Anthropic

Anthropic launched the Claude Certification Program on March 12, 2026, alongside the Claude Partner Network, starting with a single exam (Architect, Foundations) before expanding to the current four-exam lineup across three roles. By June 3, 2026, Anthropic reported more than 10,000 consultants had earned a Claude certification. The lineup is Claude Certified Associate - Foundations (CCAO-F), Claude Certified Developer - Foundations (CCDV-F), Claude Certified Architect - Foundations (CCAR-F), and Claude Certified Architect - Professional (CCAR-P). All four run 120 minutes, mix multiple-choice and scenario-based multiple-response questions, and require a scaled score of 720 out of 1000 to pass. Exam delivery moved onto Pearson VUE on June 30, 2026, and you can test online proctored (OnVUE) or at a Pearson test center.

None of the four exams has a formal prerequisite, so you can sit any of them directly, but there is a real gate before that: registration needs a partner email address on a recognized company domain tied to an organization in the Claude Partner Network, and Anthropic blocks personal addresses like Gmail at checkout (its own certification FAQ notes that linking a new company domain to a partner record can take 7 to 10 business days). Joining the Partner Network itself is free for any organization actively bringing Claude to market. Once you are in, pick by role rather than working through a ladder: Associate fits consultants and sellers who scope Claude use cases, though it does not count toward Partner Network tier eligibility, Developer fits engineers shipping Claude API, Claude Code, and MCP integrations, and Architect, taken at Foundations then Professional, fits people designing production and multi-model deployments. Certifications stay valid for 12 months, and a failed attempt costs you 14 days before a retry, then 30, then 90, capped at 4 attempts per rolling year.

CertCompanion carries all four Claude practice banks: 197 questions for Associate - Foundations (CCAO-F), 302 for Developer - Foundations (CCDV-F), 314 for Architect - Foundations (CCAR-F), and 306 for Architect - Professional (CCAR-P). Every bank starts with 30 free questions, so you can gauge the exam's Claude API, Agent SDK, and MCP-heavy question style before paying for anything.

The company-email gate is the detail most guides bury: you cannot buy a Claude exam voucher with a personal Gmail account no matter how much hands-on Claude API experience you have, which makes this the only major AI vendor certification closed to individual practitioners by design. That is also likely why detailed candidate reviews are still thin on open forums as of September 2026, most of what circulates so far comes from partner-side consultants rather than the public threads other certifications get picked apart on.