Last week Microsoft announced on the MS Learn blog changes to their exam renewal process. Currently, the Azure role-based exams have a two-year expiry, and you are then required to retake the exam in full to renew your certification.

The MS Learn team announced that from early February 2021, they are changing the renewal process for these role-based exams. From February next year instead of having to retake the full exam, you will be able to sit renewal assessments on the Microsoft Learn site in your own time. These renewal assessments can be sat any time in the 6-months before your certificate is due to expire and once completed will extend the certification by an additional 12 months.

The new renewal assessments are available to be sat any time within the six months before the certification expires. You can take the assessments as many times as needed, although after the second try a 24-hour cooldown is imposed between attempts.

The renewal assessments do not have the same pre-requisite certifications requirements that the full exam does (e.g. AZ 400 requires AZ 104 or AZ 204). So if your associate-level certifications expire, you will still be able to renew your expert certifications if within the 6-month window. Conversely however renewing your expert-level exams do not renew any pre-requisite certifications as well. Each exam will need to be renewed separately.

These renewal assessments only apply to certifications with expiry dates. Fundamental level certificates do not currently have expiry dates so are unaffected by this announcement.

In line with the 12-month extensions you get from these renewal assessments, from June 2021 any new certifications earned will also have a 12-month expiry instead of the current two-year limit. If any of your certifications do expire then you would be required to re-sit the full exam to be re-certified. Therefore, ensure that you know when they expire and when you can start to renew them for free using Microsoft’s new process, especially if the certifications are a requirement of your employment contract.

Further Reading

Announcement: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-learn-blog/stay-current-with-in-demand-skills-through-free-certification/ba-p/1489678

FAQs: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/learn/certifications/renew-your-microsoft-certification