Certified ScrumMaster Certification Guide

How to earn the Scrum Alliance CSM: mandatory course, 50-question exam, 74% pass mark, two attempts, and the SEU-based renewal cycle explained.

Sofia Martinez10 August 2026 · 10 min read

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Calendar illustration showing a two-day CSM course followed by a 90-day exam window

You cannot simply book the Certified ScrumMaster exam. That single fact shapes everything about how you get this credential: the Scrum Alliance requires every candidate to complete a live course with a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST) before the exam even becomes available to them. There is no self-study route, no standalone exam voucher, and no way around the classroom (physical or virtual). If you were hoping to read the Scrum Guide over a weekend and sit a test on Monday, the CSM is not built that way — and, as this guide explains, the course-first design is precisely what many employers and candidates value about it.

Here is the whole journey in one paragraph: you choose a Scrum Alliance-affiliated trainer, attend 14–16 hours of live instruction (typically spread over two days), receive access to the online exam, pass a 50-question test with a 74% mark within 90 days, accept the Scrum Alliance licence agreement, and walk away with a credential valid for two years. The rest of this article unpacks each of those steps, what the exam actually asks, what can go wrong, and how renewal works once you are certified.

What the Certified ScrumMaster credential is

The Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) is the entry-level scrum master credential from the Scrum Alliance, one of the longest-established certifying bodies in the agile world. It attests that you understand the Scrum framework — roles, events, artifacts and the values underneath them — well enough to begin serving a team as its scrum master.

Three relationships are worth making explicit, because they confuse first-time candidates:

The provider is the Scrum Alliance, a membership organisation. Your certification, your renewal account and your continuing-education record all live with them.
The course is delivered by a Certified Scrum Trainer, an individual accredited by the Scrum Alliance to teach the CSM curriculum. Trainers operate independently and set their own course fees.
The exam is administered online by the Scrum Alliance after your trainer confirms you completed the course.

The CSM sits at the bottom of a ladder. Above it, the Scrum Alliance offers the Advanced Certified ScrumMaster (A-CSM) and the Certified Scrum Professional – ScrumMaster (CSP-SM) for practitioners with real team experience. You do not need to think about those yet, but knowing the ladder exists helps you see the CSM as a starting point rather than a destination.

CSM certification requirements: what you need before you start

The honest answer is: very little. The Scrum Alliance imposes no experience requirement, no degree requirement and no prerequisite certification. The only formal requirement is the course itself.

That said, candidates who arrive having read the Scrum Guide — the short, free document that defines Scrum — get far more out of the two days. The course assumes no prior knowledge, but trainers move quickly through fundamentals, and the discussion-heavy parts of the class are much richer when you already know what a sprint, a product backlog and a daily scrum are. Thirty to sixty minutes of reading before day one is the highest-leverage preparation you can do.

How to get CSM certified: the process step by step

Step 1: Choose a Certified Scrum Trainer and course format

Every CSM course is run by a CST (or, in some cases, a Certified Scrum Educator through an approved programme). You can search upcoming courses on the Scrum Alliance website and filter by date, language, time zone and format. Two decisions matter here:

Live online or in person. Both satisfy the requirement. In-person courses suit people who learn through physical facilitation exercises; live online courses offer more scheduling choice and remove travel.
Which trainer. Trainers differ meaningfully in teaching style, industry background and price, because they set fees independently. Read course descriptions and reviews rather than booking purely on cost or date.

Course fees vary widely by region, format and trainer — commonly anywhere from around $250 to $2,495 USD — and the exam is always bundled into the course fee, never sold separately. A full breakdown of what the route costs end to end, including renewal, is covered in our guide to scrum master certification cost and preparation.

Step 2: Complete the live course

The course runs for 14–16 hours of live instruction, most often structured as two full days. Expect a workshop, not a lecture: CSM courses are built around simulations, team exercises and facilitated discussion. Typical ground covered includes:

The Scrum framework: accountabilities, events and artifacts, and why each exists
The scrum master's service to the team, the product owner and the wider organisation
Facilitation and coaching basics — how to run useful scrum events rather than merely scheduled ones
Common dysfunctions: absent product owners, sprint scope churn, status-meeting daily scrums

Attendance and participation matter. Your trainer confirms completion to the Scrum Alliance, and only then does the exam unlock in your Scrum Alliance account.

Step 3: Take the CSM exam within 90 days

After the course, you receive access to the online CSM exam. The key logistics, per the Scrum Alliance:

50 multiple-choice questions
60 minutes to complete it
Pass mark: 37 of 50 (74%)
Two attempts included in your course fee
90-day window from your course to complete the exam

The exam is taken online at a time of your choosing. Do not let the 90-day window lull you into delay: the material is freshest in the week after your course, and trainers consistently see the strongest results from candidates who sit the exam within days, not months.

Step 4: Accept the licence and claim your certification

Passing is not quite the final step. You must accept the Scrum Alliance's licence agreement and complete your membership profile, after which the certification is issued. Your CSM comes with a two-year Scrum Alliance membership, which is also where your renewal record will live.

CSM exam format: what the 50 questions actually test

The exam checks that you internalised the framework taught in the course. Questions are multiple choice and draw on the Scrum foundations covered in class: what each accountability is responsible for, what each event is for, how the artifacts create transparency, and how a scrum master responds to realistic team situations.

A 74% pass mark with two included attempts makes this one of the more forgiving entry-level agile exams — deliberately so. The Scrum Alliance's model places the heavy lifting in the mandatory course; the exam confirms the learning rather than gatekeeping it. Most attentive course participants pass on the first attempt.

That forgiving design is not a reason to skip preparation. The questions punish loose, colloquial understandings of Scrum — the kind absorbed from workplaces that "do agile" imperfectly. If your current team calls a status meeting a "stand-up" and lets managers assign sprint work, some correct exam answers will feel counterintuitive. Re-reading the Scrum Guide after the course and testing yourself against sample questions recalibrates you to what Scrum actually says. Working through Certified ScrumMaster practice questions after your course is a quick way to confirm the framework has stuck before you use your first attempt.

What happens if you fail?

Your course fee includes two attempts, so a first-attempt fail costs you nothing but time — review your weak areas and go again within the 90-day window. If you fail twice or let the window lapse, you will need to arrange further attempts through the Scrum Alliance, and fees may apply; check your Scrum Alliance account for the current policy in that situation.

Common mistakes CSM candidates make

Booking the cheapest course without checking the trainer. The course is the certification experience — a disengaged trainer gives you two flat days and a certificate; a strong one changes how you think about teams. Price is a poor proxy for either.

Treating the class as passive. The exercises are the content. Candidates who sit back through the simulations pass the exam anyway, then struggle in their first real scrum master conversations because they never practised facilitation when it was safe to get it wrong.

Deferring the exam. Every week between course and exam erodes recall. Book a slot for yourself within the first week, even though the system gives you 90 days.

Answering from workplace habit. The single most common source of wrong answers is choosing what your current organisation does over what Scrum defines. When two options both seem plausible, pick the one the Scrum Guide supports.

Ignoring the licence step. A handful of candidates pass and then wonder where their certificate is — the credential only issues after you accept the licence agreement in your Scrum Alliance account.

CSM renewal: keeping the credential active

The CSM is valid for two years. Renewal requires two things:

20 Scrum Education Units (SEUs) — one SEU roughly equals one hour of qualifying educational or volunteer activity, such as courses, agile events, coaching, mentoring or eligible volunteering. You log these in your Scrum Alliance account.
A $100 USD renewal fee for foundational-level certifications.

There is a 90-day grace period after expiry, after which the credential lapses. Two practical habits make renewal painless: log SEUs as you earn them rather than reconstructing two years of activity at the deadline, and treat the requirement as a nudge to keep learning — a conference day, a book-club series and some community volunteering will cover 20 hours without feeling like homework. The current rules and qualifying activities are listed on the Scrum Alliance's renewal page, which is worth checking as your date approaches since policies can change.

Renewal is also a decision point. Earning the Advanced Certified ScrumMaster within your cycle both progresses your career and generates SEUs; if you are a year or more into a scrum master role by then, look at the Advanced Certified ScrumMaster exam page to see what the next rung expects.

A realistic scenario: from booking to badge in three weeks

Consider a business analyst, Amara, whose organisation is moving her team to Scrum and wants her in the scrum master seat. Her path looks like this:

Week 1: She reads the Scrum Guide twice (about 90 minutes total), searches the Scrum Alliance course listings, and books a live-online CSM course with a trainer whose background is in her industry.
Week 2: She attends the two-day course, participates in every exercise, and keeps a running list of concepts that surprised her — mostly points where her company's "agile" habits diverge from Scrum.
Week 3: She re-reads the Scrum Guide against her notes, works through a set of practice questions to check her understanding, sits the exam on Thursday evening, scores comfortably above 37/50, accepts the licence agreement, and adds the credential the same night.

Total elapsed time: under a month. Total study time outside the course: perhaps five hours. That is a typical CSM timeline — the course does most of the work, and the exam rewards prompt follow-through.

Frequently asked questions

Can I take the CSM exam without the course?

No. The live course with a Certified Scrum Trainer is mandatory, and the exam only becomes available after your trainer confirms completion. Any site offering a "CSM exam only" is not offering the Scrum Alliance credential.

How long does CSM certification take?

The course is 14–16 hours over about two days, and you have 90 days afterwards to pass the exam. Most candidates finish everything within one to three weeks of booking.

Is the CSM exam hard?

It is one of the more accessible agile exams: 50 questions, a 74% pass mark, and two attempts included. Attentive course participants who re-read the Scrum Guide before the exam generally pass first time.

Does the CSM expire?

Yes — it is valid for two years and renews with 20 SEUs plus a $100 fee, with a 90-day grace period after expiry.

How does the CSM compare with Scrum.org's PSM?

That is a genuine fork in the road that deserves proper treatment — see our full comparison of CSM vs PSM for the two-way verdict, and the wider scrum master certifications round-up if you want the whole landscape.

Your route to the CSM, condensed

The CSM is the most structured path into a scrum master credential: a mandatory two-day course with a Certified Scrum Trainer, a 50-question online exam at a 74% pass mark with two attempts included, a 90-day window to use them, and a two-year renewal cycle built on continuing education. Its distinguishing feature is the classroom — you are paying for guided, interactive instruction, not just a test.

If that model fits how you learn, your next moves are short: read the Scrum Guide, shortlist two or three trainers whose backgrounds match your context, and book a date. After the course, sit the exam within the week while everything is fresh — a run through some scrum practice questions beforehand will tell you whether you are ready or need one more evening with your notes.

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.