf life of most study material suggests.<\/p>\n<p>These AWS certification changes follow the same pattern as the Machine Learning Engineer refresh last month, which we covered in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.directcertify.com\/blog\/aws-machine-learning-engineer-associate-mla-c02-2026\/\">our breakdown of the MLA-C02 replacement<\/a>: AWS keeps the exam name, retires the code, and pushes generative AI into the blueprint. What the other write-ups skip is the practical question. Should you rush the old exam, or wait for the new one? This piece answers it with the dates, the format details, and the trade-offs laid side by side.<\/p>\n<h2>The AWS Certification Changes Come Down to Four Dates<\/h2>\n<p>Both updates share one registration date, but the old exams close at different times and the new ones start delivery on different days.<\/p>\n<table style=\"border-collapse:collapse;width:100%;margin:20px 0\">\n<thead>\n<tr style=\"background:#f5f7fa\">\n<th style=\"border:1px solid #e0e0e0;padding:10px;text-align:left\">Exam<\/th>\n<th style=\"border:1px solid #e0e0e0;padding:10px;text-align:left\">New version registration opens<\/th>\n<th style=\"border:1px solid #e0e0e0;padding:10px;text-align:left\">Last day for current version<\/th>\n<th style=\"border:1px solid #e0e0e0;padding:10px;text-align:left\">New version delivery begins<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"border:1px solid #e0e0e0;padding:10px\">Solutions Architect Professional (SAP-C02 to SAP-C03)<\/td>\n<td style=\"border:1px solid #e0e0e0;padding:10px\">October 27, 2026<\/td>\n<td style=\"border:1px solid #e0e0e0;padding:10px\">November 16, 2026<\/td>\n<td style=\"border:1px solid #e0e0e0;padding:10px\">November 17, 2026<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"border:1px solid #e0e0e0;padding:10px\">Developer Associate (DVA-C02 to DVA-C03)<\/td>\n<td style=\"border:1px solid #e0e0e0;padding:10px\">October 27, 2026<\/td>\n<td style=\"border:1px solid #e0e0e0;padding:10px\">November 30, 2026<\/td>\n<td style=\"border:1px solid #e0e0e0;padding:10px\">December 1, 2026<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>AWS laid these out in its <a href=\"https:\/\/aws.amazon.com\/blogs\/training-and-certification\/september-2026-new-offerings\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">September 2026 certification update on the AWS Training and Certification Blog<\/a>. Both new exams will be offered in every language the current versions support at launch, and delivery runs through Pearson VUE, either at a test center or online with a proctor.<\/p>\n<h3>Why You May See Different Dates on Other Sites<\/h3>\n<p>Several third-party exam calendars list November 17 and December 1 as the last day for the old exams. Those are the days the new exams start, not the days the old ones end. The AWS announcement and AWS&#8217;s own certification pages give November 16 for SAP-C02 and November 30 for DVA-C02. If you are booking close to the deadline, trust the AWS dates and leave yourself a day of margin anyway.<\/p>\n<h3>How Much Runway You Actually Have<\/h3>\n<p>Counting from October 6, that is 41 days left to sit SAP-C02 and 55 days left for DVA-C02. The new exams are further out than registration suggests. Booking opens October 27, but SAP-C03 does not deliver until three weeks after that, and DVA-C03 five weeks after. The announcement lists registration and general availability dates and no beta period for either exam, which is a difference from MLA-C02, where a beta ran first.<\/p>\n<h2>What Changes in the AWS Solutions Architect Professional Exam<\/h2>\n<p>The first of the two AWS certification changes is the bigger one. SAP-C03 keeps the premise of the old exam: designing solutions across complex, multi-account environments. What moves is the scope of what a professional-level architect is expected to design. AWS frames the role as one that now covers generative AI, post-quantum cryptography, and resilience as a built-in design goal rather than an afterthought.<\/p>\n<h3>Where SAP-C03 Adds New Skills<\/h3>\n<p>AWS published a skills breakdown with specific counts, which makes this one of the more concrete exam announcements this year:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Generative AI and agentic AI (11 new skills):<\/strong> designing integrations with Amazon Bedrock, agent architectures on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, retrieval-augmented generation, Bedrock Guardrails for content filtering, and human-oversight workflows.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Resilience engineering:<\/strong> AWS Fault Injection Service, AWS Resilience Hub, AWS Application Recovery Controller, and automated runbooks in AWS Systems Manager.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Cloud-native patterns (7 new skills):<\/strong> serverless data pipelines, durable workflows with AWS Step Functions, service mesh with Amazon VPC Lattice and ECS Service Connect, container image security, multi-tenant designs, and real-time data architectures.<\/li>\n<li><strong>DevSecOps and observability (6 new skills):<\/strong> pipeline vulnerability scanning, multi-account deployment pipelines, container monitoring, AI and ML metrics, and synthetic and real-user monitoring.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Data and analytics (3 new skills):<\/strong> lakehouse designs with AWS Lake Formation and Apache Iceberg, batch and real-time analytics pipelines, and cross-account data sharing through AWS Clean Rooms.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Post-quantum cryptography:<\/strong> AWS KMS with the ML-DSA and ML-KEM algorithms.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The current exam is built on four domains. SAP-C03 lists five: cloud-native architecture design and implementation, security and compliance and governance, cost-optimized design, resilience and migration and business continuity, and operational excellence and automation. AWS has not published percentage weightings yet. The full exam guide arrives October 27, so any article quoting SAP-C03 domain weights today is guessing.<\/p>\n<h3>Format, Cost, and Who Should Be Sitting It<\/h3>\n<p>The general availability version is 75 questions in 180 minutes and costs $300 USD, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/aws.amazon.com\/certification\/certified-solutions-architect-professional\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">AWS Solutions Architect Professional certification page<\/a>. That page recommends at least two years of hands-on experience designing and implementing AWS solutions, and the certification is valid for three years. This is not a first cloud exam, and the multi-account focus means it rewards people who have actually worked in organizations with several AWS accounts.<\/p>\n<h3>What the Credential Pays<\/h3>\n<p>Skillsoft&#8217;s IT skills and salary survey, fielded May to September 2024 and reported by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.globalknowledge.com\/en\/resources\/articles\/which-aws-certification-should-i-choose\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Global Knowledge in its AWS certification guide<\/a>, put the average salary for Solutions Architect Professional holders at $155,905. That figure rests on 97 respondents, so treat it as a rough indicator rather than a benchmark.<\/p>\n<p>The Bureau of Labor Statistics gives a firmer, if less specific, anchor. Its category for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bls.gov\/ooh\/computer-and-information-technology\/computer-network-architects.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">computer network architects<\/a> shows a median of $134,050 in 2025, 181,800 jobs, 8 percent projected growth from 2025 to 2035, and about 9,600 openings a year. That is the nearest federal occupation to a cloud architect, not an exact match, so it describes the neighborhood rather than the job.<\/p>\n<h2>What Changes in the AWS Developer Associate Exam<\/h2>\n<p>DVA-C03 is a smaller rewrite than SAP-C03 in terms of structure. The four domains stay in place. What changes is how much of the exam assumes you work alongside AI tooling, and a whole new task on securing AI services.<\/p>\n<h3>A New Task Built Around AI Security<\/h3>\n<p>The headline addition is Task 2.3, which covers protecting AI services and AI agents. AWS lists five skills inside it:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Access management for AI services.<\/li>\n<li>Data privacy controls, including VPC endpoints and making sure inputs and outputs are not used to train models.<\/li>\n<li>Content filtering and protection against prompt injection.<\/li>\n<li>Securing AI agent interactions: tool-use authorization, session isolation, and human-in-the-loop approval flows.<\/li>\n<li>Keeping sensitive content out of monitoring logs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>AI-assisted development also threads through the other domains: code generation and automated review, test automation, deployment approvals in CI\/CD pipelines, error analysis, and performance suggestions. Container work gets explicit attention too, covering images in Amazon ECR and deployments on Amazon ECS, Amazon EKS, and AWS Fargate.<\/p>\n<h3>What Got Consolidated, and What Is Explicitly Out of Scope<\/h3>\n<p>Anyone worried that the exam simply got bigger should look at the consolidations, because AWS trimmed as well as added:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>DynamoDB: four separate skills folded into one.<\/li>\n<li>Encryption and sensitive-data security: 13 skills across two tasks reduced to 7 skills in one task.<\/li>\n<li>Testing: 11 skills across two tasks reduced to 5 skills in one task.<\/li>\n<li>Observability: 8 skills reduced to 5.<\/li>\n<li>Optimization: 9 skills reduced to 6.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>New services in scope include Amazon Bedrock, Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, Amazon Q, Kiro, Amazon Data Firehose, and AWS PrivateLink. AWS also states what the exam will not test: prompt engineering, RAG design, AI model selection, Amazon SageMaker AI, and AI governance framework design. That boundary matters. DVA-C03 asks whether you can use and secure AI services inside an application, not whether you can build the AI system.<\/p>\n<h3>Format, Cost, and Who Should Be Sitting It<\/h3>\n<p>The exam is 65 questions in 130 minutes, of which 50 are scored and 15 are unscored, with a passing score of 720 out of 1,000. It costs $150 USD. The <a href=\"https:\/\/aws.amazon.com\/certification\/certified-developer-associate\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">AWS Developer Associate certification page<\/a> recommends one or more years of hands-on experience developing and maintaining applications on AWS, and the credential is valid for three years. The updated domains are Development with AWS Services at 30 percent, Security at 26 percent, Testing and Deployment at 22 percent, and Troubleshooting and Optimization at 22 percent.<\/p>\n<h3>What the Credential Pays<\/h3>\n<p>There is no AWS-specific salary figure for the Developer Associate that we could verify, so here is the surrounding data. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median of $135,980 for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bls.gov\/ooh\/computer-and-information-technology\/software-developers.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">software developers<\/a> as of May 2025, with 10 percent projected growth from 2025 to 2035 for the combined software developer, QA analyst, and tester group and about 106,100 openings a year. A certification does not set that pay. It is one signal among several that a hiring manager reads alongside a portfolio and a work history.<\/p>\n<h2>Should You Sit the Old Exam or Wait for the New One?<\/h2>\n<p>The practical question behind these AWS certification changes is timing. AWS&#8217;s own guidance is short: take the current exam if you are ready now, and wait for the new one if you want the credential to reflect the updated skills. Both halves of that advice are true, and neither tells you which side you are on. These checks do.<\/p>\n<h3>Sit SAP-C02 or DVA-C02 Now If<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>You are already scoring consistently well on full-length practice exams and the exam is within a few weeks of your date.<\/li>\n<li>Your employer or a client contract needs the credential before the end of the year.<\/li>\n<li>Your current study material is built for the old blueprint and you have no budget to buy new material.<\/li>\n<li>You would rather take a known exam than one with no public track record, since SAP-C03 and DVA-C03 will have no candidate reports for a while after launch.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For readers in that group, DirectCertify&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.directcertify.com\/amazon\/sap-c02\">SAP-C02 practice set<\/a> has 691 questions and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.directcertify.com\/amazon\/dva-c02\">DVA-C02 question bank<\/a> has 600, both updated within the last two weeks. DirectCertify does not list SAP-C03 or DVA-C03 products yet, as of October 6, so anyone planning for the new versions will need to cover that preparation elsewhere until they appear.<\/p>\n<h3>Wait for SAP-C03 or DVA-C03 If<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>You have not started serious preparation and a 41-day or 55-day window would mean cramming.<\/li>\n<li>Your work is moving toward Bedrock, agent architectures, or AI-assisted development, and you want the credential to match.<\/li>\n<li>You are an architect who wants post-quantum cryptography, resilience engineering, and data lakehouse design on your record.<\/li>\n<li>You can afford to read the official exam guide on October 27 and decide with the real task statements in front of you.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>What an Old-Version Certification Is Worth After Retirement<\/h3>\n<p>AWS says a credential earned on the current version stays active through its original expiration date, and the certification pages list a three-year validity. The certificate carries the certification name rather than a version code, so nothing on the credential itself marks it as a lesser one. When the three years run out, you will be sitting whichever version is current at that point. Passing SAP-C02 now buys you three years of validity, not a head start on SAP-C03.<\/p>\n<h2>A Four-Step Plan Before October 27<\/h2>\n<p>The weeks before registration opens are the right time to set the decision up, so that you are not choosing under deadline pressure.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Take one full-length practice exam for the version you are studying, under timed conditions, and write down the score.<\/li>\n<li>If you are close to ready, book the old exam now and pick a date at least a week before the cutoff, so a failed attempt still leaves room for a retake.<\/li>\n<li>If you are not close, keep studying the fundamentals that both versions retain, since AWS says each update keeps the core competencies the certification has always tested. If the generative AI material is new to you, the AI Practitioner exam is the usual entry point, and we covered <a href=\"https:\/\/www.directcertify.com\/blog\/aws-certified-ai-practitioner-in-2026-why-its-filling-the-gap-machine-learning-specialty-left-behind\/\">why that credential filled the gap the Machine Learning Specialty left<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>On October 27, read the full exam guide for your target exam and compare its task statements against your current weak areas before committing.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><em>DirectCertify is an independent certification prep provider and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Amazon Web Services. Exam codes, prices, and dates can change, so confirm them on AWS&#8217;s own certification pages before you book, particularly because the full SAP-C03 and DVA-C03 exam guides are not yet published.<\/em><\/p>\n<h2>Questions People Are Asking About SAP-C03 and DVA-C03<\/h2>\n<details style=\"border:1px solid #e0e0e0;border-radius:8px;margin-bottom:10px;padding:0;overflow:hidden\">\n<summary style=\"cursor:pointer;padding:14px 18px;background:#f5f7fa;font-weight:600\">Can I still sit SAP-C02 after SAP-C03 registration opens?<\/summary>\n<div style=\"padding:14px 18px;border-top:1px solid #e0e0e0\">Yes. SAP-C03 registration opens October 27, 2026, but SAP-C02 stays available through November 16, 2026, and SAP-C03 delivery does not begin until November 17. For roughly three weeks both versions exist at the same time.<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details style=\"border:1px solid #e0e0e0;border-radius:8px;margin-bottom:10px;padding:0;overflow:hidden\">\n<summary style=\"cursor:pointer;padding:14px 18px;background:#f5f7fa;font-weight:600\">Will my certification stop counting when the old exam retires?<\/summary>\n<div style=\"padding:14px 18px;border-top:1px solid #e0e0e0\">No. AWS states that a certification earned on the current version remains active through its original expiration date, and AWS certifications are valid for three years from the date you pass.<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details style=\"border:1px solid #e0e0e0;border-radius:8px;margin-bottom:10px;padding:0;overflow:hidden\">\n<summary style=\"cursor:pointer;padding:14px 18px;background:#f5f7fa;font-weight:600\">How much do SAP-C03 and DVA-C03 cost?<\/summary>\n<div style=\"padding:14px 18px;border-top:1px solid #e0e0e0\">AWS lists SAP-C03 at $300 USD and DVA-C03 at $150 USD, the same prices shown on the current certification pages. Both are delivered through Pearson VUE, at a test center or online.<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details style=\"border:1px solid #e0e0e0;border-radius:8px;margin-bottom:10px;padding:0;overflow:hidden\">\n<summary style=\"cursor:pointer;padding:14px 18px;background:#f5f7fa;font-weight:600\">Does DVA-C03 test prompt engineering or RAG design?<\/summary>\n<div style=\"padding:14px 18px;border-top:1px solid #e0e0e0\">No. AWS lists prompt engineering, RAG design, AI model selection, Amazon SageMaker AI, and AI governance framework design as out of scope for DVA-C03. SAP-C03 is the one that covers RAG architectures, as part of its 11 new generative AI skills.<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details style=\"border:1px solid #e0e0e0;border-radius:8px;margin-bottom:10px;padding:0;overflow:hidden\">\n<summary style=\"cursor:pointer;padding:14px 18px;background:#f5f7fa;font-weight:600\">How many DVA-C03 questions actually count toward my score?<\/summary>\n<div style=\"padding:14px 18px;border-top:1px solid #e0e0e0\">The exam has 65 questions, of which 50 are scored and 15 are unscored. You are not told which are which, and the passing score is 720 out of 1,000.<\/div>\n<\/details>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AWS certification changes land in November: SAP-C03 and DVA-C03 replace SAP-C02 and DVA-C02. See key dates, new skills and which version to sit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_title":"AWS Certification Changes 2026: SAP-C03 and DVA-C03","rank_math_description":"AWS certification changes land in November: SAP-C03 and DVA-C03 replace SAP-C02 and DVA-C02. See key dates, new skills and which version to sit.","rank_math_focus_keyword":"AWS certification changes","footnotes":""},"categories":[314],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-amazon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.directcertify.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.directcertify.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.directcertify.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.directcertify.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.directcertify.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.directcertify.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":563,"href":"https:\/\/www.directcertify.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561\/revisions\/563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.directcertify.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.directcertify.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.directcertify.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.directcertify.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}