Program changes
A dated record of everything Anthropic has changed about the Claude certification program, and what each change means for a candidate now.
Certification programs change quietly. Fees move, platforms migrate, validity periods are rewritten, and the pages describing them are edited in place with no note that anything happened. Somebody who read the rules three months ago and books on the strength of that memory is the one who gets caught.
Every entry below is dated, says what changed, and says who it still affects.
2026
October: the catalog grew to twenty-seven courses
Tool use with the Messages API was added, on Claude Academy and on the Partner Academy platform product page. It is for people whose tool use already runs and breaks in specific ways: wrong tool choice, rejected calls, stalled responses, input tokens that grow with every tool result. Eight main lessons, one problem each, worked through a fictional consultancy, with no code written on the page. A graded quiz issues a completion badge, and Claude Platform 101 is named as the prerequisite.
Who this affects. Developer – Foundations and Architect candidates, since tool use sits in the heavy domains of both. It is not listed as prep for any exam, so the exam guides remain the authoritative scope.
Found by the daily catalog check, which reads the union of the Academy listing pages: the published count went to twenty-seven while this repository documented twenty-six.
October: the exams are published in Japanese
The certification FAQ now states that "the exam and prep content are available in English and Japanese", and documents how to move an appointment already booked in English onto the Japanese version: cancel it in the Pearson account and schedule the Japanese one, under the same 48-hour rule as any other change.
Who this affects. Anyone who reads Japanese more comfortably than English, and anyone who read this repository before this entry appeared. Three pages here said the exam was English only, which was true when it was written and is not true now. Browser translation tools are still prohibited during proctoring, so the readable languages are those two and no others.
The same FAQ section also names the delivery restrictions, now recorded under Availability: no OnVUE online proctoring on an ID from Belarus, Cuba, North Korea, Russia, Syria or a restricted region of Ukraine, and delivery to residents of Iran suspended from 8 September 2026 under the OFAC General License G suspension. These are Pearson's restrictions, so they move without the exam policy PDF moving.
October: a fourth role path, and a Claude Code badge
Partner Academy's navigation gained two entries that are not certifications. Claude Forward Deployed Engineer is a nine-course role path, three of whose courses are partner-only, and the Claude Code partner badge is an eight-course path ending in a scenario-based capstone. Both are listed in Learning paths and courses.
Who this affects. Nobody preparing for an exam. There is no Forward Deployed Engineer certification, and a badge is not a certification, so the program is still four exams across three certified roles at unchanged prices. A role path appearing in the navigation is not evidence that an exam exists behind it.
The two pages describing the badge disagree on its length: the path says eight courses and lists eight, the badge tile says ten.
August: the academy moved to a new home
anthropic.com/learn now redirects permanently to
academy.claude.com, and the public academy is
branded Claude Academy. Course URLs changed shape with the move: a course
that lived at anthropic.skilljar.com/claude-101 is now at
academy.claude.com/courses/claude-101, and several slugs were renamed rather
than simply moved.
Who this affects. Anyone holding bookmarks or following links from older guides. The previous Skilljar pages still answer, so nothing is broken, but the maintained home is the new one.
Completion badges already verified on academy.claude.com before the move, and
still do.
September: the catalog grew to twenty-six courses
Building Effective Human Agent Teams (Beta) was added: five lessons and a quiz on moving a team from single-player AI to multiplayer, aimed at team leads rather than developers. It issues a completion badge and no certificate.
Introduction to Claude Tag followed later in the month: eleven lessons and a quiz on Claude inside a team's Slack workspace, written for the person using it in their channels rather than the admin installing it. Marked beta. It also issues a completion badge and no certificate, which is why the badge count now runs ahead of the certificate count on four courses.
Partner Academy also lists Working with Claude Fable 5.1, on where that model sits and how to move a client build onto it. It returns 404 on the public Claude Academy, so it is partner-only and is recorded in Learning paths rather than in the course tables.
Who this affects. Nobody sitting an exam. Neither course is required for any certification, and neither is exam preparation. It matters only if you are working through the catalog.
August: the catalog grew to twenty-four courses
Two courses were added: Deploying Claude Enterprise with Confidence, on the five organization-wide decisions behind a rollout, and AI Fluency for pK-12 Train the Trainer, built with the American Federation of Teachers.
Who this affects. Nobody sitting an exam. No course is required for any certification, and the guides say so explicitly. It matters only if you are working through the catalog.
August 31: the Global Premier discount ends
Through August 31, 2026, Global Premier partners paid nothing. From September 1 the standard 50% partner discount applies.
Who this affects. Global Premier partners who were planning to sit an exam in the autumn. Booking before the deadline was worth the full fee.
July: exam guides published at version 1.0
All four exam guides carry version 1.0, effective July 2026. These are the authoritative scope documents: the domains, the weights, the item counts, the sample questions, and the scoring rules.
Who this affects. Everyone. If anything on this site disagrees with a guide, the guide is right.
June 30: delivery moved to Pearson VUE, badging to Credly
The largest change in the program's history, and the one with the longest tail.
| What changed | Consequence |
|---|---|
| Exam delivery moved to Pearson VUE | Booking, rescheduling, ID checks and the proctoring experience all run through Pearson now |
| Badging moved to Credly | Credentials issue as Credly badges rather than on the previous platform |
| Architect Foundations fee | Raised from 99 to 125 USD |
| Pre-migration failed attempts | Failed Architect Foundations attempts from before the migration were cleared, so those candidates could retake with no waiting period |
| Credential validity | Extended from 6 months to 12, applied automatically to credentials earned before the migration, dated from when they were originally earned |
| Registrations in flight | Moved to Pearson in waves |
| The official practice exam | Retired, and not replaced |
Who this affects. Anyone who registered or certified before June 30, 2026. Two cases still cause trouble. If you paid before the migration and never received a Pearson link, contact certifications-support@anthropic.com rather than registering again, which charges you twice. And if a pre-migration credential never appeared in Credly, the badge email may have gone to an address you no longer read.
The retired practice exam is the change candidates notice most. There is no official practice exam any more. The sample questions inside each exam guide are the only official items that exist.
June 25: the exam policy document was revised
The current Anthropic Certification Exam Policy carries a revision date of June 25, 2026. It governs conduct, identification, prohibited items, invalidation and appeals.
Who this affects. Everyone sitting an exam. It is short, and it is the document people wish they had read only after something goes wrong.
How this page is kept
Program changes are found by re-downloading the mirrored official documents and comparing them to the copies here, which happens on a schedule and before every release. When a document changes, the change is recorded here with its date.
This page carries no rumors and no roadmap. A change appears once Anthropic has published it, and not before.
If you know of a change that is not recorded here, please open a discussion with a link to the official source.
Facts last verified against the official sources on 2026-10-30. Repository index