Salesforce is retiring 24 certifications: what to decide before July 24

Salesforce will retire 24 certifications on February 1, 2027, and rename 16 more from July 24, 2026. Here’s the full list, what it means for the credentials you already hold, and how to work out your next move.

Salesforce has announced the biggest single clear-out of its certification catalog in years. On February 1, 2027, 24 certifications will retire, including CPQ Administrator, B2B Solution Architect, Nonprofit Success Pack Consultant and a long list of Accredited Professional credentials. Another 16 are being renamed as of July 24, 2026, with most of them adding “Agentforce” to their titles.

July 24 is also the last day to register for any of the retiring exams. Before you read that as a reason to panic-book a test, though, for most people, sitting a retiring exam is a waste of study time. The better question is which successor credential to point that effort at, and this article covers both.

What changed

Two different things are happening here, and they affect you in different ways.

24 certifications are retiring. The exams will no longer be offered this summer, and from February 1, 2027, the credentials will appear as retired on Trailblazer profiles. Salesforce’s reasoning is that the catalog should reflect the skills employers actually hire for, and several of these credentials cover products that have been folded into newer offerings, particularly across Marketing Cloud and CPQ.

16 certifications are being renamed. This part is cosmetic, and the exam content and maintenance requirements remain the same, and no one needs to retake anything. Most of the renames simply add “Agentforce” to the existing title so certification names match current product names.

Cosmetic or not, the renames are worth a glance. When Sales Cloud Consultant becomes Agentforce Sales Consultant and Service Cloud Consultant becomes Agentforce Service Consultant, you’re seeing how Salesforce now organizes its own thinking: around agents rather than clouds. Useful to know if you’re planning your next credential.

The 24 retiring certifications

The following certifications retire on February 1, 2027:

• Advanced Field Service Accredited Professional
• Contact Center Accredited Professional
• CPQ and Billing Consultant Accredited Professional
• Energy and Utilities Cloud Accredited Professional
• Heroku Developer Accredited Professional
• Loyalty Management Accredited Professional
• Marketing Cloud Advanced Cross Channel Accredited Professional
• Marketing Cloud Intelligence Accredited Professional
• Marketing Cloud Personalization Accredited Professional
• Media Cloud Accredited Professional
• Net Zero Cloud Accredited Professional
• Order Management Administrator Accredited Professional
• Order Management Developer Accredited Professional
• Process Automation Accredited Professional
• Salesforce Certified B2B Solution Architect
• Salesforce Certified B2C Commerce Architect
• Salesforce Certified Consumer Goods Cloud: Trade Promotion Management Accredited Professional
• Salesforce Certified CPQ Administrator
• Salesforce Certified Education Cloud Consultant
• Salesforce Certified Industries CPQ Developer
• Salesforce Certified Marketing Cloud Account Engagement Consultant
• Salesforce Certified MuleSoft Catalyst Consultant
• Salesforce Certified MuleSoft Hyperautomation Developer
• Salesforce Certified Nonprofit Success Pack Consultant

The 16 certification name changes

Effective July 24, 2026:

Key dates

• July 24, 2026 is the last day to register for a retiring exam. It’s also the day the 16 renames take effect.
• August 31, 2026 is the last day to sit a retiring exam. Pass by then and the certification is awarded as normal, and it stays on your Trailblazer profile after retirement.
• February 1, 2027 is when the 24 certifications officially retire and get marked as retired on profiles.

What retirement actually means for your credentials

If you hold one of the retiring certifications, nothing is being taken away from you. A retired certification is still valid. It stays on your Trailblazer profile, employers can still verify it, and from February 2027 it carries a “retired” label rather than disappearing. Salesforce has stopped maintaining the exam; that’s all retirement means.

It’s also worth remembering that the products aren’t retiring on the same schedule as the exams. CPQ still runs in thousands of orgs and will continue to do so for years. Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) still sits underneath a large share of the nonprofit sector. Companies on these products will keep needing people who genuinely know them, so if your day job is legacy CPQ work, your CPQ Administrator credential will keep earning its keep with clients long after the official retirement date.

What does change is how the credential reads in the market. After February 2027 it’s a record of past expertise rather than a signal that you’re current. Worth bearing in mind when you choose what to study next.

Should you sit a retiring exam before the deadline?

Usually not. Spending two or three months preparing for a credential, with a few months of active shelf life left, is a poor trade when those hours could go toward an exam that Salesforce is still investing in.

That said, there are a few situations where finishing makes sense.

You’re nearly ready. If you’re a couple of weeks out from sitting a retiring exam, finish it. Walking away from months of preparation at the finish line is the worst option, and the credential stays on your profile permanently.

The product is in your pipeline. If your current projects run on CPQ, NPSP, or another retiring product, the credential still does real work in front of clients.

Someone requires it. Partner tiers and active bids sometimes name specific certifications. If yours does, July 24 is a hard registration cutoff; treat it as one.

If none of that describes you, put the energy somewhere else. The next section covers where.

Where to go next, credential by credential

CPQ Administrator and the CPQ-related APs 

Head for Revenue Cloud Consultant, which itself becomes Revenue Management Consultant in July. The quoting, pricing, and billing concepts overlap heavily, so your CPQ knowledge is a head start, not a sunk cost. Industries CPQ Developer holders can keep building through Trailhead, including the Industries CPQ Foundations badge.

Marketing Cloud credentials

Several of the retiring Marketing Cloud certifications, including Advanced Cross Channel, Intelligence, and Personalization, are under review for inclusion in a future Agentforce Marketing certification, which Salesforce expects to launch in late 2026. If this is your specialty, keep your skills warm on Trailhead and wait for that launch rather than chasing a retiring exam. In the meantime, the Marketing Cloud Engagement Specialist certification (renamed from Email Specialist in July) stays in the active catalog and is a solid way to keep a current marketing credential on your profile.

Architect-track credentials

B2B Solution Architect and B2C Commerce Architect holders must maintain verifiable proof of a substantial body of work. Salesforce says skills from several retiring credentials are being assessed for future offerings, so this space is worth watching. In the meantime, the domain architect and Certified Technical Architect tracks remain the destination for architecture careers.

Sales and Service Cloud consultants

Nothing to fix here. Sales Cloud Consultant and Service Cloud Consultant are being renamed, not retired, becoming Agentforce Sales Consultant and Agentforce Service Consultant. The exams don’t change, and these remain two of the safest consultant-track credentials to pursue right now. The same goes for Field Service Consultant, which becomes Agentforce Field Service and Operations Consultant.

Nonprofit and education

The NPSP Consultant and Education Cloud Consultant retirements reflect the move to Nonprofit Cloud and Education Cloud on core platform. For nonprofit specialists, the newly renamed Agentforce Nonprofit Consultant certification is the path forward.

The Accredited Professionals

For most retiring Accredited Professionals, there’s no successor exam, just continued learning on Trailhead and, for partners, Partner Learning Camp. Where a successor does exist, focus there.

Starting fresh?

Salesforce has confirmed new certification programs in development, including Tableau Next and Marketing Next, and the wider catalog is consolidating around Agentforce, Data Cloud and the core platform. The core platform credentials are untouched by this announcement: Administrator, Platform App Builder, and Business Analyst remain the standard entry- and mid-career routes, and Data 360 Consultant is increasingly the one hiring managers ask about. If you’re choosing a next credential from scratch, choose from that list.

One last thought

Twenty-four retirements sounds dramatic, but most of this had already happened in practice. The platform moved on, and parts of the certification catalog hadn’t caught up. The renames confirm the direction of travel; the retirements tidy up behind it.

So treat this less as a deadline and more as a prompt to do an audit. Check which of your credentials are affected, see whether any of the finish-the-exam cases above apply to you, and pick your next certification based on where the platform is going.

Holding a retiring credential and unsure what to study next? Browse our Salesforce study guides and practice exams to plan your route to a successor certification.