One CGEIT sitting is billed at USD 575 with ISACA membership and USD 760 without, per attempt, neither refundable nor transferable. That is the figure everyone searches for, and it is roughly half of what the credential costs you in its first year.
The rest arrives in three waves. What you pay to sit: the registration, plus a second one if the first attempt goes badly. What you pay to certify: a one-time USD 50 application processing fee, which only becomes payable once you pass and can evidence five years of governance work. What you pay to keep it: an annual maintenance fee and 20 CPE hours a year, for as long as the letters stay after your name. The full bill is below, then what 150 questions in 240 minutes actually asks of you. ISACA revises its fees, so confirm current amounts on ISACA's own pages before you pay anything.
What does the CGEIT exam cost in total?
Every component, with the confirmed figure.
| Cost component | What it covers | Figure |
|---|---|---|
| Exam registration, per attempt | One sitting, either delivery mode | USD 575 member, USD 760 nonmember |
| ISACA membership | Member exam pricing | Current dues, ISACA's membership page |
| Certification application | Processing your experience evidence | USD 50, one-time |
| Annual maintenance fee | Keeps the credential active, due 1 January | USD 45 member, USD 85 nonmember |
| Maintenance, third or later credential | Same fee, reduced rate | USD 25 member, USD 50 nonmember |
| Eligibility extension | Six more months to sit | USD 75, one per exam |
| Rescore | Review of your result, within 30 days | USD 75 |
| Retake | A fresh registration | USD 575 or USD 760 again |
| CPE hours | 20 per year, 120 per three-year cycle | Varies |
Two of those lines are one-time. Everything else repeats every year, or repeats every time a sitting goes badly, which is why the total drifts so far from USD 575. If you have not settled whether this is the right credential at all, what the CGEIT certification is comes before any of the arithmetic.
Is ISACA membership worth it for the CGEIT?
The two rates are USD 185 apart on a single sitting, which turns membership from a loyalty question into an arithmetic one.
No dues figure appears on this page. ISACA sets dues centrally, chapters may add a local component, and we cannot confirm a current total, so pull it from ISACA's membership page with your chapter's share included.
The comparison is then one line each way: dues plus USD 575 as a member, USD 760 flat as a nonmember. Under USD 185 in dues and membership is cheaper on the exam fee alone. Above it, the decision turns on the annual maintenance fee, which you pay every year rather than once. For most CGEIT candidates the question is already settled, because five years of governance experience usually means you arrived holding CISA, CISM, or CRISC and paying member rates already. If you are the exception, join before you register, since the rate applies to the registration you actually make.
What are you paying the USD 50 for?
Not the exam. The sitting produces a score; certification is a separate transaction, granted only after ISACA reviews an application evidencing the experience rule, and that application carries a one-time USD 50 processing fee.
The expensive part of that rule is the rule itself: five or more years managing, advising on, overseeing, or otherwise supporting the governance of the IT-related contribution to an enterprise, spanning at least three of the four domains, with a minimum of one year in Domain 1, all within the 10 years before you apply. CGEIT has no general waiver or substitution scheme of the kind CISA offers, up to three years, or CISM, up to two. ISACA's support knowledge base describes one narrow exception, waiving the Domain 1 year for holders of the COBIT Design and Implementation certificate, while the Candidate Guide's summary table says no waivers or substitutions at all. The two pages disagree, so confirm your position with ISACA before you budget around either.
The useful part for planning: you can sit the exam before you meet the rule, and you have five years from passing in which to apply. The rule blocks certification, not the sitting. The CGEIT experience requirement works through what counts.
Why CGEIT is often the cheapest ISACA credential to keep
Here is the line nobody runs before registering, and it lands differently for CGEIT than for any other ISACA exam.
Annual maintenance is USD 45 for members and USD 85 for nonmembers, due 1 January for each year you hold the credential, a date that catches people who certify in the autumn. On a third or later ISACA credential it drops to USD 25 for members and USD 50 for nonmembers.
Very few people arrive at CGEIT first. The five-year governance rule means it is usually a second or third certification, taken by someone who already holds CISA, CISM, or CRISC and has moved from doing the work to governing it. If CGEIT is your third, its upkeep is USD 25 a year as a member, and all three together cost USD 45 plus USD 45 plus USD 25, so USD 115 a year. The same three as a nonmember is USD 220. That USD 105 gap widens with every credential you add. Check on ISACA's certification maintenance page how the reduced rate is applied, and do not let a payment lapse, since a missed one turns a small annual cost into a reinstatement problem.
The other half of upkeep is billed in hours: 20 CPE hours a year and 120 across each three-year reporting period. Chapter meetings, webinars, and qualifying work activities cost almost nothing. A conference or a formal course can cost more than the exam did.
What does a second CGEIT attempt cost?
The full fee again. No partial credit, no discounted retake, no carryover: a second sitting is USD 575 or USD 760, exactly like the first. Two attempts as a nonmember is USD 1,520 in registrations for one credential.
The calendar costs more than the invoice. ISACA allows four attempts in a rolling 12-month period, with a 30-day wait before the second, then 90 days before the third, then 90 again before the fourth. Fail in March and the earliest second sitting is late April; fail again and the next opening is in the summer. If the credential is attached to a promotion or a bid deadline, that is the number that hurts.
A rescore is the one cheaper option, at USD 75 requested within 30 days of your results. Our view: worth doing only with a concrete reason for doubt, since it reviews the result you already have rather than giving you another attempt.
No pass rate appears here either, because ISACA does not publish one for CGEIT. Anyone quoting you the odds of a second bill is guessing. How hard the CGEIT exam is takes the difficulty apart without inventing a number.
Where does the six-month window leak money?
Registration starts a clock. You get a six-month eligibility period in which to sit, and one six-month extension is available at USD 75, limited to one per exam.
That extension is a cheap safety net and an expensive habit, because the money lost here is rarely the USD 75. It is registering as a motivational device, drifting for four months, then booking a date you are not ready for and paying USD 575 or USD 760 to discover it. Settle your study runway first, then register, then book. Our 12-week CGEIT study plan is a workable shape for someone already doing governance work, and ISACA's registration page carries the current window, extension, and cancellation rules.
Where should a CGEIT budget actually go?
Study material is the smallest controllable line on the bill and the only one with leverage over the largest. A hundred extra dollars on material that prepares you properly is cheap next to a second registration, and sitting cold to save money is how a USD 575 exam turns into a USD 1,150 one.
Overbuying is the same mistake pointed the other way. Own a manual, two guides, a question bank, and a video course and you will finish none of them. One explanation of all four domains that you actually read end to end, backed by enough explained practice questions to retrain your ranking instincts, is worth more than four half-read resources. Our CGEIT study guide is built for that: plain-English coverage weighted to the 40/15/26/19 outline, with a full-length 150-question practice exam where every option is explained, including the wrong ones.
Which delivery mode, and in which language?
Two options at the same price: PSI test centers, or online with a remote proctor. No country is excluded from remote proctoring for CGEIT, whatever you may have read about ISACA's newer credentials.
Our opinion is to take the test center whenever one is within a reasonable drive. It hands the room, the machine, and the internet connection to people whose job is making them work, on the one morning you cannot afford any of the three to fail. Remote proctoring keeps all three with you, so run the system check on the machine and network you will actually use, and read ISACA's and PSI's current environment requirements rather than assuming your home office qualifies.
Then the detail almost nobody publishes. CGEIT is offered in English and Chinese Simplified only, and communication with a remote proctor happens in English regardless of the language you take the exam in. Check-in, instructions, and anything that goes wrong mid-exam are all in English. If your English is comfortable for reading but not for a live exchange under pressure, that is a real argument for a test center, and it is worth knowing before you pick the cheaper-feeling option.
What do the 240 minutes ask of you?
The week before is logistics rather than study. Confirm the appointment and the address, check that the name on your ID matches your ISACA account exactly, and if you are sitting remotely, run the technical check on the real machine and clear the room the day before rather than five minutes before check-in. Then do one full 150-question timed rehearsal at the same time of day as your booked slot, and stop. A scaled score does not respond to a night of cramming. It responds to whether you can still read a five-line stem at hour four.
On the day the clock is 240 minutes for 150 questions, which is 96 seconds an item: generous on a definitional question, tight on a scenario where three options all look like something a competent executive would do. Get ahead of the clock early on the items you know cold, because the long scenarios will take that time back. Nothing is deducted for a wrong answer, so no item should be left blank. Flag what you want to revisit and keep moving.
A preliminary passing status appears on screen when you submit. It is not your result. ISACA's Candidate Guide says the official score is emailed and posted online within 10 working days: 200 to 800, with 450 to pass. Domain-level results come with it and are informational only, since your score is total items answered correctly across the whole paper rather than a bar cleared in each domain. If you want that weighting settled first, the four CGEIT domains explained shows where the questions sit.
Passing does not certify you. The application, the experience, and the USD 50 fee come next, which is where this post began.
FAQ
How much does the CGEIT exam cost?
USD 575 for ISACA members and USD 760 for nonmembers, per attempt, nonrefundable and nontransferable. That buys one registration delivered through PSI, either at a test center or online with a remote proctor, and the exam is identical either way. ISACA revises these fees, so check the current amount on its exam registration page before paying.
Is ISACA membership worth joining just for the CGEIT exam price?
The saving on the exam alone is USD 185. If your total dues, including any chapter component, come to less than that, membership is cheaper before anything else counts. Above that it turns on the annual maintenance fee, which you pay every year for as long as you hold the credential. Get current dues from ISACA's membership page and run the comparison for your own situation.
Does holding other ISACA certifications reduce the CGEIT annual fee?
Yes. The annual maintenance fee drops from USD 45 to USD 25 for members, and from USD 85 to USD 50 for nonmembers, on a third or later ISACA credential. Since CGEIT is often someone's second or third certification, that reduction reaches a lot of candidates. Confirm on ISACA's certification maintenance page how the reduced rate is applied to your account.
Do I pay the full fee again if I fail the CGEIT?
Yes. A retake is a fresh registration at the same USD 575 or USD 760, with no credit for the attempt you failed. ISACA allows four attempts in a rolling 12-month period, with waits of 30 days, then 90, then 90 between them. A rescore of an existing result is a separate option at USD 75, requested within 30 days.
Can I sit the CGEIT before I have five years of experience?
Yes. The experience rule gates certification, not the exam, and you have five years from passing to submit your application. Paying for the exam early is reasonable if your five years are close, but budget the USD 50 application fee and annual maintenance separately, since neither starts until you certify.
Looking for a plain-English CGEIT guide? ISACA CGEIT: Simply Certified Study Guide covers all four domains at their 40/15/26/19 weights, with a full-length 150-question practice exam, every answer explained.
Simply Certified is an independent publisher. CGEIT and ISACA are trademarks of ISACA. Our books are independent study material and are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by ISACA.