Microsoft Certified: Power BI Data Analyst Associate (Exam PL-300) Exam

The skills measured are split four ways: Prepare the data at 25-30 percent, Model the data at 25-30 percent, Visualize and analyze the data at 25-30 percent, and Manage and secure Power BI at 15-20 percent, as of the 20 April 2026 update to the objectives. Three quarters of the exam therefore sits in the build stages, and the last quarter is about what happens after you press Publish — workspaces, apps, gateways, endorsement, sensitivity labels, and row-level security.

Questions are scenario-driven rather than definitional. You are typically handed a requirement — a table too large to import, a date column that must serve both order date and ship date, a manager who may only see their own region — and asked which feature meets it. Knowing that row-level security filters in the model while a report filter only hides rows is the kind of distinction the exam turns on. Microsoft calls its scenario format a case study: a situation stays on screen while several questions are asked against it, and you can reread it as often as you like until you move on. Some role-based exams also add a hands-on lab that runs in a live interface, but Microsoft does not publish which specific exams carry one.

Our own practice bank tracks this blueprint closely: of its 160 questions, 44 each (27.5 percent) cover Prepare the data, Model the data, and Visualize and analyze the data, and 28 (17.5 percent) cover Manage and secure Power BI — inside Microsoft's published range for every area.

The 20 April 2026 update was a light one. Microsoft's own change log for the study guide records only "Minor" revisions, confined to three sub-areas — Get or connect to data, Enhance reports for usability and storytelling, and Create and manage workspaces and assets — with no change to the four domain weights or anything else, so this is largely the same blueprint as the version before it.

Microsoft prices associate and expert exams at US$165 as a typical figure, adjusted to local currency for the country or region in which the exam is proctored, and notes that prices are subject to change and that additional taxes may apply in some places. Scheduling runs through Pearson VUE, and Microsoft recommends registering with a personal account rather than a work or school account, because exam records tied to an organizational account are lost and unrecoverable if you leave that organization.

The certification then expires after 12 months, but renewal is free and low-friction: Microsoft opens a six-month eligibility window before that expiration date, during which you take a short, open-book, unproctored online assessment on Microsoft Learn, retakeable as many times as you need as long as you pass before the certification expires. Passing extends the certification a further year from the original expiration date, at no charge. Practice assessments and the official study guide are also free, so $165 is genuinely the whole required outlay unless you choose to buy training — or you fail: Microsoft does not refund a failed exam or a missed appointment, and every retake is billed again at the full rate.

You have 100 minutes to complete the assessment — the duration Microsoft's own exam-duration table assigns to "associate and expert role-based exams without labs"; exams that may include labs run 120 minutes instead, which suggests, though Microsoft never says so outright for PL-300 specifically, that a live lab is not part of this exam. The exam is proctored and Microsoft notes it may include interactive components: expect Microsoft's case-study format, where a scenario stays on screen while several questions are asked against it, alongside plain multiple choice and possibly drag-and-drop or build-list items. Microsoft does not publish a question count for PL-300 specifically — any number you see quoted online is a third-party estimate — though it says its certification exams generally run 40 to 60 questions, a figure that "can vary depending on the exam." Plan your pacing around the clock rather than an assumed item count. There's no penalty for a wrong answer, and some questions are unscored pretest items used to refine future exams; you can't tell which ones as you sit the test, so answer every one as if it counts.

The passing mark is a scaled score of 700 or greater on Microsoft's 1-to-1,000 scale — a scaled score that, by Microsoft's own account, may not equal 70 percent of the points, and your score report's per-skill-area bars cannot be added together to reconstruct that total, since each area carries a different number of questions. The exam is offered in ten languages including English, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), Korean, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Traditional), and Italian, and if it is not available in your preferred language you can request an additional 30 minutes. If you fail, you can retake it 24 hours after the first attempt, then wait 14 days between each further attempt, for up to five attempts in any 12-month period counted from your first try; a fifth failure means waiting a full year from that first attempt before a sixth. There is no refund for a failed exam, and every retake is billed again at the full price.