CAPM renewal requires 15 PDUs every three years, with at least 9 of those coming from Education. Your three-year cycle begins the day you pass the CAPM exam, not when the certificate is issued or activated. Miss the deadline and PMI suspends the certification for up to one year, giving you time to finish before it expires.
The
Your three-year CCR cycle begins the day you pass the certification exam, not the day the certificate arrives or is activated.
15
CAPM needs 15 PDUs every three years, of which at least 9 must be Education.
60
PMP, PgMP, PfMP and PMI-PBA each need 60 PDUs every three years.
CAPM needs 15 PDUs per three-year cycle. At least 9 of those must come from Education — structured, taught learning rather than volunteer or professional work.
The remaining 6 PDUs can come from any category, including more Education. There is no ceiling on Education PDUs for any credential, so if you would rather earn all 15 through coursework, that is allowed.
Your CCR cycle begins the day you pass the CAPM exam, not the day the certificate arrives in your inbox or gets activated on your PMI profile. If you sat the exam in March, your clock started that day in March.
A continuing certification cycle runs three years from the date the certification was earned or last renewed. Once you renew, the next three-year clock starts from that renewal date, not from your original exam date.
No. The 9-PDU Education minimum can be split across any combination of courses, webinars, or other taught content that PMI recognizes as Education. What matters is that at least 9 of your 15 total PDUs fall into that category by the time you file.
Since Education has no maximum, there is no risk of earning too many. If you complete a course that covers all 15 in one sitting, every one of them still counts.
If you reach the end of your three-year cycle without 15 PDUs logged, PMI does not cancel the certification outright. It suspends it for up to one year, and any PDUs you earn during that suspension period still count toward the requirement.
If the one-year suspension passes and the requirement is still unmet, the certification expires. At that point reinstating it is not a matter of catching up on PDUs — it means submitting a new application, paying the exam fee again, and retaking the exam.
PMP, along with PgMP, PfMP, and PMI-PBA, needs 60 PDUs per three-year cycle, with at least 35 of those from Education. Inside that 35, a minimum of 8 PDUs must sit in each of the three Talent Triangle areas — Ways of Working, Power Skills, and Business Acumen — which fixes 24 of the 35 and leaves 11 free to place anywhere. Read more on how many PDUs you need in each Talent Triangle area.
CAPM’s 15-PDU cycle has no such per-area split — it only sets the 9-PDU Education floor. If you plan to move from CAPM to PMP later, note that PMP’s requirement and cycle are entirely separate; passing the PMP exam starts its own three-year clock independent of your CAPM renewal history.
The CAPM Renew Pack is built around this exact requirement — 15 PDUs total, with at least 9 in Education — so you can complete a renewal cycle without piecing together courses from different providers or guessing which category each one falls into.
Yes. Education has no maximum, so you can meet the full 15-PDU requirement through Education alone as long as at least 9 of them qualify as Education.
Yes. Any PDUs you earn while your CAPM is suspended for up to one year still count toward the requirement that triggered the suspension.
No. The three-year CCR cycle starts the day you pass the exam, regardless of when the certificate itself arrives or is activated.
The certification expires, and reinstating it requires a new application, the exam fee again, and retaking the exam — not simply finishing the leftover PDUs.
Last reviewed: September 2026