Every Microsoft Certification Retiring in 2026: The Full Calendar
Microsoft is retiring more than fifteen certifications during 2026 and replacing most of them with AI-focused exams. If you are planning a certification path, or already studying, this calendar is the first thing to check.
Already retired
| Exam | Retired | Replacement |
| MS-900 | 31 March 2026 | No direct successor |
| PL-500, PL-600 | 30 June 2026 | AB-100 pathway |
| MB-700 | 30 June 2026 | AB-100 pathway |
| AI-900 | 30 June 2026 | AI-901, or AB-900 for fundamentals |
| AI-102 | 30 June 2026 | AI-103 |
| AZ-204 | 31 July 2026 | None announced |
Retiring 31 August 2026
| Exam | Replacement |
| AZ-500, Azure Security Engineer | SC-500, Cloud and AI Security Engineer |
| PL-200, Power Platform Functional Consultant | AB-410, Intelligent Applications Builder |
| AZ-800 and AZ-801 | AZ-802, consolidated into one exam |
Three weeks from publication. If any of these are in your plan, decide this week rather than next.
The four rules that cover most situations
A retired exam does not revoke your certification. If you passed it, it stays on your transcript and stays valid until its expiry date. Renewal continues as normal.
Finish what you started if you can sit it in time. A passed credential is worth more than a half-finished newer one.
Leave a retake window. Microsoft enforces a wait between attempts. If you fail an exam in the last fortnight before its retirement, your retake will be on the replacement. Book with a buffer.
Verify the exam code before buying study material. This is the one that costs people money. Material written for AI-102 will not prepare you for AI-103.
What the pattern tells you
This is not routine housekeeping. Nearly every replacement adds AI content to an existing role: security engineers now cover AI workload protection, developers cover agent orchestration, functional consultants cover intelligent applications.
Microsoft is signalling that AI fluency is becoming a baseline expectation across IT roles rather than a specialism. Whether that reflects the job market accurately is arguable. That it will reflect the certification market is not.
What is not changing
Worth saying, because the retirement news obscures it. The core role-based credentials are stable. AZ-104, AZ-305, SC-200, SC-300, AZ-900 and the data family are all unaffected. If your path runs through those, carry on.
Our Microsoft question sets track the current blueprints, and lifetime updates mean you get the revised version when an exam changes rather than buying again.