AWS Advanced Networking Specialty Certification Guide

ANS-C01 format, cost, recommended experience and a preparation plan — plus the retirement deadline every candidate needs to know before booking.

Daniel Carter11 August 2026 · 10 min read

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Network topology lines converging on a calendar marked 31 December 2026, symbolising the last booking window for the AWS Advanced Networking Specialty exam

Every candidate researching the AWS Certified Advanced Networking – Specialty in 2026 is working against a hard deadline: AWS has scheduled the certification for retirement, and 31 December 2026 is the last day the ANS-C01 exam can be taken. That single fact should shape every decision in this guide — whether to book, when to book, and how to compress your preparation so the attempt (and any retake) lands inside the window.

Everything else about the exam remains as it was. ANS-C01 is still bookable through the end of 2026, still delivered at Pearson VUE test centres and via online proctoring, and still the deepest networking credential AWS has ever offered — the one exam aimed at engineers who design and run complex hybrid architectures across Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), AWS Direct Connect and the rest of AWS's networking stack. This guide covers the format, cost, experience expectations and scoring, then lays out a preparation timeline built around the retirement date.

ANS-C01 at a glance

Here is the exam as AWS publishes it, current as of August 2026:

Certification: AWS Certified Advanced Networking – Specialty
Exam code: ANS-C01
Level: Specialty (the deep single-domain tier of the AWS portfolio)
Questions: 65, in multiple-choice and multiple-response formats
Time: 170 minutes
Cost: $300 USD — local-currency pricing and taxes vary by country and region, so confirm the figure for your location on AWS's exam pricing page
Passing score: 750 on AWS's scaled range of 100–1,000
Delivery: Pearson VUE test centre or online proctoring
Validity: three years from the date earned
Formal prerequisites: none
Last day to test: 31 December 2026

Two things on that list deserve emphasis because candidates routinely get them wrong. First, there is no lab or hands-on component: like every current AWS exam, ANS-C01 is entirely question-based. Second, "no formal prerequisites" is AWS policy across the whole portfolio — you do not need a Solutions Architect certification, or any certification, before booking a Specialty exam. What AWS recommends is a different matter, covered below.

Who should sit the Advanced Networking Specialty?

This is not an exam for generalists collecting badges. AWS's recommended profile is five or more years of networking experience, with at least two of those years spent on cloud or hybrid networking. In practice, the candidates it fits are:

Enterprise network engineers extending on-premises estates into AWS — the people wiring data centres to the cloud over Direct Connect and VPN, and making routing, DNS and IP addressing behave across the boundary.
Cloud network architects responsible for multi-VPC, multi-account and multi-Region connectivity designs at organisational scale.
Infrastructure specialists in regulated or latency-sensitive industries where network segmentation, traffic inspection and hybrid performance are daily concerns rather than occasional tickets.

If you are earlier in your networking career, the honest advice is that this exam's retirement makes it a poor first target: by the time you build the recommended experience, the credential will no longer be bookable. A broader associate-level AWS certification is the better investment, and our AWS certification roadmap for 2026 maps out which one fits which career goal. Engineers whose expertise sits mainly in traditional vendor networking can also keep progressing on that track — the Cisco exams hub lists the certification exams on that side of the fence — while adding AWS credentials that will outlive 2026.

What does the ANS-C01 exam cover?

AWS publishes the authoritative domain breakdown in the ANS-C01 exam guide, downloadable from the certification's official page, and that document — not any third-party summary — is what you should build your study plan around. Broadly, the certification validates the ability to design, implement and operate network architectures for the full breadth of AWS services, and to do so in hybrid contexts where AWS networking meets corporate networks.

In service terms, that means the territory a working AWS network specialist lives in: Amazon VPC and everything that attaches to it, AWS Direct Connect and VPN-based hybrid connectivity, DNS resolution across cloud and on-premises environments, traffic management, and the monitoring and troubleshooting of all of the above. What distinguishes a Specialty exam from an Associate one is not the service list but the depth: expect scenarios that assume you already know how the components work and instead probe whether you can choose between competing designs, spot the flaw in a routing arrangement, or diagnose why traffic is not flowing as intended.

A useful mental test as you prepare: if a question about a networking service could be answered from its marketing page, it is below this exam's level. ANS-C01 questions live where configuration detail, failure modes and cross-service interaction meet.

Requirements and recommendations, separated

Candidates frequently conflate what AWS requires with what it advises, so here is the clean split.

Required: nothing. AWS removed all exam prerequisites years ago, so you can register for ANS-C01 today with no prior certification and no verified experience. There is no application, portfolio or endorsement process — registration and payment are the only gates.

Recommended: five or more years of networking experience, including two or more years of cloud or hybrid networking. Treat that guidance seriously even though it is unenforced. Specialty exams are priced at $300 USD per attempt, and the scenario depth described above is unforgiving of theoretical-only preparation. The recommendation is less a gatekeeping device than an accurate description of who passes.

One genuine cost softener: if you already hold any active AWS certification, your AWS Certification account includes a 50% discount voucher for your next exam. For a $300 Specialty attempt, that halves the outlay — a strong reason to apply the voucher here rather than on a $100 or $150 exam if ANS-C01 is on your 2026 list.

How ANS-C01 scoring works

AWS reports results on a scaled range from 100 to 1,000, and Specialty exams require 750 to pass. The number is scaled, not a percentage: 750 does not mean 75% of questions answered correctly. Scaling lets AWS equate results across different question sets of slightly different difficulty, so the raw number of correct answers needed can vary between exam forms. AWS explains the mechanism in its "Demystifying your AWS Certification exam score" post, which is worth five minutes of your time if the maths bothers you.

The practical implication for exam day: you cannot track a running "percentage correct" in your head, so do not try. Answer every question — there is no penalty for a wrong answer beyond the miss itself — flag the ones you are unsure of, and use the 170 minutes fully. Sixty-five questions in 170 minutes averages out to roughly two and a half minutes per question, which is more generous than the associate-level exams and reflects how much reading the scenario questions demand.

Booking ANS-C01: the process

Sign in to your AWS Certification account (via aws.amazon.com/certification) — the same account tracks your certification history and holds any discount voucher.
Choose your delivery mode. Pearson VUE test centres offer a controlled environment; online proctoring lets you test from home but comes with strict room-scan, ID and workspace rules. Read the online-proctoring requirements before choosing it — a failed room check on the day wastes the booking.
Pick a date that leaves retake room. This matters more for ANS-C01 than for any other AWS exam right now, as the next section explains.
Apply your 50% voucher at checkout if you hold an active AWS certification.
Confirm the fee for your region on AWS's pricing page — the $300 USD list price is not what every country pays once local pricing and tax apply.

Planning around the 31 December 2026 deadline

The retirement date turns scheduling into a strategic decision. Book your first attempt with enough runway that a failed attempt still leaves time to regroup and rebook before the window closes — AWS retake policies impose a waiting period between attempts, and December test-centre availability is never something to gamble on. Verify the current retake waiting period on AWS's certification policies pages when you plan, and then work backwards from the deadline.

From the vantage point of September 2026, a sensible shape for the remaining months looks like this:

Now: download the official ANS-C01 exam guide, map its domains against your experience honestly, and mark the areas you have never touched in production.
Early autumn: close the gaps hands-on. Reading about Direct Connect is not knowing Direct Connect; build and break the architectures you can, and study deeply the ones you cannot economically reproduce.
Mid-autumn: move to exam-condition practice. A timed, full-length run of AWS Advanced Networking Specialty practice questions will show you two things a textbook cannot: whether your pacing survives 65 scenario questions, and which domains keep producing your wrong answers. ExamPractice's free samples let you gauge the question style first, with fuller sets and a timed simulation mode available to subscribers.
Late autumn: sit the first attempt, leaving December free as your contingency window rather than your plan.

When you review practice results, resist the temptation to memorise the questions you missed. The live exam will not repeat your practice items; what transfers is the reasoning — why the correct design beats the plausible-looking alternative. Re-derive each missed answer from documentation until the underlying rule is yours, then move on.

Common mistakes ANS-C01 candidates make

Preparing from an old blueprint. The certification's first iteration ran under exam code ANS-C00, and stale study material for it still circulates. Confirm every resource targets ANS-C01, and cross-check against the current official exam guide. (The older ANS-C00 exam page is a historical reference, not a study target.)
Underestimating the hybrid half. Engineers who learned networking inside AWS often cruise through VPC questions and stumble wherever on-premises routing, DNS forwarding or connectivity resilience enters the scenario. If your background is cloud-first, weight your preparation towards the hybrid side deliberately.
Treating it like an associate exam. Candidates coming off SAA-C03 sometimes assume the same preparation intensity will carry a Specialty. The 170-minute, scenario-dense format is a different discipline; calibrate with full-length timed practice before assuming you are close.
Ignoring the deadline maths. Booking a first attempt in December leaves no retake path. Every month of delay from here narrows your margin for error.
Waiting for a successor exam. As of August 2026 AWS has announced no replacement networking certification. Deferring in the hope of a newer exam is a bet on something that does not currently exist — if AWS announces one, its coming-soon page (aws.amazon.com/certification/coming-soon) is where it will appear.

What happens to the certification after retirement?

Passing ANS-C01 in 2026 earns a certification that remains active for the standard three years — into 2029 for a late-2026 pass. The retirement does not shorten or invalidate anything you earn before the cut-off.

Renewal is where the story genuinely ends. AWS Specialty certifications renew only by retaking the current Specialty exam, and once no such exam exists, an Advanced Networking Specialty cannot be renewed; it will lapse at the end of its three-year term. Factor that into your motivation honestly. If you want the credential as durable proof of hybrid networking depth for the next three years — a period when plenty of CVs will stop being able to earn it at all — the case for booking is strong. If you want a certification you can maintain indefinitely, this is no longer that, and a long-lived alternative such as the AWS Security Specialty or a Professional-level certification may serve your long game better. Holding an active ANS certification also keeps a 50% discount voucher live for whatever exam you take next, so the credential quietly subsidises its own successor in your plan.

Frequently asked questions

Can I take ANS-C01 online from home?

Yes. Like all AWS exams it is available through online proctoring as well as at Pearson VUE test centres. Online delivery carries strict identity, room-scan and workspace requirements, so review them on the AWS certification site well before exam day.

Is there a replacement for the Advanced Networking Specialty?

No successor has been announced as of August 2026. AWS's coming-soon page is the authoritative place to watch; do not rely on speculation from forums or course vendors.

Do I need the Solutions Architect Associate before attempting ANS-C01?

No. AWS exams have no prerequisites at any level. Many candidates hold an associate certification first simply because the experience helps — and because an active certification unlocks the 50% exam voucher — but nothing requires it.

How many questions can I get wrong and still pass?

AWS does not publish that figure, and because scoring is scaled rather than percentage-based, it varies between exam forms. Aim your preparation at consistent, comfortable performance across all domains rather than at a minimum-correct threshold.

The last window for AWS's networking credential

The AWS Certified Advanced Networking – Specialty is ending its run as arguably the most demanding single-domain exam in the AWS portfolio, and 31 December 2026 closes the door. For an experienced network engineer, the calculation is straightforward: the exam is 65 questions in 170 minutes, $300 USD, passed at 750 scaled, bookable today — and unbookable in four months. If the credential fits your role, plan backwards from the deadline, leave room for a retake, and let timed practice tell you when you are ready rather than the calendar telling you it is too late. And if the deadline has already decided against you, the Amazon exams hub shows the AWS certifications with open-ended futures where networking depth still earns its keep.

Exam facts in this guide were checked against official certification-provider pages on 30 August 2026. Fees, exam codes and policies change — confirm on the provider’s own site before you book.