CCNA or CCNP? Since 2020 there is no prerequisite, so the choice is yours. Compare cost, difficulty, salary data and who should skip straight to CCNP.
Here is the fact that reframes this whole question: since Cisco's February 2020 restructure, CCNA is not a prerequisite for CCNP. Nothing stops you from booking the CCNP Enterprise core exam tomorrow with no certifications to your name. So "CCNA vs CCNP" is no longer a question about rules — it is a question about your experience, your budget, and what a hiring manager will believe when they see the letters on your CV.
Short answer: get the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) first if you have under roughly three years of hands-on networking experience — it is one exam, one third of the cost, and it builds the foundation CCNP assumes. Jump straight to the Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) only if you already work at a professional level daily: routing protocols, troubleshooting production networks, perhaps SD-WAN exposure. The certificate check-box is optional; the knowledge gap is not.
This article is strictly about that decision. It is not a syllabus walkthrough of either certification, and if your real question is Cisco versus another vendor, the CompTIA vs Cisco path comparison or the CCNA vs AWS career comparison are the articles you want.
The two levels are built differently, and the structural difference matters more than the branding.
CCNA is a single exam: 200-301, currently on exam topics v1.1 (in effect since August 2024, which added generative AI awareness, cloud network management and deeper STP protection topics). It runs 120 minutes and mixes multiple-choice, multi-select, drag-and-drop and lab-style items. Cisco does not publish the question count or passing score — any specific figure you see online is a community estimate. The exam fee is US $300 (varies by country; retakes cost full price, with a five-day wait after a fail). There are no prerequisites, though Cisco suggests a year or more of network experience. The credential is valid three years.
CCNP is two exams per track. Taking CCNP Enterprise as the example most readers mean: you pass the 120-minute core exam, 350-401 ENCOR (US $400), plus one 90-minute concentration exam of your choice (US $300) — advanced routing (300-410 ENARSI) and SD-WAN (300-415 ENSDWI) are common picks. That is roughly $700 minimum before any retakes. ENCOR moved to exam topics v1.2 in March 2026, dropping wireless from the core and adding SD-WAN, automation and AI-assisted-operations emphasis. Cisco suggests three to five years of experience. Passing ENCOR alone earns a Specialist badge and doubles as the qualifying exam for the CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure lab — a genuine bonus if the expert level is your long game.
| Factor | CCNA | CCNP Enterprise |
|---|---|---|
| Exams required | One (200-301) | Two (350-401 ENCOR + one concentration) |
| Exam cost (USD, varies by region) | $300 | $400 core + $300 concentration (~$700) |
| Formal prerequisites | None | None (CCNA not required since 2020) |
| Suggested experience | 1+ years | 3–5 years |
| Difficulty | Broad fundamentals across networking | Deep design, troubleshooting and automation |
| Skills signalled | Configure and operate small-to-medium networks | Plan, implement and troubleshoot enterprise networks |
| Career fit | Network technician, junior network engineer, NOC roles | Network engineer, senior engineer, network architect track |
| Validity / renewal | 3 years; 30 CE credits or exams | 3 years; 80 CE credits or exams |
| Bonus credentials | — | Specialist badge per exam passed; ENCOR qualifies you for the CCIE lab |
Certifications verify knowledge; they do not install it. The honest way to place yourself is against the work each exam assumes.
You are a CCNA-first candidate if any of these describe you: you have never configured OSPF outside a lab; subnetting still requires deliberate thought; your networking exposure is helpdesk-adjacent (resolving connectivity tickets, patching, Wi-Fi complaints) rather than design and change work; or you are entering networking from another IT discipline. The CCNA's breadth — IP fundamentals, switching, routing basics, security fundamentals, automation awareness — is precisely the substrate ENCOR builds on. Skipping it does not skip the learning; it just removes the checkpoint.
You are a plausible straight-to-CCNP candidate if your day job already looks professional-level: you run BGP or OSPF in production, troubleshoot multi-site enterprise networks, touch SD-WAN or network automation, and have three or more years doing it. A realistic example: a network engineer with four years at a managed service provider, CCNA earned in 2021 and since lapsed, now maintaining customer WANs daily. Re-sitting CCNA would teach her little; ENCOR plus ENARSI matches her actual work and her CV's next chapter. For her, paying $300 to re-earn the associate credential first is mostly ritual.
The grey zone — one to three years of real but narrow experience — usually resolves in CCNA's favour on cost grounds alone: a failed ENCOR attempt costs more than the entire CCNA exam, and every retake is full price.
"CCNP is harder than CCNA" is true but unhelpful; the useful question is how it is harder, because the two exams stress different muscles.
CCNA difficulty is mostly breadth under time pressure. The 200-301 blueprint sweeps from IP addressing and switching through wireless fundamentals, security basics and automation awareness. Few individual topics are deep, but you cannot hide a weak domain: the exam samples everywhere, and lab-style items punish anyone who has only read about configuration without typing it. Candidates who fail CCNA usually failed to lab enough, not to read enough.
ENCOR difficulty is depth plus judgement. Questions assume the fundamentals and interrogate design choices, failure modes and interactions — why a route is preferred, what breaks when a link flaps, how SD-WAN policy alters forwarding. Since the v1.2 refresh it also expects working literacy in automation and AI-assisted operations, topics that barely existed in networking exams a decade ago. The concentration exam then narrows further: ENARSI, for instance, is 90 minutes of nothing but advanced routing and troubleshooting. Where CCNA rewards coverage, CCNP rewards the pattern recognition that only comes from operating real networks — which is precisely why the experience test above is a better predictor of success than study hours.
Neither exam publishes a passing score, so calibrate against the official exam-topic lists rather than rumoured thresholds: if you can teach every bullet on the blueprint to a colleague and configure it cold, you are ready; if you can only recognise it, you are not.
The Skillsoft IT Skills and Salary survey (fielded May–September 2024, published 2025, US respondents, not cost-of-living normalised) reports CCNA holders averaging $112,333 and CCNP Enterprise holders $144,912. CCNP Security holders reported $168,159 and CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure $166,524, though Skillsoft flags those figures as drawn from fewer than 100 responses, so quote them cautiously.
Two caveats before you treat that ~$32,000 gap as the return on a $700 exam bundle. First, these are averages for holders, not payments for certificates: CCNP holders average more largely because they are more experienced people in more senior roles. Second, the survey population skews US; pay varies enormously by country, city and employer. The defensible reading is directional — professional-level certification correlates with professional-level pay — not transactional.
The sticker prices above understate the real comparison, because renewal mechanics differ.
This renewal chaining creates a quietly strong argument for the staged path: earn CCNA now, and when you sit ENCOR within the next three years, the professional exam resets your associate clock. You lose nothing by holding both.
For the majority in the grey zone, the highest-probability route looks like this:
When you are close to booking either exam, timed practice under exam conditions tells you whether you are actually ready: use the results to find weak domains and re-study those, not to memorise answers. ExamPractice has free sample questions for the CCNA 200-301 exam and the CCNP ENCOR 350-401 exam, with fuller sets and a timed simulation mode for subscribers.
Run through this honestly a month before spending money:
If the CCNA list feels patronising and the CCNP list feels descriptive, you have your answer — and vice versa.
Can I really skip CCNA and pass CCNP?
There is no rule against it and experienced engineers do. But ENCOR assumes CCNA-level fluency throughout, retakes cost full price with a five-day wait, and interviewers expect a CCNP holder to have professional-depth answers. Skip only if your daily work already operates at that level.
Does passing ENCOR without a concentration give me anything?
Yes — a Cisco Certified Specialist badge, eligibility for the CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure lab, and renewal of any active lower-level Cisco certifications.
How long does CCNA take to prepare for with no experience?
Cisco publishes no official figure; community estimates commonly run around three to six months of part-time study. Your mileage depends heavily on lab time.
Is CCNA still worth it now that Cisco has added AI and automation topics everywhere?
The v1.1 refresh added those topics to CCNA itself, which is evidence Cisco is keeping the credential current rather than sunsetting it. Networking fundamentals still underpin cloud and automation work.
If you need a single sentence: under three years of hands-on networking, take CCNA; at professional level already, go straight to ENCOR and a concentration; in between, take CCNA now and let the professional exam renew it later — the staged path costs little extra and de-risks everything. The worst outcome in this decision is not choosing the "wrong" certification; it is stalling for six months over a choice whose branches reconverge anyway. Pick the level that matches the work you can actually do, book a date, and let the deadline organise your study.
Exam facts in this guide were checked against official certification-provider pages on . Fees, exam codes and policies change — confirm on the provider’s own site before you book.
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