The Most Popular Microsoft Certifications in 2026

If you searched for the most popular Microsoft certifications this month, there’s a good chance the list you landed on was already out of date. AZ-204 retired on July 31, 2026. AI-102 and AI-900 were gone by June 30. AZ-500, the exam half the internet still calls “the Azure security cert,” retired on August 31 and handed its job to SC-500. Microsoft has made more roster moves this year than the Eagles front office in a busy March, and most ranking articles haven’t caught up.

Here’s the current picture as of September 2026. The Microsoft certifications people are actually sitting for, and that training managers keep asking to budget for, are AZ-900, AZ-104, AZ-305, the security group of SC-200, SC-300, and SC-500, MD-102 for endpoint work, PL-300 for Power BI, and AZ-400 for DevOps. Right behind them, the new AI exams led by AI-901 and AI-103 are climbing fast. Below you’ll find what each one costs, who it fits, and where people burn money they didn’t need to spend.

Microsoft doesn’t publish exam volumes, so nobody outside Redmond can hand you a true ranking. What you can watch is where training budgets go and which exam codes keep showing up in job postings. That’s the lens for everything below.

What Are the Most Popular Microsoft Certifications in 2026?

The ten in the table below. Every one of them was active as of September 22, 2026, none of them appear on Microsoft’s list of exams scheduled to retire in the next twelve months, and together they cover the four places most Microsoft work actually happens: Azure infrastructure, security, endpoint and tenant administration, and data.

Fees are US list prices from Microsoft’s current schedule, which sets fundamentals exams at $99 and role based exams at $165. Other countries pay different amounts, so check the exam page in your region before you pay.

If I could only put one of these in front of a working systems administrator with a two year horizon, it would be AZ-104. It isn’t a close call. Every certification in that table links to the Training Camp boot camp that prepares for it.

Why Are So Many Microsoft Certification Lists Out of Date?

Microsoft retired or replaced more than a dozen certifications between March and September 2026, and nearly all of the changes follow one idea: AI is now part of the core job, so it belongs inside the core exam. These are the swaps that trip people up most.

Use that list as a sanity check on anything you read. When a blog post, a course syllabus, or a coworker tells you to go take AZ-204, AI-102, or AZ-500, the advice was written before this summer. Those codes still carry weight on a résumé if you already earned them. You just can’t earn them anymore.

Security people should read our breakdown of the AZ-500 retirement and what SC-500 changes before picking a study guide, because the SC-500 blueprint is broader than a renamed AZ-500.

Is AZ-900 Still Worth Taking in 2026?

For the right person, yes. AZ-900 costs $99, fundamentals certifications don’t expire, and it gives project managers, sales engineers, auditors, and career changers a shared vocabulary for Azure without asking them to configure anything.

Working admins should skip the detour and go straight to AZ-104.

We laid out the full argument in AZ-900 in 2026: Worth It, or Skip to AZ-104, and nothing in the 2026 shakeup changed the math. AZ-900 itself wasn’t touched.

Why Is AZ-104 Still the Microsoft Certification to Beat?

AZ-104 is the Azure Administrator Associate exam, and in a year when Microsoft rebuilt half its catalog, it came through untouched. That alone tells you where Microsoft thinks the center of gravity sits. The exam covers identities and governance, storage, compute, virtual networking, and monitoring, which happens to be the list of things that break at 2 a.m. in any Azure tenant. It’s also the prerequisite for two expert certifications, AZ-305 Solutions Architect Expert and AZ-400 DevOps Engineer Expert, so it keeps paying off after you pass it. Renewal is a free online assessment once a year, which means your real costs are the $165 exam fee and your study hours. It pairs cleanly with SC-300 if identity is where your day actually goes. Skipping it on the way to something shinier usually means circling back to it later.

Which Microsoft Security Certifications Are Most in Demand?

Security is where Microsoft certifications have grown the most since the role based switch, and it’s where the 2026 changes landed hardest. Four exams matter right now.

SC-500 is the right long term target for Azure security engineers, though study resources are still filling in. Microsoft has published an official course, SC-500T00, but the certification page still listed no practice assessment when we checked in September. Need a security credential this quarter and work in a SOC? SC-200 is the safer bet.

Defense contractor teams should add one more step before funding any of these and confirm whether the certification maps to the DoD 8140 work role in question. Our DCWF map of qualifying certifications is the place to check.

What Are the New Microsoft AI Certifications?

Start with AI-901, the refreshed Azure AI Fundamentals exam. The associate level developer credential is AI-103, which earns the Azure AI Apps and Agents Developer Associate and is built around agents and retrieval in Microsoft Foundry. Its partner, AI-200, handles the cloud back end that those applications run on. DP-100’s replacement is AI-300, leading to a new Machine Learning Operations Engineer Associate. On the Microsoft 365 side, AB-900 covers Copilot and agent administration at the fundamentals level.

These get the most buzz right now, and I understand why. Buzz and exam readiness are two different things, though. Microsoft says practice assessments usually arrive within about eight weeks of an exam leaving beta, and several of these were thin on official prep material through the summer. Unless your job already has you building on Foundry or rolling out Copilot, let them settle for a quarter and take a proven exam first. When you are ready, we run AI-103 and AI-200 as separate boot camps.

Should You Still Take MS-102 Before It Retires?

Only if you’re close. MS-102 and the Microsoft 365 Administrator Expert certification retire on November 30, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Central. The expert credential also requires a qualifying associate certification such as MD-102, so starting from scratch in late September is a stretch.

Microsoft hasn’t formally named a successor. The closest thing is AB-650, a single associate exam, currently in beta, for the new Microsoft 365 and AI Services Administrator Associate. It covers much of the same tenant, identity, and compliance ground, adds Copilot and agent administration, and has no prerequisite certification. Our AB-650 boot camp runs three days. Also keep in mind that Microsoft’s retirement guidance says renewal stops being an option once a certification retires. Already hold the Administrator Expert? Renew before November 30 if your window is open.

Which Microsoft Certification Should You Get First?

Match it to the work you do on a Tuesday afternoon rather than the title you want in five years. If you’re new to IT, or not technical at all, AZ-900 is the door. People already running servers or a tenant should go straight to AZ-104. SOC analysts get the most mileage from SC-200. Help desk and desktop folks managing Intune should look at MD-102, and anyone writing reports that executives actually read belongs in PL-300. Developers are the tricky group this year: AI-200 is the safer general pick, and AI-103 makes sense once agents are on your team’s roadmap.

If pay is driving the decision, read our look at the highest paying IT certifications in 2026 before you let a salary survey pick your exam. Averages hide a lot, and every associate and expert level Microsoft certification has to be renewed yearly whether it pays well or not.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the most popular Microsoft certification in 2026?

Microsoft doesn’t publish exam volumes, but AZ-900 Azure Fundamentals is the most common starting point and AZ-104 Azure Administrator Associate is the workhorse role based certification for Azure administration. In security, the main role based options are SC-200, SC-300, and SC-500, which replaced AZ-500 on August 31, 2026.

How much do Microsoft certification exams cost in 2026?

In the United States, fundamentals exams cost $99 and associate, expert, and specialty exams cost $165. Prices vary by country, and renewing an associate or expert certification through Microsoft Learn is free.

Do Microsoft certifications expire?

Associate, expert, and specialty certifications expire every year and renew through a free online assessment on Microsoft Learn. Fundamentals certifications such as AZ-900 and AI-901 do not expire.

What replaced the AZ-500 exam?

SC-500, which earns the Microsoft Certified: Cloud and AI Security Engineer Associate, replaced AZ-500 when it retired on August 31, 2026. SC-500 covers Azure infrastructure security plus securing AI workloads.

What replaced AZ-204?

AI-200, which earns the Azure AI Cloud Developer Associate, replaced AZ-204 after it retired on July 31, 2026. It keeps the back end developer role but centers it on infrastructure for AI applications.

Is MS-102 being retired?

Yes. MS-102 and the Microsoft 365 Administrator Expert certification retire on November 30, 2026. Microsoft hasn’t formally named a successor, but the new AB-650 exam covers much of the same Microsoft 365 administration ground plus Copilot and agent management.