DVA-C02 vs DVA-C03: what changed, which to sit
DVA-C03 is the new version of the AWS Certified Developer – Associate exam, not a different certification: the last day to sit DVA-C02 is 30 November 2026, and registration for DVA-C03 opens on 1 December 2026. If you are already well into DVA-C02 preparation and can book a slot before the cutoff, sit DVA-C02. If you are starting now, or will not be ready in time, prepare for DVA-C03. Both earn the same credential with the same validity, and the format and pass mark are unchanged; what changes is the content. DVA-C03 adds AI-assisted development, the security of AI services and agents, container builds and deployments, and presigned URLs, and it shifts weight from development and deployment towards troubleshooting and optimization.
The two exams at a glance
| DVA-C02AWS Certified Developer – Associate | DVA-C03AWS Certified Developer – Associate (DVA-C03) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | AWS | AWS |
| Level | Associate | Associate |
| Questions | 65 | 65 |
| Time limit | 130 minutes | 130 minutes |
| Passing score | 720 / 1000 | 720 / 1000 |
| Exam fee | $150 | $150 |
| Valid for | 3 years | 3 years |
| Exam domains | 4 | 4 |
| On SaveMyCert | Fully live | Fully live |
Where the exam weight moved
| Domain (DVA-C03 name) | DVA-C02 | DVA-C03 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Development with AWS Services | 32% | 30% | −2 pts |
| Security | 26% | 26% | No change |
| Testing and DeploymentDVA-C02: Deployment | 24% | 22% | −2 pts |
| Troubleshooting and Optimization | 18% | 22% | +4 pts |
Share of scored content per domain, from each exam guide.
Sit DVA-C02 before 30 November if…
- You have already worked through most of the DVA-C02 syllabus and are scoring near the pass mark on practice exams.
- You can book a test-centre or online slot on or before 30 November. Check that a slot is actually available before you plan around it.
- You have not used Amazon Bedrock or container services such as ECS, EKS and ECR, and you would rather not learn them for the exam right now.
- You want the certificate in hand this year rather than in the new year.
Prepare for DVA-C03 if…
- You are starting your preparation now. A few weeks is tight for an associate exam, and missing the cutoff means relearning the changed parts.
- You build with containers, Amazon Bedrock or AI coding assistants already. That experience counts on DVA-C03 and did not on DVA-C02.
- Your exam date is fixed for December or later.
- You want your study to match how AWS applications are built now: securing AI features, deploying container images, using AI tools to test and troubleshoot.
What is new in DVA-C03
AWS publishes an official comparison of the two versions, and it lists additions and reorganisations rather than removals. The largest addition is a new Security task: identifying and mitigating the risks of integrating AI services into applications. It covers requesting access to AI services, keeping data private when it is sent to them (for example through VPC endpoints, and ensuring inputs and outputs are not used for training), filtering model inputs and outputs (content filters, PII and PHI redaction, denied topics, prompt-injection protection), securing AI agents (tool-use authorization, session isolation, human approval for sensitive actions) and keeping sensitive content out of logs.
AI tools also appear across the rest of the guide: using AI-assisted development to generate, review and refactor code; integrating managed AWS AI services into applications; and using AI tools to generate tests, support CI/CD, analyse errors and find optimisation opportunities. Amazon Bedrock, Bedrock AgentCore and Kiro are in scope.
The second theme is containers. DVA-C03 expects you to build and manage container images with Amazon ECR (Dockerfiles, image tagging, lifecycle policies) and to deploy containerized applications with ECS task definitions, EKS manifests and Fargate, alongside Lambda. The Security domain also adds presigned URLs for time-limited access through Amazon S3 and CloudFront.
What moved, and what stayed
The domain structure is the same four areas, with Deployment renamed Testing and Deployment. Some skills moved between domains: unit testing with AWS SAM moved from development into testing, and Lambda performance tuning moved into optimization. AWS also merged several related skill groups (DynamoDB, security, testing, observability, optimization) and states that the merging does not reduce the emphasis on those skills.
The core of the exam carries over: Lambda configuration and error handling, DynamoDB key design and consistency, event-driven patterns with SQS, SNS and EventBridge, API Gateway, IAM roles and federation, KMS encryption and secrets management, CodePipeline and CodeDeploy deployment strategies, and CloudWatch and X-Ray observability. If you have studied for DVA-C02, most of what you learned still counts for DVA-C03.
Switching from DVA-C02 preparation to DVA-C03
If you started on DVA-C02 and will not make the cutoff, you do not start over. Work through the DVA-C03 syllabus in domain order, but spend most of your new study time on the additions: the AI-security task, Bedrock and AI-assisted development, ECR and container deployments, and presigned URLs. Then rebalance your practice: troubleshooting and optimization now carries more of the exam than it did, so weak spots there cost more.
Be careful with older practice material. Question banks and courses written for DVA-C02 will miss the new topics, and some older ones still test AWS Copilot and Amazon CodeGuru, which AWS had already removed from DVA-C02 in its final revision. DVA-C03 brings AWS Copilot environments back into the testing task, so do not drop it entirely.
- DVA-C02:DVA-C02 study notes · DVA-C02 cheat sheet · DVA-C02 practice questions
- DVA-C03:DVA-C03 study notes · DVA-C03 cheat sheet · DVA-C03 practice questions
Not sure either is the right starting point? Get an ordered certification roadmap for your role and experience.
Sources
Every number in the comparison table above comes from these two exam guides. Vendors revise them, so check the source before making a decision on a figure.
- AWS Certified Developer – Associate (DVA-C02) exam guide — Amazon Web Services
- AWS Certified Developer – Associate (DVA-C03) exam guide — Amazon Web Services