SAP-C03 exam format: questions, time, cost
SAP-C03 is a 180-minute exam with 75 questions, multiple choice or multiple response, and AWS lists the fee as 300 USD. Registration opens on October 27, 2026 and general-availability delivery starts on November 17, 2026. The AWS exam guide counts 65 of the 75 questions as scored, sets the minimum passing score at 720 on a scale of 100 to 1,000, and weights the five domains 25%, 25%, 15%, 15% and 20%.
The facts AWS has published
| Certification | AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional |
| Exam code | SAP-C03 (the updated version; SAP-C02 is the outgoing one) |
| Level | Professional |
| Duration | 180 minutes |
| Questions | 75 (65 scored, 10 unscored) |
| Question types | Multiple choice and multiple response |
| Passing score | 720 on a scaled score of 100 to 1,000 (AWS exam guide) |
| Scoring model | Compensatory: you pass the exam overall, not each section |
| Fee | 300 USD (the SAP-C02 page adds “plus possible foreign exchange charges”) |
| Delivery | Pearson VUE, at a test centre or online proctored |
| Recommended experience | Two or more years using AWS services to design and implement cloud solutions |
| Registration opens | October 27, 2026 |
| General-availability delivery | November 17, 2026 |
| Validity | 3 years for this certification (AWS certification page) |
AWS states that registration opens “in all languages”. Its certification page lists English, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Simplified Chinese and Spanish (Latin America) for the Solutions Architect – Professional exam; check the exam page at booking time to confirm the list for SAP-C03.
The five domains
The AWS exam guide gives these domains and the share of scored content for each:
| Domain | Weight |
|---|---|
| 1. Architecture Design and Implementation Built for the Cloud (explained) | 25% |
| 2. Security, Compliance, and Governance (explained) | 25% |
| 3. Cost-Optimized Architecture Design (explained) | 15% |
| 4. Resilience, Migration, and Business Continuity (explained) | 15% |
| 5. Operational Excellence and Automation (explained) | 20% |
On 65 scored questions, the weights work out at roughly 16, 16, 10, 10 and 13 questions, but AWS does not publish per-domain question counts, so treat those as an estimate. The 10 unscored questions are not identified on the exam and are used by AWS to test future questions.
Scoring in brief
- Pass or fail. Results are a scaled score of 100 to 1,000, and the minimum passing score is 720.
- Compensatory scoring. You do not need to pass each section, only the exam as a whole. AWS cautions against reading much into section-level feedback.
- Outgoing exam. SAP-C02 uses the same 65 scored and 10 unscored split but a passing score of 750, so do not carry that number over (see SAP-C03 vs SAP-C02).
Question types
The SAP-C03 guide lists both types:
- Multiple choice. One correct answer and three distractors.
- Multiple response. Two or more correct answers out of five or more options. AWS states that all correct responses must be selected to receive credit.
The SAP-C03 guide states that unanswered questions score as incorrect and that guessing carries no penalty. Answer everything.
Time per question
180 minutes for 75 questions is 2.4 minutes per question. Professional-level questions are long scenarios with several plausible architectures, so the real constraint is reading. Plan a first pass at about two minutes each, flag the long ones, and keep 20 to 25 minutes for review. The exam-day guide covers check-in, online-proctoring rules and what to bring.
Booking and cost
Book through your AWS Certification account. After you earn one AWS certification, AWS lists a 50% discount on your next exam on its certification page. The fee in other currencies is shown at checkout; the certification costs page compares vendors.
Who the exam is for
The AWS exam guide describes the target candidate as someone with two or more years of experience designing and implementing cloud solutions on AWS, who evaluates application requirements, recommends architectures and guides design across multiple projects in a complex organisation, including cloud-native, serverless and AI-integrated architectures in multi-account environments. The sections on study plan and difficulty turn that into preparation.