Does OCA Java 8 certification will expire after some years?

[Jude Niroshan]

Hi,

Some of my friends telling me that Oracle certifications will expire including OCA/OCP exams. I mean, the valid period will be mostly goes to 2 or 3 years from the date that the certification taken. I couldn't find any evidence on that while surfing on the internet. Is that actually true?

Regards,
Jude

[Scott Selikoff]

Disclaimer: It's all speculation. In other word, no one knows what Oracle will do in the future.

That said, I don't believe any Java actually expires. They might stop offering it (retiring an exam) but once certified on a particular version, no need to renew the same exam, as is required for certification in some other fields. You can, of course, take upgrade exams for new versions of Java. This is good for your education, though, as you will learn new features of the language.

As an extreme take Java 1.5, which came out 12 or so years ago... the certification exam is only being retired next month! And 6 and 7 are still quite active. Furthermore, Java 9's release date was pushed out again. In other words, 8 will be likely good for awhile.

[Roel De Nijs]

Jude Niroshan wrote:Some of my friends telling me that Oracle certifications will expire including OCA/OCP exams. I mean, the valid period will be mostly goes to 2 or 3 years from the date that the certification taken. I couldn't find any evidence on that while surfing on the internet. Is that actually true?

Your friends are incorrect! Certifications do not expire. Once you are certified, you keep that certification. So once you are OCAJP8 certified, you'll always be OCAJP8 certified.

But Oracle can retire certification exams. And on March 1, 2016 Oracle will retire a bunch of Java SE 5 and Java EE 5 certification exams. Here you'll find an overview of the Upcoming Retirements. And here you'll find the Exam Retirement Policy.

Hope it helps!
Kind regards,
Roel

[Scott Selikoff]

Roel De Nijs wrote:Certifications do not expire. Once you are certified, you keep that certification.

For Java certifications, yes, but there are numerous fields in which certifications do expire and must be periodically renewed. I'm guessing that's where some of the confusion lies.

[Roel De Nijs]

Scott Selikoff wrote:For Java certifications, yes, but there are numerous fields in which certifications do expire and must be periodically renewed. I'm guessing that's where some of the confusion lies.

True! This question is also asked several times on the Oracle Certification Program forum and the answer is (luckily) on every occasion similar: generally, certifications don't expire. Probably because most Java certifications (just like the DB certifications) are tied to a particular version (OCAJP7, 9i OCP,...).

Source: here, here and here,