If your GCP certification has expired after 1st December 2025, Google offers a reinstatement until 1st September 2026 if you fulfill some simple requirements.
Not all certifications are covered, the ones in scope are:
Cloud Digital Leader (CDL)
Associate Cloud Engineer (ACE)
Professional Cloud Architect (PCA)
Professional Data Engineer (PDE)
Event URL: https://rsvp.withgoogle.com/events/continuing-education-renewal
Renewal instructions are pretty much the same through the different certifications:
As there are two recommended courses/challenges for each path, for PCA we can see:
If this is not what we want, the renewal enabling options for PCA – we see that there are a couple of options other options/requirements to “activate” the renewal:
- Option A – 2 skill badges
- Option B – 4 courses
- Option C – 1 skill badge+two courses
Lower on the respective pages you can find 15 activities to choose from for the above requirements for PCA, ACE contains 21. You only need to complete the recommended ones or you can choose from the other three options – which fits you better. Once you complete one of the renewal requirements you will receive an email as this:
And also you receive another one which notifies you that your cert has been reinstated for a short time period, in this case until 1st September and you should take action in order to renew your certification:
Now additionally to the classic options of renewal exam and standard exam(both extend the validity of the certification by 3 years) you have the “Continuing education via Google Skill” which extends your certification by 1 year. This seems to be an alignment with Microsofts extend policy.
This is actually a very nice step forward for Google – GCP.