Ensuring you meet the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification requirements is the first step to becoming PMP certified. PMP eligibility is based on academic education, project management experience, and project management professional training. Once you have satisfied the eligibility criteria, you can submit your application online via PMI’s online portal. A small percentage of applications will be put through a random auditing process, more information about this below. After approval, you can take your PMP exam at your nearest Prometrics testing center. The computer based exam allows you to receive your score immediately. Upon passing, you are approved to use the PMP credential for 3 years. During this time must earn 60 professional development units (PDUs) to maintain your PMP status for an additional 3 years.
For complete eligibility documentation, please review the PMP certification requirements within the Project Management Professional (PMP)® Handbook.
Eligibility Requirement | Four-Year Degree | Secondary Degree* |
---|---|---|
Years of Project Management Experience | 3 Years (36 Months) | 5 Years (60 Months) |
Hours Leading & Directing Projects | 4,500 Hours | 7,500 Hours |
Hours of Project Management Education | 35 Hours | 35 Hours |
* A secondary degree is defined as a high school diploma, associate's degree, or global equivalent.
Tip: It is incredibly important that you do not falsify any of the information in your application. PMI has a random audit process which requires anyone being audited to present evidence to validate all information submitted with their application. Falsifying application documentation will result banishment from all future attempts to obtain any PMI certification.
To simplify the entire process of PMP application, you can optionally use the PMTI PMP Application Exam Prep Tool after you register for one of PMTI’s PMP Exam Prep classes to help facilitate your application documentation.
You can submit your PMP application on PMI's certification website, certification.pmi.org. You will need to submit the following information (terminology borrowed directly from the PMP application):
Cost Category | PMI® Member | Non-Member |
---|---|---|
PMI® Membership Fee | $139 | N/A |
PMP Exam Fee | $405 | $555 |
PMP Re-Take Fee | $275 | $375 |
For more information on the complete value of being a PMI member, see our PMP Certification Guide.
In order to maintain the integrity of the PMP certification and enhance the credibility of PMP Certification holders, PMI routinely conducts random audits of a certain percentage the PMP exam applications. Although PMI does not publish what percentage gets audited, our 13 years of experience shows about one in four or five of the applications get audited.
Generally, you will not know you are audited until your application has been accepted and you have been authorized to pay. Once you complete the payment, you will be informed if you have been selected as an audit candidate within a few minutes via email or the online application portal. If you receive an email with an approval code or receive an approval code within your PMI application portal then you have not been audited and can schedule your PMP exam at your convenience.
While the auditing process may appear intimidating just from the phrase, it is not as long as you follow the steps outlined by PMI. As part of our application prep tool assistance process we provide several tips that will simplify this process and will make it easy for you to navigate.
Once PMI informs you of your audit, you will be able to download the audit package. This audit package will contain instructions for providing verifications for the various items submitted with your PMP application. PMI will require you to provide proof of:
Although PMI’s official line is that it will take then 5-7 days to approve the application, we have seen that applications verifications sent overnight get approved within only a couple of days.
It generally takes PMI® 5 business days to review your application and respond. Once your application is approved you will receive an invitation to pay for and schedule the exam. You will schedule your exam with Prometric at prometric.com. You will have one year to take the exam after your application has been approved and may take the exam up to three (3) times during the eligibility period.
Once you have been approved to take the PMP certification exam, you will need to schedule, take, and pass the test at a Prometric test center near you. You can find a complete list of testing locations on the Prometric website. You will need the testing code PMI has provided you to successfully schedule your exam.
The PMP Exam is taken at your nearest Prometric test center and is 200 questions with a 4 hour time limit. The questions are broken down into 5 process groups; Initiation (13%), Planning (24%), Executing (30%), Monitoring and Controlling (25%), Closing (8%). Because of the computer based exam, you will receive your score immediately.
If your test results show that you received a passing score in each of the 5 process groups, congratulations! You are now a PMP! You may use the PMP credential immediately for the next 3 years! During this time you must earn 60 additional Professional Development Units (PDUs) to maintain your certification. To learn more about earning or reporting PDUs refer to PMI's Continuing Certification Requirements Program documentation.