Hello, you are using an old browser that's unsafe and no longer supported. Please consider updating your browser to a newer version, or downloading a modern browser.
Everything you need to know about PMI's agile practitioner certification as of 2026: the four domains under the exam content outline that took effect November 8, 2024, the 120-item exam, the eligibility rules and their credit routes, the roles that hire for it, and how PMI-ACP compares to the PMP and CAPM. A complete reference for anyone weighing the credential or trying to understand what it covers.
PMI-ACP is the Project Management Institute's certification for people who work on agile teams, built to recognize knowledge and experience that bridge agile approaches such as Scrum, Lean, and Kanban rather than one framework.
PMI aims it at experienced agile practitioners working as part of an agile team, rather than the project manager leading and directing a project. That is the line between it and the PMP, which validates leading projects across predictive, agile, and hybrid approaches. The exam content outline that took effect November 8, 2024 rebuilt the credential around four domains, replacing the earlier seven-domain exam, and PMI has announced no further change.
The exam runs 120 items in 3 hours, eligibility rests on documented agile experience plus formal agile training, and the credential is maintained with 30 PDUs every three years. PMI-ACP is issued and maintained by PMI, the same body behind the PMP and CAPM.
Agile values in practice: experimenting early, transparency, psychological safety, and adapting to change. 28% of the exam.
Empowering teams, resolving problems, sharing knowledge, and holding a shared vision. 25% of the exam.
Backlog refinement, increment goals, visualizing work, and measuring value delivered. 19% of the exam.
Early feedback, agile metrics, impediments and risk, waste, and optimizing flow. 28% of the exam.
Four things that set the PMI-ACP apart from single-framework agile certifications in 2026.
Most agile certifications certify you in one framework. PMI-ACP is built the other way around: PMI describes it as bridging agile approaches such as Scrum, Lean, and Kanban, and the exam content outline lists SAFe, test-driven development, continuous integration, and hybrid tailoring among the things a practitioner is expected to handle. Employers who run more than one flavor of agile read that as breadth they can use.
PMI replaced the old seven-domain exam with four domains effective November 8, 2024, after a global practice analysis that widened the audience to product roles and added credit routes to eligibility. The current exam content outline is the document to study from; older guides still describe the seven-domain structure.
PMI names scrum masters, product owners, and agile project managers as the primary audience, and every task in the outline is something a practitioner does inside a team. That makes it a credential you can earn from a delivery seat, without the project leadership record the PMP demands. Our project management training overview shows how the PMI credentials fit together.
PMI-ACP is not a cybersecurity credential and is not listed on the DoD 8140 Approved Qualifications Matrix, so it does not by itself qualify personnel for DCWF work roles the way credentials on our DoD 8140 pathways do. The current matrix is published at the DoD Cyber Exchange.
Its standing rests on something different: PMI's position as the standard-setter for the project profession, an exam built from a job task analysis of working agile practitioners and calibrated by an independent psychometric firm, and an eligibility bar that requires real agile experience rather than a weekend course.
The certification, the exam structure, and how to maintain PMI-ACP as of September 2026.
PMI-ACP proves agile practice at the team level. The moves after it widen the scope: leading whole projects, running programs, or owning risk. Each of the credentials below carries its own experience prerequisites.
The Project Management Professional validates leading projects across predictive, agile, and hybrid approaches. It is the natural next step once you move from working on the team to running the project, and it asks for 36 or 60 months of project leadership depending on your degree. Read the PMP guide.
PMI's Program Management Professional certifies leadership across multiple related projects. It carries a substantial experience requirement in program management on top of project experience, which keeps it a senior credential.
The PMI Risk Management Professional specializes in identifying and managing project risk. It suits practitioners on large, regulated, or safety-critical programs where the Delivery domain's impediment and risk work becomes a discipline of its own.
PMI-ACP sits on the agile branch of the project management track: foundational credentials build toward it, and project leadership, service management, and governance specialties branch out from it.
Build the baseline
Proven across frameworks
Pick your path
Two questions to answer before you commit: can you certify, and should you pursue PMI-ACP specifically. Here's a straight answer to both.
You can certify now.
The standard route is a secondary diploma (high school, GED, or the global equivalent), two years of agile experience in the past five years, and formal agile training. PMI's current exam content outline lists 21 hours of formal agile training, and PMI announced a move to 28 contact hours in 2025, so confirm the figure on pmi.org before you apply. Document the experience and the training in the application and you can schedule the exam.
Use a credit route.
One year of agile experience is enough if you also hold a degree from a PMI Global Accreditation Center program, or an active third-party agile certification you earned more than a year ago. An active PMP satisfies the experience requirement on its own. The training requirement still applies on every route. If you have none of these yet, the CAPM has no experience requirement and covers agile frameworks as one of its four domains.
PMI-ACP maps to the roles that sit inside and alongside agile teams, in software, financial services, healthcare, government contracting, and any other field that has moved to iterative delivery.
Runs the team's events, removes impediments, and coaches the team on agile practice. PMI names scrum masters as a primary audience for the PMI-ACP, and the Leadership and Mindset domains map straight onto the role.
Coordinates agile or hybrid delivery where the organization still wants a project manager in the room. The credential shows you can work across Scrum, Kanban, and Lean rather than defaulting to one framework.
Owns the backlog, sets increment goals, and decides what value looks like. The Product domain covers exactly this work: refining and prioritizing the backlog, sizing it with the team, and measuring the value delivered.
Helps teams and their managers adopt agile ways of working and keep improving. The exam's emphasis on psychological safety, feedback loops, and tailoring the approach is the day job of a coach.
Owns end-to-end flow across one or more teams: limiting work in progress, reading cumulative flow and cycle time, and clearing systemic blockers. The Delivery domain is written around this work.
Turns stakeholder needs into user stories, acceptance criteria, and a backlog the team can act on. PMI-ACP proves the analyst understands how that work fits an iterative delivery cycle rather than a requirements document.
All three come from PMI, but they certify different things at different career stages. Here's how they line up.
| PMI-ACP | PMP | CAPM | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Issuer | PMI | PMI | PMI |
| Focus | Agile practice across Scrum, Lean, and Kanban | Leading projects across all approaches | Project management fundamentals |
| Domains | 4: Mindset 28%, Leadership 25%, Product 19%, Delivery 28% | 3: People 33%, Process 41%, Business Environment 26% | 4: Fundamentals 36%, Predictive 17%, Agile 20%, Business Analysis 27% |
| Exam Format | 120 items, 3 hours | 180 questions, 240 minutes | 150 questions (135 scored), 3 hours |
| Passing Score | Not published | Not published; rated by domain | Not published |
| Experience | 2 yrs agile in past 5 (credit routes available) | 36 or 60 months leading projects, by degree | None |
| Training | Formal agile training (hours: see eligibility above) | 35 hrs of PM education | 23 hrs of PM education |
| Exam Fee | $435 members; non-member fee by region | $405 members / $655 non-members | $225 members / $300 non-members |
| Renewal | 30 PDUs over 3 years | 60 PDUs over 3 years | 15 PDUs over 3 years |
| DoD 8140 Approved | No | No | No |
| Best For | Practitioners working on agile teams | Experienced project leaders | Early-career PMs building a foundation |
Pricing and renewal details vary by region and membership status; PMP fees shown are US prices as of August 2026. The three credentials stack: an active PMP satisfies the PMI-ACP experience requirement, and CAPM is the entry point when you have neither.
Our PMI-ACP boot camp runs three days on official PMI courseware covering Scrum, Kanban, and Lean, with the $435 exam voucher and a free retake included, so working agile practitioners leave exam-ready.
Comparison points, career data, hiring insight, and tool guides for the agile and project management track.
The PMP is the credential most PMI-ACP candidates weigh against it. This guide lays out its fee, its three eligibility paths, and the 35-hour training requirement so you can see which one fits where you are now.
What project managers earn by role, experience, and industry, and where agile delivery roles sit in that range. Useful context before you decide which PMI credential to pursue first.
What official courseware and instructor vetting change about a prep course, and the questions worth asking any provider before you pay for a boot camp.
Which credentials move a resume up the pile, which ones hiring managers skip past, and how certifications weigh against hands-on experience when a team is filling an agile role.
The realistic paths out of IT operations, including the move into technical project and delivery management, what the transition takes, and which credentials open the door.
The free tools agile teams actually use for boards, backlogs, and burndown charts, with notes on where each one runs out of room as the team grows.
A cross-functional, concurrent development approach from the defense world that shares some DNA with agile teams, and how it differs from a Scrum or Kanban team in practice.
The current exam content outline organizes the PMI-ACP into four domains, each carrying its own weight on the exam. Click any domain for what it covers.
Applying agile values and principles rather than following a script: experimenting early, using complexity models such as Cynefin and the Stacey Matrix to size up a situation, and tailoring the approach to what the team actually understands. It also covers transparency through information radiators, psychological safety, short feedback loops, and responding to changing priorities without drama.
Leading from inside the team: building trust, coaching and mentoring, applying emotional intelligence, and knowing when training, coaching, or mentoring is the right tool. Tasks include root-cause problem solving, knowledge sharing through retrospectives and communities of practice, keeping the product aligned to a shared vision, and working conflict through collaboratively.
The product side of agile work: clarifying, prioritizing, and decomposing backlog items with stakeholders, sizing work collectively, and defining increment goals that match business priorities. It also covers visualizing work, demonstrating increments for early feedback, and defining and measuring value, including success criteria such as security, privacy, and compliance.
Getting work out the door in small increments: collecting stakeholder feedback regularly, choosing and radiating the right metrics for each audience, and using them to make decisions. Tasks include managing impediments and risk proactively, spotting and removing waste across the end-to-end flow, running continuous improvement, validating deliverables against acceptance criteria with customers, and limiting work in progress to optimize flow.
Domains and weights reflect the PMI-ACP Examination Content Outline dated November 2024, effective on the exam November 8, 2024 (current PDF edition March 2026). PMI has announced no further change.
The questions candidates ask most often when researching the PMI Agile Certified Practitioner certification.
PMI-ACP stands for PMI Agile Certified Practitioner. It's a certification from the Project Management Institute for people who work on or facilitate agile teams, such as scrum masters, product owners, and agile project managers. PMI describes it as bridging agile approaches such as Scrum, Lean, and Kanban rather than certifying you in one framework. The current exam has four domains: Mindset, Leadership, Product, and Delivery.
PMI positions it for experienced agile practitioners working as part of an agile team, rather than the project manager leading and directing a project. If you spend your days in sprints, backlogs, and retrospectives and want a credential that proves you can work across frameworks, it fits. If your job is leading projects end to end across predictive, agile, and hybrid approaches, the PMP is the closer match.
The exam has 120 items: 100 are scored and 20 are unscored pretest items placed randomly, so you won't know which is which. Question types include multiple-choice, multiple-response, drag-and-drop, and exhibit items. You get 3 hours, with a 10-minute break offered after item 60, and you can sit it at a Pearson VUE test center or online with a proctor.
Under the exam content outline that took effect November 8, 2024, they are Mindset at 28 percent, Leadership at 25 percent, Product at 19 percent, and Delivery at 28 percent. That outline replaced the previous seven-domain exam. PMI has not announced any further change.
The PMI member price is $435, which is the exam voucher the Training Camp boot camp includes. PMI prices the exam by membership status and region, so the non-member fee is different. Check pmi.org for the fee that applies to you before you pay.
You need a secondary diploma (high school, GED, or the global equivalent), formal agile training, and agile experience. The experience requirement is two years of agile experience in the past five years, or one year plus a degree from a PMI Global Accreditation Center program, or one year plus an active third-party agile certification you earned more than a year ago, or an active PMP. PMI's current exam content outline lists 21 hours of formal agile training, and PMI announced a move to 28 contact hours in 2025, so confirm the figure on pmi.org before you apply.
Partly. PMI's exam content outline says an active third-party agile certification you've held for at least a year, such as a Scrum or SAFe credential, earns 12 months of credit toward the two years of agile experience. You still document the remaining year yourself. An active PMP satisfies the experience requirement on its own.
PMI doesn't publish a numeric passing score. It says the passing score is determined by sound psychometric analysis, which means there is no percentage target to aim for. Prepare across all four domains rather than trying to guess a cutoff.
You can take the exam up to three times within your one-year eligibility period. After three unsuccessful attempts you wait one year from your last exam date before reapplying, and if the eligibility period runs out before you pass, you reapply. The Training Camp boot camp includes a free retake of the class and a second exam voucher if you need another run at it.
The credential is valid for three years. To renew, you earn 30 professional development units (PDUs) in each cycle: at least 18 in Education, with a minimum of 4 in each of the three PMI Talent Triangle areas, and up to 12 in Giving Back. You also pay a renewal fee, which PMI sets by membership status and region.
The PMP validates leading projects across predictive, agile, and hybrid approaches, with a 180-question exam and 60 PDUs per renewal cycle. The PMI-ACP is narrower and deeper on agile: 120 items over 3 hours, four agile domains, and 30 PDUs per cycle. PMI aims the PMI-ACP at practitioners on the team and the PMP at the person leading the project. Plenty of people hold both, and an active PMP satisfies the PMI-ACP experience requirement.
No. PMI-ACP is not a cybersecurity credential and does not appear on the current DoD 8140 Approved Qualifications Matrix, so it doesn't by itself qualify anyone for a DCWF work role. Its value comes from PMI's standing and from proving agile fluency across frameworks, which is what agile delivery roles hire for.
It depends on where you work. If your team runs Scrum, Kanban, or Lean and the roles you want list agile credentials, PMI-ACP is the one that shows breadth across frameworks rather than depth in one, and PMI's November 2024 rebuild brought the outline in line with how agile teams work now. If you lead projects end to end, or your organization runs mostly predictive delivery, the PMP is the better investment.
If you're weighing the certification, working out funding, or planning training for a team, tell us where you are and we'll help you map out the right path.