The AIGP certification, described from the exam board's own handbook

Standfirst: Almost everything written about the AIGP is written by someone selling training for it. This is written from the IAPP's own Candidate Handbook, which is free, public, and answers most of the questions people ask on forums. Where the handbook is silent, this guide says so rather than filling the gap.

What the credential is

The AIGP is the Artificial Intelligence Governance Professional, a certification awarded by the International Association of Privacy Professionals. The handbook describes its purpose plainly: an AIGP certified professional "will know how to implement responsible AI practices and tools into every stage of AI system development."

The IAPP names the roles it considers the credential most appropriate for: AI compliance, risk management, legal and governance, data scientists, AI project managers, model ops teams, social scientists, and trust professionals. That list is worth reading twice, because it is unusually broad. It spans people who write policy and people who ship models. The exam reflects that spread, and so does the difficulty people report: whichever half of that list you come from, roughly half the material will be the other half's day job.

The format, precisely

Element	What the handbook states
Length	Three hours, with an optional 15-minute break midway
Questions	100, all multiple choice
Scored questions	85 scored, 15 unscored
Question shape	One correct or best response and three plausible but incorrect responses
Case studies	About 30% of questions are connected to case studies
Marking	One point per question, correct or incorrect. Unanswered counts as incorrect. No penalty for a wrong answer
Prerequisites	None
Delivery	Pearson VUE test centers, or OnVUE remote proctoring

Three details in that table change how you should prepare, and they are the three most often left out of summaries.

There is no penalty for a wrong answer, and blanks count as wrong. That makes guessing strictly correct. Never leave a question unanswered, ever, on any question, for any reason. A blank is a guaranteed zero where a guess is a one-in-four chance of a point. Budget your three hours so that you are never in a position where the clock stops you from at least marking something.

15 of the 100 questions do not count. These are pilot items, being trialled for future use, and you are not told which they are. Two things follow. First, a question that feels bizarre or unanswerable may simply be one that is not being scored, so it is not evidence you have misjudged your preparation. Second, your denominator is 85, not 100, which matters when you are estimating how you did.

About 30% of questions attach to case studies. These present, in the handbook's words, "real-world challenges for AI model development and use." A case study question cannot be answered by recognising a term, because the term is in the stem and so are three plausible distractors. It is answered by applying the material to a described situation. That is a different skill from recall, and it is the skill most study approaches neglect.

How the AIGP is scored, and why the number confuses people

You pass with 300 on a scale of 100 to 500. That is where most summaries stop, and it is where the confusion starts, because 300 out of 500 looks like 60% and it is not a percentage of anything.

The handbook describes the actual mechanism: "All IAPP exams have a set cut score that is determined by an exam development board and psychometric analysis. This cut score is a set number of correctly answered scored questions and is then set to 300 on our scale of 100 to 500."

Read that sequence carefully. The real pass standard is a count of correct scored answers. That count is decided by a board, using psychometric analysis, and only then mapped onto a 100 to 500 scale where the threshold is labelled 300. The scale exists to report results consistently, not to define the standard.

The IAPP does not publish what that count is. Anyone who tells you the AIGP pass mark is a specific percentage of questions is telling you something the exam board has not published. The handbook is also explicit that "passing a certification exam does not require 100% mastery but rather the level of competence determined by the Exam Development Board and approved by the certification advisory board."

What you get after the exam is stated too: results immediately on completion, sent by email from Pearson VUE and reflected in your MyIAPP account the next business day, including a pass or fail indicator, your overall scaled score, and a percentage breakdown of your performance on each section of the body of knowledge.

The body of knowledge, and a discrepancy worth knowing about

The exam is built on a published body of knowledge that allocates a number of exam items to each domain. That allocation is the single most useful preparation document the IAPP publishes, because it tells you where the marks are.

Here is a discrepancy you should know about before it confuses you. The version of the Candidate Handbook checked on 6 August 2026 describes the body of knowledge in a narrative of seven domains, from "Domain one defines AI and machine learning" through to "Domain seven presents some of the current discussions and ideas about AI governance." The body of knowledge blueprint for version 2.1, effective 2 February 2026, is structured as four domains containing 13 competencies, with item counts allocated across them.

We are not going to tell you which document is wrong, because we do not know, and only the IAPP can say. What we will tell you is which one to prepare against: the blueprint with the item counts on it. Those counts are what determine how many marks each area is worth, and the handbook itself says your results come back as a breakdown "on each section of the exam blueprint." Prepare against the document that carries the weights.

Fees

What	Member	Nonmember
First-time exam	USD 649	USD 799
Each retake	USD 475	USD 625
Certification maintenance, per two-year term	Included in membership	USD 250

The handbook adds that "no additional fees are required to become AIGP certified," and that if you already hold another IAPP certification you get the discounted retake fee. We have written the fees up in full, including the arithmetic on membership, in a separate guide on what the AIGP actually costs.

The one-year clock, which catches people out

You buy the exam first and schedule it afterward. The handbook is unambiguous about what happens next: "Candidates must schedule AND complete their exams within one year of purchase or the exam fee will be forfeited."

Forfeited means gone. Not credited, not rolled over. If you buy the exam to commit yourself and then life intervenes for 13 months, you buy it again at full price. Appointments also need scheduling at least 24 hours in advance, so the last day of your year is not a day you can sit it on.

After you pass

There is no additional application. Candidates who pass are awarded the certification and issued a digital certificate through Accredible, generally within two weeks. One condition attaches: if the certification maintenance fee or membership fee has not been received by the time you pass, the certification is not awarded until it has been.

The term is two years, beginning the day after you pass. Keeping the credential requires two things by the end of that term:

• Payment of the certification maintenance fee for the term. For members this is included in membership benefits as long as membership is maintained. Nonmembers pay USD 250 per term.
• Evidence of 20 continuing education credits corresponding to the content of the AIGP body of knowledge.

Miss either and the credential is suspended, and the handbook is direct about what suspension means: you "may no longer represent themselves as certified until reinstated." Beyond suspension sits revocation, and the handbook lists exactly three ways it happens, all of them administrative: unpaid maintenance fee at the end of a suspended term, unpaid membership renewal at the end of the current term, or an unremedied CPE shortage carried through a second term. A revoked credential is not reinstated by paying up. You retake and pass the exam.

One practical note on the credits. The IAPP's own credit guide allows one CPE per 40 pages of AI publications read, capped at five per term. Reading is worth credits, but a quarter of your requirement is the most it can ever cover.

What this guide does not tell you

Three things, because they are not in the source and we will not invent them.

• The pass rate. The IAPP does not publish one, and no figure circulating online traces to the IAPP.
• The raw number of correct answers needed. The handbook says the cut score is a set number determined by the exam development board. It does not say what the number is.
• What it is worth in salary. We hold no source for that, so we make no claim about it.

Closing

The AIGP is a three-hour, 100-question, no-prerequisites exam with an unpublished cut score reported on a 100 to 500 scale, a two-year term, and a body of knowledge whose item weights are published and are the most useful thing about it. Almost everything a candidate needs to plan around is in a free handbook that takes 20 minutes to read. Read it before you read anything written about it, including this.

Common questions

What is the AIGP certification?

The Artificial Intelligence Governance Professional, a credential awarded by the IAPP. The exam is three hours, 100 multiple-choice questions, and there are no prerequisites: anyone may purchase and sit it.

What score do you need to pass the AIGP?

300 on a scale of 100 to 500. That is not a percentage. The cut score is a set number of correctly answered scored questions, decided by an exam development board and psychometric analysis, and then reported on the 100 to 500 scale.

How many questions are on the AIGP exam?

100, of which 85 are scored and 15 are unscored. Unscored questions do not count toward your result, and you are not told which ones they are.

Are there prerequisites for the AIGP?

No. The handbook states there are none. You do not need another IAPP certification, a degree or documented experience to sit it.

How long does AIGP certification last?

Two years, beginning the day after you pass. Keeping it requires 20 continuing education credits in that period and payment of the certification maintenance fee.