Let me share my experience of renewing Google PCA certification in May 2026.
It’s been two years since I obtained GCP PCA certification. According to Google terms, you have to renew the certification every two years. Thankfully, they have recently introduced much simpler, easier way to do it. Instead of sitting the full exam, they offer a shorter, “renewal” version. The renewal exam has twice fewer questions and you can complete it in 1 hour. I really like that approach!
For the exam preparation, I used only the official resources – Google Skills PCA Renewal Path. The path is lengthy. It took me 3 weeks, 1-2 hours a day to complete. Frankly, most of the material in the path was not relevant for the exam. I would still encourage you to complete it, though. I especially enjoyed the Vertex AI Search for Commerce course. It walks you through implementation of AI for real life commerce situations.
The renewal path exam has a lot of AI focus, but the exam was more balanced.
I maintain the same advice: you have a much bigger risk of abandoning certification than failing the exam.
The renewal exam was easy. Really easy. Out of 25 questions, there were only 2 or 3 which I was not sure about. The rest was clean and could be tackled with pure logic. I completed the whole exam in 45 minutes. If you passed the GCP PCA exam before, you will have no trouble renewing it.
Another tip is to take the exam at the testing center, rather than at home. They allow breaks and drinks in the center, and you don’t need to worry about internet connection or your pet suddenly entering the testing room 🙂