Original research
What changed in the official rules for 192 licensing and certification exams
Written by Every Exam Prep Editorial TeamDrafted with AI from official sourcesSource and review policy
Research checked through November 3, 202616 official sourcesFree to cite with attribution2,851
Facts re-checked
192
Exams covered
13
Exams with a change at the source
14 rows, machine-readable: JSON · CSV. Free to reuse and cite with attribution to Every Exam Prep and a link to the report URL.
On 3 November 2026 we re-read every fact our 192 exam pages cite — 2,511 verified-fact rows and 340 At-a-glance figures — against the document each one cites, and compared it with what we had recorded. 13 exams had changed something at the source since we last looked: an outline, a delivery provider, a language list, a deadline, a pay range. Each row below gives both dates: when we last recorded the old value, and when the publisher says the new one applies.
Finance licensing changes — FINRA, NASAA, the IRS, the AICPA and CFP Board — are tracked separately in the finance exam changes tracker, from the regulators' announcements.
What changed at the source
Dated changes first, oldest to newest, then the ones the publisher did not date, then the ones still ahead. Several changes took effect before the date we recorded the old value: Kryterion stopped delivering Google Cloud exams in February, and California dropped the 20-hour course in January. The source column is the publisher's own page, read on 3 November 2026.
| Exam | What changed | We had | Now | Effective | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| California life and accident & health agent | Prelicensing education | 20 hours of prelicensing education (recorded 18 Jul 2026) | Only the 12-hour ethics and California Insurance Code course | 1 Jan 2026 (AB 943) | insurance.ca.gov |
| Google Cloud Digital Leader | Test delivery provider | Kryterion, through the Webassessor portal (recorded 18 Jul 2026) | Pearson | 22 Feb 2026 (last day with Kryterion) | support.google.com |
| ISACA CISM | Exam content outline | 2022 outline: Governance 17%, Incident Management 30% (recorded 18 Jul–6 Sep 2026) | 2026 outline: Governance 18%, Incident Management 29%, plus enterprise architecture and information security architecture | 3 Nov 2026 | isaca.org |
| Google Cloud Digital Leader | Exam guide section weights | 17 / 16 / 16 / 17 / 17 / 17% (recorded 18 Jul 2026) | 18 / 18 / 18 / 18 / 18 / 10% — Scaling with Google Cloud Operations is now the light section | Not dated; seen 3 Nov 2026 | services.google.com |
| Google Cloud Digital Leader | Renewal options | Renew by retaking the standard exam (recorded 18 Jul 2026) | The standard exam, a shorter renewal exam, or designated courses and skill badges | Not dated; seen 3 Nov 2026 | cloud.google.com |
| Claude Certified Associate | Exam languages | English only (recorded 9 Sep–2 Oct 2026) | English and Japanese | Not dated; seen 3 Nov 2026 | anthropic-partners.skilljar.com |
| Microsoft AI-901 | Exam languages | English (recorded 18 Jul 2026) | 13 languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Spanish | Not dated; seen 3 Nov 2026 | learn.microsoft.com |
| Certified Kubernetes Administrator | Kubernetes version in the exam environment | v1.35 (recorded 18 Jul 2026) | v1.37 | Not dated; seen 3 Nov 2026 | training.linuxfoundation.org |
| Massachusetts real estate salesperson | Content outline and unscored items | 5–10 experimental items; Requirements Governing Licensees 33–35% (13 salesperson items); hazardous materials 10% (recorded 10 Aug 2026) | 1–10 experimental items; Requirements Governing Licensees 30–33% (12 items); hazardous materials 8% | Not dated; seen 3 Nov 2026 | test-takers.psiexams.com |
| NHA CPT and CCMA | Diploma window and provisional certification | Diploma or GED due within 12 months; a provisional CPT expires after 12 months (recorded 18 Jul–30 Sep 2026) | 18 months for both (12 months still applies to the ExCPT) | Not dated; seen 3 Nov 2026 | nhanow.com |
| Illinois real estate broker | Continuing education split | 4-hour Core course and 8 hours of electives (2024 fact sheet) (recorded 18 Jul 2026) | 6-hour Core course and 6 hours of electives (2026 fact sheet) | 2026 CE fact sheet | idfpr.illinois.gov |
| CDCR correctional officer | Application reopening and starting pay | Applications to re-open 1 Oct 2026; $5,510–$9,203 a month after the Academy (recorded 7 Aug 2026) | Re-open expected 1 Dec 2026; $4,479–$9,203 a month after the Academy | 1 Dec 2026 (expected) | cdcr.ca.gov |
| NCEES FE exams | Approved calculator list | Approved for the 2026 exams (recorded 9 Aug 2026) | The same models, approved through 2027 | Through 2027 | ncees.org |
| CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) | Retirement date | "Usually retired three years after launch" (recorded 18 Jul–9 Sep 2026) | English retires 11 Jun 2027; Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish and Thai 13 Aug 2027 | 11 Jun 2027 | comptia.org |
"Not dated" means the publisher shows the new value without saying when it changed; the change happened between the date in the "We had" column and 3 November 2026.
In the publisher's own words
The sentence behind each row, copied from the cited document as it read on 3 November 2026, so a claim can be checked against its source in one step.
| Change | What the document says | Source |
|---|---|---|
| California life and accident & health agent — prelicensing education | “Effective January 1, 2026, the insurance license applicants who will no longer be required to complete this requirement include property, casualty, personal lines, commercial lines, limited lines automobile, life, and accident and health or sickness license applicants.” | insurance.ca.gov |
| Google Cloud Digital Leader — test delivery provider | “February 22, 2026: Last day to schedule and test with Kryterion” | support.google.com |
| ISACA CISM — exam content outline | “the updated CISM exam will be available on 3 November 2026” | isaca.org |
| Google Cloud Digital Leader — exam guide section weights | “Section 6: Scaling with Google Cloud Operations (~10% of the exam)” | services.google.com |
| Google Cloud Digital Leader — renewal options | “If you are renewing your certification, you have the option to renew by taking the standard exam, a shorter renewal exam or completing designated courses or skill badges in Google Skills.” | cloud.google.com |
| Claude Certified Associate — exam languages | “The exam and prep content are available in English and Japanese.” | anthropic-partners.skilljar.com |
| Microsoft AI-901 — exam languages | “Languages: English, Arabic (Saudi Arabia), Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), French, German, Indonesian (Indonesia), Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish” | learn.microsoft.com |
| Certified Kubernetes Administrator — kubernetes version in the exam environment | “The exam is based on Kubernetes v1.37.” | training.linuxfoundation.org |
| Massachusetts real estate salesperson — content outline and unscored items | “one to ten experimental items” | test-takers.psiexams.com |
| NHA CPT and CCMA — diploma window and provisional certification | “A Provisional Certification expires eighteen (18) months (twelve (12) months for the ExCPT certification) after the examination date.” | nhanow.com |
| Illinois real estate broker — continuing education split | “This must consist of a 6-hour Core* course and 6 hours of elective courses” | idfpr.illinois.gov |
| CDCR correctional officer — application reopening and starting pay | “Applications are expected to re-open December 1, 2026.” | cdcr.ca.gov |
| NCEES FE exams — approved calculator list | “The following calculator models are the only ones acceptable for use on exams through 2027:” | ncees.org |
| CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) — retirement date | “Retirement: English – June 11, 2027; Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, and Thai – August 13, 2027” | comptia.org |
Quoted verbatim, including the publisher's own capitalisation and punctuation. Where a document lists a figure in a table, the quoted text is the table row as the document prints it.
What a re-check of 2,851 facts finds
Most facts held. 1,856 were right and still sat on the cited page in the same words. The next-largest group is the one a reader never sees: 800 facts were still right, but the sentence we had stored was no longer on the page word for word — the publisher reworded it, moved it to a new URL, or our stored quote was imprecise. A citation that no longer matches its page cannot be checked, even when the fact behind it is true.
Only 44 were out of date or wrong, and 38 cited a page that had never stated them — usually a regulator's home page cited for a general statement about licensing. Those were re-sourced to a page that does state them, corrected, or withdrawn.
| Finding | Verified-fact rows | At-a-glance figures | What we did |
|---|---|---|---|
| Right, and the cited sentence is still on the page | 1,608 | 248 | Nothing to do. |
| Right, but the cited sentence moved or was reworded | 751 | 49 | Re-cited to the page as it reads today where a script could read it. |
| Out of date or wrong | 33 | 11 | Corrected, with the page text that repeated it. |
| Never stated by the cited page | 33 | 5 | Re-sourced to a page that states it, corrected, or withdrawn. |
| Page could not be read | 67 | 5 | Bot walls, maintenance pages, JavaScript-only help centres. Left as they were. |
| Unsure — sources disagree or are ambiguous | 19 | 22 | Left as they were and listed for a person to check. |
Method
- — Scope: every fact shown on a published exam hub on 2026-11-03 — the "Verified facts" rows and the At-a-glance figures (fee, length, questions, passing score), selected by the same code the page uses. 192 exams. Comparison and article facts, which describe a different exam or an article's subject, were excluded.
- — Each cited document was fetched on the day — PDFs converted to text in two layouts — and the stored quote looked for on it. A model then judged every fact against the document as read, and every fact it called out of date or wrong was re-checked by hand against the document before anything changed. Three of its calls did not survive that check and were dropped.
- — A row in the first table is a change at the source only when the publisher's current document states a different value from the one we recorded, and either the publisher dates the change or our earlier record cites the same publisher. Where our earlier record cited a home page or a different document, the correction is not listed here as a change.
- — Pages a script could not read were left as they were rather than guessed at: they include a maintenance page, a testing vendor whose certificate chain fails, help centres that render only in a browser, and state sites that refuse automated requests. Finance exams are covered by the finance changes tracker and are not repeated here.
Sources
The documents this page was checked against, with the date each was read. Every number above traces to one of them.
- 1AB 943 and ethics course FAQ — California Department of Insurance, read November 3, 2026.California life and accident & health agent: prelicensing education.
- 2Google Cloud certification: transition to Pearson test delivery — Google Cloud, read November 3, 2026.Google Cloud Digital Leader: test delivery provider.
- 3ISACA Updates CISM Exam Content Outline, Factoring in Today's Technologies, Security Responsibilities — ISACA, read November 3, 2026.ISACA CISM: exam content outline.
- 4Cloud Digital Leader Exam Guide — Google Cloud, read November 3, 2026.Google Cloud Digital Leader: exam guide section weights.
- 5Cloud Digital Leader certification — Google Cloud, read November 3, 2026.Google Cloud Digital Leader: renewal options.
- 6Anthropic Certifications FAQ — Anthropic, read November 3, 2026.Claude Certified Associate: exam languages.
- 7Exam AI-901: Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals — Microsoft, read November 3, 2026.Microsoft AI-901: exam languages.
- 8Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) — The Linux Foundation, read November 3, 2026.Certified Kubernetes Administrator: kubernetes version in the exam environment.
- 9Massachusetts Real Estate Candidate Information Bulletin (PSI) — PSI, for the Massachusetts Board of Registration, read November 3, 2026.Massachusetts real estate salesperson: content outline and unscored items.
- 10NHA Candidate Handbook — National Healthcareer Association, read November 3, 2026.NHA CPT and CCMA: diploma window and provisional certification.
- 11IDFPR 2026 Real Estate Broker CE Fact Sheet — Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, read November 3, 2026.Illinois real estate broker: continuing education split.
- 12CDCR Peace Officer Recruitment — California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, read November 3, 2026.CDCR correctional officer: application reopening and starting pay.
- 13
- 14CompTIA Security+ (V7) exam details — CompTIA, read November 3, 2026.CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701): retirement date.
- 15CISM Exam Content Outline — ISACA, read November 3, 2026.ISACA CISM: the 2026 domain weights and where the two architecture areas sit.
- 16CDCR Peace Officer pay — California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, read November 3, 2026.CDCR correctional officer: the after-Academy pay range.
Questions
- Did the CISM exam change in 2026?
- Yes, on 3 November 2026. ISACA's 2026 exam content outline moves Information Security Governance from 17% to 18% and Incident Management from 30% to 29%, and adds two content areas: enterprise architecture (under Information Security Strategy) and information security architecture (under Information Security Program Development). The four domains, the 150 questions and the 4-hour limit are unchanged.
- Who delivers Google Cloud certification exams now?
- Pearson. Google Cloud's support page names Pearson as the program's test delivery provider and gives 22 February 2026 as the last day to schedule and test with Kryterion, whose Webassessor portal handled registration before.
- Is the Claude Certified Associate exam available in Japanese?
- Yes. Anthropic's certification FAQ now says the exam and prep content are available in English and Japanese; through early October 2026 it said English only.
Citing this page? Link to https://www.everyexamprep.com/reports/exam-rule-changes-2026 and include the verification date — a census is a snapshot, and these publishers change what they release without notice.