Official Exam Guide

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Syllabus 2026 Syllabus & Pattern

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Syllabus 2026

The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) certification is a foundational-level AWS certification designed to validate overall knowledge of AWS Cloud concepts, services, security, pricing, and support. The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner syllabus 2026 is organized into four content domains, each carrying a defined percentage of the scored exam content.

Candidates are expected to understand the value of cloud computing, the AWS global infrastructure, core AWS services, security and compliance concepts, cloud economics, billing, pricing models, and available AWS support resources. The examination assesses foundational knowledge rather than advanced responsibilities such as coding, detailed architecture design, implementation, troubleshooting, or performance testing.

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Exam Pattern 2026

Particular Details Certification Name AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Exam Code CLF-C02 Certification Level Foundational Total Questions 65 questions Scored Questions 50 questions Unscored Questions 15 questions Exam Duration 90 minutes Question Types Multiple choice and multiple response Multiple-Choice Format One correct answer with three incorrect options Multiple-Response Format Two or more correct answers from five or more options Negative Marking No penalty for guessing; unanswered questions are treated as incorrect Score Range 100 to 1,000 Minimum Passing Score 700 Result Pass or Fail Testing Mode Testing center or online proctored examination AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Subject-Wise Syllabus

The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam syllabus consists of four major content domains. The domain weightings apply to scored content and indicate the relative importance of each area during preparation.

Content Domain Weightage Cloud Concepts 24% Security and Compliance 30% Cloud Technology and Services 34% Billing, Pricing, and Support 12% 1. Cloud Concepts

Cloud Concepts establishes the foundation for the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam. Candidates should understand why organizations use cloud computing and how AWS Cloud capabilities can support agility, scalability, global reach, availability, and operational efficiency.

Preparation should also include the AWS Well-Architected Framework, migration concepts, cloud adoption approaches, and the economic principles that distinguish cloud environments from traditional on-premises infrastructure.

Benefits and value proposition of the AWS Cloud
Global reach and rapid deployment capabilities
High availability, elasticity, and agility
AWS Well-Architected Framework
Operational Excellence
Security
Reliability
Performance Efficiency
Cost Optimization
Sustainability
Differences among Well-Architected Framework pillars
Cloud adoption strategies
Benefits and strategies for cloud migration
AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF)
Business outcomes and cloud transformation
Migration strategies and database replication concepts
Cloud economics
Fixed costs and variable costs
Costs associated with on-premises environments
Bring Your Own License (BYOL) and included licensing models
Rightsizing
Benefits of automation
Economies of scale

2. Security and Compliance

Security and Compliance is one of the most important domains in the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner syllabus, carrying 30% of the scored content. Questions in this area examine how responsibility for security is divided between AWS and its customers and how AWS services support identity management, governance, compliance, monitoring, and protection.

Candidates should be comfortable identifying appropriate security services and understanding fundamental practices such as least privilege, multi-factor authentication, encryption, credential protection, and root user security.

AWS shared responsibility model
AWS responsibilities and customer responsibilities
Shared responsibilities for cloud security
Changes in responsibilities based on AWS service types
Security and governance concepts
AWS compliance concepts
Encryption in transit
Encryption at rest
AWS Artifact
Security monitoring and auditing
Amazon CloudWatch
AWS CloudTrail
AWS Config
Amazon Inspector
AWS Security Hub
Amazon GuardDuty
AWS Shield
Identity and Access Management (IAM)
AWS IAM Identity Center
Protection of the AWS root user
Principle of least privilege
Users, groups, roles, and policies
Custom and managed policies
Access keys and password policies
Credential storage
AWS Secrets Manager
AWS Systems Manager
Multi-factor authentication (MFA)
Cross-account IAM roles
Federated identity management
AWS WAF
AWS Firewall Manager
AWS Marketplace security products
AWS Trusted Advisor
AWS security documentation and resources

3. Cloud Technology and Services

With a 34% weightage, Cloud Technology and Services is the largest domain in the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam syllabus. Instead of requiring candidates to perform advanced implementation tasks, the domain emphasizes the ability to recognize AWS services and match them with common business and technical requirements.

A strong understanding of compute, databases, networking, storage, global infrastructure, deployment methods, AI/ML, analytics, and other in-scope AWS service categories is essential for this section.

Deployment and Operations

Ways to provision and operate in AWS
AWS Management Console
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)
AWS SDKs
Command Line Interface (CLI)
Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
One-time operations and repeatable processes
Cloud deployment models
Hybrid environments
On-premises environments

AWS Global Infrastructure

AWS Regions
Availability Zones
Edge locations
High availability concepts
Multiple Availability Zone architecture concepts
Use of multiple Regions
Disaster recovery
Business continuity
Low-latency access for end users
Data sovereignty considerations
Benefits of edge locations

AWS Compute Services

Amazon EC2
EC2 instance categories and use cases
Compute-optimized instances
Storage-optimized instances
Container services
Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS)
Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS)
AWS Fargate
AWS Lambda
AWS Auto Scaling
Elasticity
Load balancers and their purpose

AWS Database Services

EC2-hosted databases and managed database services
Relational databases
Amazon RDS
Amazon Aurora
NoSQL databases
Amazon DynamoDB
In-memory databases
Amazon ElastiCache
Database migration
AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS)
AWS Schema Conversion Tool (AWS SCT)

AWS Networking Services

Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC)
Subnets
Gateways
Network Access Control Lists (Network ACLs)
Security groups
Amazon Route 53
AWS VPN
AWS Direct Connect
Network connectivity to AWS

AWS Storage Services

Object storage
Amazon S3
Amazon S3 storage classes
Block storage
Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS)
Instance store
File storage services
Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS)
Amazon FSx
AWS Storage Gateway
Storage lifecycle policies
AWS Backup

AWS AI/ML and Analytics Services

AWS artificial intelligence and machine learning services
Amazon SageMaker AI
Amazon Lex
Service selection based on AI/ML tasks
Amazon Athena
Amazon Kinesis
AWS Glue
Amazon Quick Sight
AWS analytics use cases

4. Billing, Pricing, and Support

The Billing, Pricing, and Support domain tests whether candidates understand how AWS pricing works and which tools help organizations monitor and manage cloud expenditure. Although it has the lowest domain weightage, it includes important practical topics related to purchasing options, data transfer costs, budgets, cost allocation, and AWS technical support.

Candidates should learn to distinguish between major compute purchasing models and recognize the appropriate AWS resource for pricing information, cost estimation, billing analysis, and technical assistance.

AWS compute purchasing options
On-Demand Instances
Reserved Instances
Spot Instances
AWS Savings Plans
Dedicated Hosts
Dedicated Instances
Capacity Reservations
Appropriate use cases for purchasing options
Reserved Instance flexibility
Reserved Instance behavior in AWS Organizations
Storage options and pricing tiers
Data transfer pricing concepts
Incoming and outgoing data transfer costs
Data transfer between AWS Regions
Billing information and support resources
AWS Budgets
AWS Cost Explorer
AWS Pricing Calculator
AWS Organizations
Consolidated billing
AWS cost allocation tags
AWS Cost and Usage Report
AWS documentation
AWS whitepapers
AWS blogs
AWS Support plans
AWS Support Center
AWS Partner Network (APN)
Independent software vendors and system integrators

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Important Technologies and Concepts

The official AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam guide also identifies several technologies and concepts that may appear across the syllabus. Candidates should understand these topics in relation to the four major content domains rather than treating them as a separate exam section.

APIs
Benefits of migrating to the AWS Cloud
AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF)
AWS compliance
Compute
Cost management
Databases
Amazon EC2 instance types
AWS global infrastructure
Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
AWS Knowledge Center
Machine learning
Management and governance
Migration and data transfer
Network services
AWS Partner Network (APN)
AWS Prescriptive Guidance
AWS Pricing Calculator
AWS Professional Services
AWS re:Post
AWS SDKs
Security
AWS shared responsibility model
AWS solutions architects
Storage
AWS Support Center
AWS Support plans
AWS Well-Architected Framework

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Preparation Strategy

Begin preparation by understanding the four content domains and their respective weightages. Since Cloud Technology and Services and Security and Compliance together account for a substantial portion of the scored content, candidates should give particular attention to service recognition, common use cases, the shared responsibility model, IAM, security services, and compliance concepts.

Build a structured understanding of the differences between similar AWS services instead of memorizing service names in isolation. Practice identifying the most appropriate service for a given requirement, review AWS pricing and support concepts carefully, and attempt exam-style multiple-choice and multiple-response questions. Before the examination, revise the official domain objectives to ensure that every task statement in the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner syllabus has been covered.

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Syllabus PDF

Candidates should use the latest official AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02 exam guide as the primary reference for the syllabus. The official guide provides the domain weightages, task statements, relevant technologies and concepts, in-scope AWS services, and examination information required for focused preparation.

Conclusion

The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner syllabus 2026 is built around four key areas: Cloud Concepts, Security and Compliance, Cloud Technology and Services, and Billing, Pricing, and Support. Candidates can use the domain weightages and task statements to create a focused preparation plan, strengthen their understanding of core AWS services, and prepare systematically for the CLF-C02 examination.

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Syllabus 2026 Syllabus & Pattern