AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner is Amazon Web Services' Foundational-level certification, earned by passing a single exam, code CLF-C02. It checks that you understand what the AWS Cloud is, what the main services do, how security responsibility is split between AWS and the customer, and how AWS charges for all of it. The exam is 65 questions in 90 minutes, costs US$100, and the certification is valid for 3 years.
There are no prerequisites. AWS describes the typical candidate as someone with up to 6 months of exposure to the AWS Cloud, and its own certification page adds that this exposure is not required. The rest of this post covers who sits it, the four domains, the 2026 exam guide revision, and how it relates to the Associate exams.
Who sits the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam?
AWS designed it for people new to cloud, including those without an IT background. That is a wider group than "junior cloud engineers". In practice it covers people who sit next to technical work and need to speak its language: project managers on a migration, finance and procurement staff approving cloud spend, sales and account people who talk to customers about AWS, recruiters hiring for cloud roles, and students or career changers who want a first credential on a resume.
It also suits technical people from outside AWS. A network administrator or developer who has spent years on premises can use it as a structured tour of the AWS service catalog before committing to a harder exam.
The clearest way to see what the exam is, though, is to look at what it leaves out. The exam guide lists these job tasks as out of scope: coding, designing cloud architecture, troubleshooting, implementation, and load and performance testing. Read that list again. Almost everything a cloud engineer does all day is on it.
So this is a fluency exam. You will be asked which service fits a described need, which party is responsible for patching a guest operating system, or which pricing model suits a workload that can be interrupted. You will not be asked to write a policy document line by line or debug a failing deployment.
What does the exam look like?
Here is the format in one place, taken from the AWS certification page and the current exam guide.
| Item | CLF-C02 |
|---|---|
| Questions | 65 (50 scored, 15 unscored) |
| Time | 90 minutes |
| Question types | Multiple choice and multiple response |
| Score | Scaled, 100 to 1,000; 700 to pass |
| Fee | US$100 |
| Delivery | Pearson VUE test center or online proctored |
| Validity | 3 years |
A multiple-choice question has one correct answer out of four options. A multiple-response question has two or more correct answers out of five or more options. AWS uses performance on the 15 unscored questions to evaluate them for future use as scored questions, and they are not identified on the exam, so you treat every question as live. Unanswered questions are scored as incorrect and there is no penalty for guessing, which means you should never leave one blank.
On scoring, one line is all you need here: the result is a scaled score where 700 passes, and the model is compensatory, so you do not need to pass each domain separately. How that plays out, and what actually makes the exam hard, is in how hard the AWS Cloud Practitioner exam really is.
The exam is offered in 12 languages on the AWS certification page, from Arabic to Traditional Chinese. One note if you planned to sit it in German or Italian: AWS says those two versions will be retired after December 31, 2026. If you take a localized version, you can toggle questions to English during the exam.
What are the four domains, and how much does each count?
The exam guide splits the content into four domains and 19 task statements. The weights are the most useful numbers in the whole guide, because they tell you where the scored questions come from.
| Domain | Weight | Task statements |
|---|---|---|
| 1: Cloud Concepts | 24% | 4 |
| 2: Security and Compliance | 30% | 4 |
| 3: Cloud Technology and Services | 34% | 8 |
| 4: Billing, Pricing, and Support | 12% | 3 |
Cloud Concepts is the "why" of cloud: the benefits AWS claims for moving off your own hardware, the AWS Well-Architected Framework, how organizations plan a migration, and the economics of paying for capacity as you use it.
Security and Compliance starts with the shared responsibility model, which is the single idea you should know cold before exam day, then moves through governance and compliance, identity and access management, and the security services AWS offers.
Cloud Technology and Services is the big one, with twice as many task statements as any other domain. It covers the ways you can reach and deploy on AWS, the global infrastructure of Regions and Availability Zones, and then the service families: compute, databases, networking, storage, AI and analytics, and a long tail of other services.
Billing, Pricing, and Support covers pricing models such as On-Demand and Savings Plans, the tools for watching a bill, and the AWS Support plans and other help resources.
Domain 2 and Domain 3 together are 64% of the scored exam. Domain 3 is where most people underestimate the work, because "know what each service does" sounds easy until you meet a question with four plausible services in the options.
For a plain-English pass through all 19 task statements, see the AWS Cloud Practitioner domains explained. For turning these weights into a calendar, see the AWS Cloud Practitioner study plan.
What changed in the exam guide in 2026?
AWS revised the CLF-C02 exam guide during 2026. Version 1.3 is dated October 29, 2026. The exam code, the four domains, their weights and the 19 task statements did not change; some example services and the Support plan names did.
That distinction matters for how you use older material. Anything that teaches the domain structure and weights is still accurate. What has moved is the detail inside the task statements.
The change most likely to catch you out is the Support plans. The current guide lists Basic Support, AWS Business Support+, AWS Enterprise Support and AWS Unified Operations. Material written against the 2023 guide, our own book included, teaches the earlier plan names. If a source you are using lists plans that do not appear on that list, trust the live guide.
A few services were also renamed in the guide. Amazon SageMaker is now Amazon SageMaker AI, and Amazon QuickSight is now Amazon Quick. Some example services were dropped from the task statements and a few were added. The guide's in-scope service list is the place to check a specific service, and AWS describes that list as non-exhaustive and subject to change.
On timing, AWS says exam guide updates are published approximately one month before they are reflected on the exam. It does not say which change arrived in which version, so the safe habit is simple: whatever you study from, check names and plans against the current guide on docs.aws.amazon.com before you book.
How much does it cost, and how long does it last?
The exam fee is US$100, plus any taxes and foreign exchange. AWS publishes local-currency prices for other markets. Each fee covers one exam attempt. You book through your AWS Certification Account and schedule with Pearson VUE, either at a test center or online. Booking, rescheduling rules, retakes and what happens on the day are all in the AWS Cloud Practitioner exam cost guide.
One money detail worth knowing early: once you hold one AWS certification, AWS gives you a 50% discount voucher for other AWS certification exams. If the Cloud Practitioner is your first step toward an Associate exam, that voucher reduces the cost of the next one.
The certification is valid for 3 years. AWS offers a free game-based renewal route as well as exam-based ones, and which to use, and when each opens, is in the AWS Cloud Practitioner requirements and recertification guide.
Where does the Cloud Practitioner sit relative to the Associate exams?
AWS groups its certifications by level. Cloud Practitioner is Foundational. Above it are the Associate exams, then Professional and Specialty. The AWS certification page names three Associate certifications as next steps after Cloud Practitioner: Solutions Architect - Associate, Developer - Associate, and the operations certification that AWS has renamed from SysOps Administrator - Associate to CloudOps Engineer - Associate.
The step up is real, and it is mostly about the out-of-scope list from earlier. The Associate exams test the work the Cloud Practitioner deliberately leaves out: designing architectures, building and deploying, operating and troubleshooting. They also cost more (US$150 against US$100) and carry a higher scaled pass mark (720 against 700).
You do not have to take the Cloud Practitioner before an Associate exam. Whether the foundational step is worth it for you depends on your starting point. If you already work hands-on with AWS every day, you may go straight to an Associate exam. If you are new to cloud, or your role is commercial rather than technical, the Cloud Practitioner is the exam built for you. There is a fuller version of that decision in is the AWS Cloud Practitioner worth it.
There is also a practical link between the levels. Passing any Associate exam renews your Cloud Practitioner, so the two certifications fit together over time.
How do people usually prepare?
Most candidates combine three things: the official exam guide as the checklist, a study source that explains each task statement in plain English, and practice questions to test whether the explanations stuck.
The practice part matters more than people expect. Cloud Practitioner questions are short scenarios, and the wrong options are usually real AWS services, often from the same family as the right one. Seeing why each wrong option is wrong is how you build the service map the exam rewards. You can try that on five worked examples in our AWS Cloud Practitioner practice questions walkthrough.
If you want a single book to work from, our AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02 Study Guide 2026 is organized by task statement, with 210 practice questions and explained answers mapped to all 19 CLF-C02 task statements. It was written against the 2023 version of the exam guide, so its Support plans chapter uses the earlier plan names and some example services that the 2026 revision dropped. Check those against the current exam guide.
FAQ
Is the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner a technical certification?
Only lightly. It tests whether you can describe AWS services, the shared responsibility model and AWS pricing, and the exam guide puts hands-on work such as coding and troubleshooting out of scope. AWS pitches it at people new to cloud, including those without an IT background.
How many questions are on the CLF-C02 exam, and how long do I get?
There are 65 questions in 90 minutes. Fifty are scored and 15 are unscored, and the unscored ones are not identified, so answer every question as if it counts.
Is the Cloud Practitioner exam being replaced?
Not as of October 2026. CLF-C02 is the current exam, and AWS has not announced a successor or a retirement date. What AWS has done is revise the CLF-C02 exam guide during 2026, keeping the same domains, weights and task statements.
Can I take the Cloud Practitioner exam from home?
Yes. AWS offers it as an online proctored exam through Pearson VUE, as well as at Pearson VUE test centers. The ID and check-in rules differ between the two.
Should I take the Cloud Practitioner before an Associate exam?
It is optional. AWS lists the Associate exams as next steps, but the Cloud Practitioner is not a required step before them. It makes most sense if you are new to cloud or work in a non-technical role, and passing it earns you a 50% voucher toward your next AWS exam.
Studying for the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner? The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02 Study Guide 2026 explains the four domains in plain-English chapters, with 210 practice questions and explained answers mapped to all 19 CLF-C02 task statements.
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