AWS has published the full SAP-C03 exam guide for Solutions Architect - Professional. Until 27 October we only had the high-level September announcement. Now the five domains have real weights, task statements and a clear "out of scope" list. If you were waiting for that before picking C02 vs C03, or before rewriting a study plan, this is the update.
SAP-C03 domains and official weights
| Domain | Weight |
|---|---|
| Architecture Design and Implementation Built for the Cloud | 25% |
| Security, Compliance, and Governance | 25% |
| Cost-Optimized Architecture Design | 15% |
| Resilience, Migration, and Business Continuity | 15% |
| Operational Excellence and Automation | 20% |
Architecture Built for the Cloud and Security share the lead at 25% each. Operational Excellence sits at 20%. Cost and Resilience are 15% apiece. That is a different shape from SAP-C02's four-domain layout.
Exam format
The guide matches the September blog on the basics:
- 75 questions (65 scored + 10 unscored), 180 minutes
- Scaled score 100-1000, pass mark 720
- Compensatory scoring: you pass the exam overall, not each domain
- Multiple choice and multiple response
- Delivered via Pearson VUE (test center or online proctoring)
Target candidate: two or more years designing and implementing on AWS, including cloud-native, serverless and AI-integrated work in multi-account setups.
Explicitly out of scope: deep OS internals, ML training, fine-tuning and data-science workflows, security forensics, and application code debugging. You design and choose controls; you are not expected to train models or dig through incident artifacts.
What the September announcement already flagged
The AWS September 2026 certification update called out the new skill clusters that land inside those five domains:
- GenAI and agentic patterns (Bedrock, AgentCore, RAG, Guardrails)
- Resilience tooling (Fault Injection Service, Resilience Hub, Application Recovery Controller)
- Cloud-native pieces (Step Functions durable workflows, VPC Lattice / ECS Service Connect, lakehouse with Lake Formation and Iceberg)
- DevSecOps and observability
- Post-quantum crypto on KMS (ML-DSA / ML-KEM)
The guide is where those ideas get pinned to weighted domains.
Key dates
- 27 Oct 2026: SAP-C03 registration opened (all languages), full exam guide released
- 16 Nov 2026: last day to sit SAP-C02
- 17 Nov 2026: SAP-C03 GA delivery begins
If you are already deep into C02 materials and need the credential soon, finishing C02 by 16 November still works, and the badge stays valid through its normal cycle. If you want the cert to reflect cloud-native and GenAI architecture work, wait for C03.
How I would study from here
- Read the official guide end to end. Task statements first, then the in-scope and out-of-scope service lists. That document is the syllabus; blogs are commentary.
- Weight study time to the 25% / 25% / 20% domains. Multi-account landing zones, identity and governance, AI integration patterns and automation/ops get more exam minutes than pure cost or migration drill-downs.
- Build one cross-domain scenario. For example, a multi-account GenAI app with Bedrock Guardrails, cost controls, a Resilience Hub assessment, and a pipeline that scans images before deploy. C03 likes designs that touch several domains at once.
- Skip the out-of-scope rabbit holes. No model fine-tuning notebooks, no forensics labs, no deep OS tuning. That time is better spent on Well-Architected trade-offs.
Recheck the official AWS pages before you book.
Want to see where you stand? Try the sample exam quiz on testimea.
Originally published on testimea
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