Do Microsoft Certifications Expire? Yes, After One Year, and the Renewal Is Free

Yes, most of them, after exactly one year. Microsoft role-based (associate and expert) and specialty certifications are valid for one year from the date you complete all the requirements. Microsoft fundamentals certifications, including AZ-900, SC-900, MS-900, AI-900 and DP-900, do not expire at all. Renewal is free, unproctored, open book, taken on Microsoft Learn, takes about 45 minutes, and can only be done in the six-month window before your certification expires. Miss that window and the certification is gone: you have to re-earn it by passing the full paid exam again.

If you have read somewhere that Microsoft certifications last two years, that was true once, and it stopped being true on June 30, 2021. That single date explains most of the bad advice on this topic, and it is still being repeated by training providers five years later.

Which Microsoft credentials expire, and which do not

Microsoft's expiration policy states it plainly: "Microsoft fundamentals Certifications do not expire." And its renewal FAQ answers the question directly: "Do I need to renew my Microsoft fundamentals certification? No. Renewal does not apply to fundamentals certifications as they do not expire."

That asymmetry is worth planning around. AZ-900 is a one-time purchase, forever. The moment you step up to an associate certification like AZ-104, you are on an annual clock for as long as you want to keep it.

Where the "two years" myth comes from

It comes from a real Microsoft policy that has a precise expiry date of its own.

Microsoft announced the change on December 15, 2020, and it took effect at 12 AM GMT on June 30, 2021. Its own announcement is unambiguous: "Starting 12 AM GMT on June 30, 2021, all newly earned role-based and specialty certifications will be valid for one year from the date the certification was earned. All required exams must be passed before 12 AM GMT on Jun 30, 2021 for certifications to remain valid for two years."

So two years was correct, for certifications earned before that cutoff. Every one of those has long since expired or been renewed onto the annual cycle. In 2026 there is no currently earnable Microsoft role-based certification with a two-year life. Anyone still telling you otherwise is republishing content they wrote before mid-2021 and never checked.

And they are out there. InfoSec Train's AZ-500 course page answers "Can AZ-500 expire?" with: it "does not expire but is valid only for two years from the date of qualifying for the exam", which manages to be wrong twice and to contradict itself inside one sentence. CertHippo publishes nearly identical wording. If a training provider cannot get the validity period of the certification it is selling you right, treat the rest of its exam details with the same suspicion.

How renewal actually works

This is the part that surprises people, usually pleasantly. Renewing a Microsoft certification is nothing like re-sitting the exam.

• It is free. Microsoft: "There's no cost to renew your certification." No exam voucher, no Pearson VUE booking, no $165.
• It is online, on Microsoft Learn, and that is the only way. Microsoft is explicit that you cannot renew by retaking the exam or by passing a beta exam. "There are no exceptions to this policy."
• It is unproctored and open book. No camera, no room scan, no proctor watching your eyes. You can look things up.
• It is short. About 45 minutes, and shorter than the original exam.
• Retakes are unlimited. If you fail, you can try again immediately. After the second attempt you wait at least 24 hours between tries. There is no cap, as long as you pass before the expiry date.
• Passing extends you by one year from the expiration date, not from the day you passed. So renewing early costs you nothing in validity.

Given all that, the annual renewal is a mild administrative chore, not a threat. The threat is the window.

The six-month window, and the trap inside it

You can renew at any point in the six months before your certification expires. You cannot renew earlier than that. Microsoft's FAQ: "Can I renew my certification more than six months before it expires? No. The renewal assessment on Microsoft Learn is only available once you're eligible six months before your certification expires." Expiration dates and times are in UTC.

So the sensible instinct, get it done early so you cannot forget, is not available to you. The assessment simply is not there. You have to remember to come back at the right time, in a six-month slot that opens eleven months after you last thought about this.

And if you miss it: "If your certification expires, you must earn the certification again by passing the required exam(s)." That is the full, paid, proctored exam. A free 45-minute open-book assessment you forgot to take becomes a $165 exam and a fortnight of revision.

Two more details worth knowing:

Each certification renews separately. If you hold both Azure Administrator Associate and Azure Solutions Architect Expert, they have their own expiry dates and their own assessments. Letting the associate prerequisite lapse does not automatically kill the expert certification, but neither does renewing one renew the other.

Retirement is not expiry. When Microsoft retires a certification (as it is doing to Azure Security Engineer Associate and Exam AZ-500 on August 31, 2026), it does not revoke what you already earned. Microsoft: "Retirement does not revoke or invalidate Certifications that were earned." Your credential stays valid until its own expiry date. What disappears is the renewal path, because the renewal assessment retires alongside the exam. That is a genuinely different failure mode, and it is the one to check before you start studying for any exam with a retirement date on it. We cover it in detail on our AZ-500 practice test page.

If you manage a team, this is a calendar problem

One engineer can remember one date. A twenty-person platform team holding forty role-based certifications between them, each with an individual UTC expiry and a six-month window that cannot be opened early, is a tracking problem, and it is the reason organizations quietly lose certifications they paid for.

The failure is almost never that someone could not pass a 45-minute open-book assessment. It is that nobody owned the date. If certification status is part of a partner requirement or a customer commitment, it belongs in whatever system already tracks who on your team has been trained and certified on what, with a reminder at the eleven-month mark, not in someone's memory.

Quick answers

Does AZ-900 expire? No. It is a fundamentals certification, and fundamentals certifications do not expire. Neither do SC-900, MS-900, AI-900 or DP-900.

Does AZ-104 expire? Yes, 12 months after you earn it. Renewal is free on Microsoft Learn. See our AZ-104 practice test page for the current objectives.

Does it cost money to renew? No. Renewal is free for anyone holding a valid associate, expert or specialty certification.

Can I renew by retaking the exam? No. The renewal assessment on Microsoft Learn is the only route, and Microsoft states there are no exceptions.

What happens the day it expires? It moves off your active transcript and you must re-earn it by passing the required exam again, at full price.

How long is the renewal assessment? Around 45 minutes, open book, unproctored, unlimited retakes inside your window.

What to do with this

Find your expiry date on your Microsoft Learn profile today. Put a reminder in your calendar for eleven months after you earned each certification, which is when the six-month window is comfortably open. Then renew, for free, in an afternoon.

And when the renewal assessment does come round, remember it is open book and drawn from the same skills outline as the exam. The fastest preparation is to take the current study guide and your own working notes, and generate practice questions from them, so you are rehearsing the material as it stands now rather than as it stood the year you first certified. Objectives drift, product names change, and an assessment you take once a year is exactly where that drift catches you out.