Validates foundational knowledge of cloud concepts, Azure architecture and services, and Azure management and governance.
99EntryNo prerequisites
Best Microsoft Certifications in 2026
Microsoft is a software and cloud company whose role-based certifications cover Azure, Microsoft 365, security, data and analytics, Power Platform and AI.
Validates knowledge of administering Azure identities, governance, storage, compute and networking, and monitoring cloud infrastructure.
165IntermediateNo prerequisites
Validates foundational knowledge of AI concepts, responsible AI and building generative AI, vision and speech solutions.
99EntryNo prerequisites
Validates skills in administering Microsoft Entra identities, including hybrid identities, authentication, Conditional Access, workload identities and identity governance.
165IntermediateNo prerequisites
Validates skills in preparing, modeling and visualizing data with Power BI, and managing and securing reports and models.
165IntermediateNo prerequisites
Validates knowledge of designing Azure solutions for identity, governance, monitoring, data, business continuity and infrastructure.
330AdvancedHas prerequisites
Validates expert knowledge of designing Zero Trust strategy, security operations, identity, compliance, and infrastructure, application and data security.
330AdvancedHas prerequisites
Validates knowledge of managing devices with Microsoft Intune, including enrollment, Autopilot, device and app protection, updates and monitoring.
165IntermediateNo prerequisites
Validates foundational knowledge of security, compliance and identity concepts and Microsoft Entra, security and compliance solutions.
99EntryNo prerequisites
Validates knowledge of securing Azure, hybrid and AI workloads through identity, data, network and compute controls and monitoring.
165IntermediateNo prerequisites
Validates knowledge of security operations, incident response and threat hunting with KQL using Microsoft Sentinel and Defender XDR.
165IntermediateNo prerequisites
Validates knowledge of administering Microsoft 365 tenants, including users, identity, security and compliance.
330AdvancedHas prerequisites
Validates knowledge of building Azure AI solutions, including generative AI, agents, computer vision, text analysis and information extraction.
165IntermediateNo prerequisites
Validates foundational knowledge of Microsoft 365 services, data protection and governance, and basic administration of Copilot and agents.
99EntryNo prerequisites
Validates foundational knowledge of Power Apps, Power Automate, Copilot Studio agents, and managing and securing Power Platform environments.
99EntryNo prerequisites
Validates foundational knowledge of core data concepts, relational and non-relational data, and analytics workloads on Azure.
99EntryNo prerequisites
Validates knowledge of designing DevOps solutions, including source control, build and release pipelines, security and compliance, and instrumentation.
330AdvancedHas prerequisites
Validates knowledge of preparing data and building semantic models in Microsoft Fabric, including governance, SQL, KQL and DAX.
165IntermediateNo prerequisites
Validates skills in building Microsoft Fabric pipelines, including ingestion and transformation with PySpark, SQL and KQL, and monitoring.
165IntermediateNo prerequisites
Validates knowledge of building AI-enabled Azure back-end solutions using containers, Cosmos DB, PostgreSQL, Redis, messaging, security and monitoring.
165IntermediateNo prerequisites
How Microsoft certifications work
- Exam fees
- $99 Fundamentals · $165 Associate and Expert (US)
- Validity
- Fundamentals never expire; role-based certifications last 1 year
- Renewal
- Free online assessment on Microsoft Learn in the 6 months before expiry; passing adds 1 year
- Retakes
- Wait 24 hours after a first failure, 14 days after later ones; max 5 attempts a year
- Delivery
- Pearson VUE test center or online
- Exam aids
- Microsoft Learn is available during Associate and Expert exams, not Fundamentals
Microsoft certifications by level
Fundamentals
AI-901Microsoft Certified: Azure AI FundamentalsDP-900Microsoft Certified: Azure Data FundamentalsAZ-900Microsoft Certified: Azure FundamentalsAB-900Microsoft 365 Certified: Copilot and Agent Administration FundamentalsPL-900Microsoft Certified: Power Platform FundamentalsSC-900Microsoft Certified: Security, Compliance, and Identity FundamentalsAssociate
AZ-104Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator AssociateAI-103Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Apps and Agents Developer AssociateAI-200Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Cloud Developer AssociateSC-500Microsoft Certified: Cloud and AI Security Engineer AssociateMD-102Microsoft 365 Certified: Endpoint Administrator AssociateDP-600Microsoft Certified: Fabric Analytics Engineer AssociateDP-700Microsoft Certified: Fabric Data Engineer AssociateSC-300Microsoft Certified: Identity and Access Administrator AssociatePL-300Microsoft Certified: Power BI Data Analyst AssociateSC-200Microsoft Certified: Security Operations Analyst AssociateChoosing the right Microsoft certification
Where to start
- Cloud basics: Azure Fundamentals. Covers cloud concepts, core Azure services, and cost, governance and monitoring tools, with no experience requirement.
- Hands-on Azure administration: Azure Administrator Associate. Covers managing identities, storage, networking and compute on Azure, and suits people who run Azure resources at work. It is required before Azure Solutions Architect Expert and is one of the accepted prerequisites for DevOps Engineer Expert.
- Security operations: Security Operations Analyst Associate. Covers threat detection and incident response with Microsoft Sentinel, Defender XDR and KQL, for SOC analysts. It is one of three associate certifications that qualify you for Cybersecurity Architect Expert, alongside Identity and Access Administrator and Cloud and AI Security Engineer.
- Building AI apps: Azure AI Apps and Agents Developer Associate. Covers building generative AI, agent, vision and language solutions on Azure for Python developers. Microsoft expects experience building apps in Python.
- Data engineering: Fabric Data Engineer Associate. Covers building Microsoft Fabric pipelines with PySpark, SQL and KQL, for data engineers working with lakehouses and warehouses.