The clf-c02 syllabus covers four domains: Cloud Concepts, Security and Compliance, Cloud Technology and Services, and Billing, Pricing, and Support. Cloud Technology and Services carries the most weight, followed closely by Security and Compliance, then Cloud Concepts, with Billing, Pricing, and Support the smallest domain. Each domain has its own set of AWS objective statements that define exactly what the exam tests.
Amazon Web Services groups everything the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) exam can ask about into four domains. Knowing the clf-c02 syllabus domain by domain, and how much each one is worth, is the fastest way to decide where to spend your study time before you book a seat through cost & booking.
Cloud Technology and Services (34%)
This is the largest domain in the clf-c02 exam objectives, and it is also the broadest. AWS expects you to know:
- Methods of deploying and operating in the AWS Cloud
- The AWS global infrastructure
- AWS compute, database, network and storage services
- AWS artificial intelligence and analytics services
In practice this means you should be able to describe how a workload moves from a laptop to a managed AWS service, recognize which service family (compute, storage, database, network, AI, or analytics) a described use case belongs to, and understand the building blocks of AWS global infrastructure such as Regions and Availability Zones at a conceptual level. This domain rewards breadth over depth — the exam is not asking you to configure services, only to recognize what each one is for.
Security and Compliance (30%)
Security and Compliance is nearly as heavily weighted as the first domain, and the clf-c02 exam topics here center on:
- The AWS shared responsibility model
- AWS Cloud security, governance and compliance concepts
- AWS access management capabilities
- Components and resources for security support
The shared responsibility model is the single most tested idea in this domain: knowing which security tasks AWS handles and which ones remain the customer's job comes up repeatedly in different phrasing. Expect questions on identity and access concepts and on where to find compliance and governance resources.
Cloud Concepts (24%)
Cloud Concepts is more conceptual than technical. The AWS certified cloud practitioner syllabus lists these objective statements for this domain:
- The benefits of the AWS Cloud
- Design principles of the AWS Cloud
- Benefits of and strategies for migration
- Concepts of cloud economics
This domain is a good starting point if you are new to cloud computing altogether, because it introduces vocabulary (elasticity, scalability, pay-as-you-go economics) that the other three domains assume you already understand.
Billing, Pricing, and Support (12%)
The smallest domain by weight still deserves attention because its objectives are narrow and therefore easy to master quickly:
- Compare AWS pricing models
- Resources for billing, budget and cost management
- AWS technical resources and support options
How to use this clf-c02 syllabus
Work through the domains in the order they are weighted, starting with Cloud Technology and Services and Security and Compliance since together they make up most of the exam. Pair this page with the exam format & scoring page to see how questions are structured, then move to the study plan to turn these domains into a week-by-week schedule. When you are ready to test yourself against real objective statements, the sample questions page shows how AWS phrases questions for each domain.
If a term above is unfamiliar, do not guess — the practice test page explains how our mock reports results by domain so you can see exactly which objective statements need another pass. Candidates who are unsure whether they meet the informal experience bar for this exam should also read prerequisites before committing to a booking.
Reading the objective statements correctly
Every bullet point under each domain heading above is written by AWS as a short phrase, not a full sentence, and that brevity can hide how broad a single objective really is. "AWS compute, database, network and storage services", for example, is one line in the clf-c02 exam objectives, but it spans several service families at once. When you plan study time, treat each bullet as a topic to research rather than a single fact to memorize — look up what falls under it, note the service names AWS lists in its own exam guide, and confirm you can explain the purpose of each one in a sentence.
The same applies to the Security and Compliance bullets. "AWS access management capabilities" is a compact phrase for a cluster of related ideas: how permissions are granted, how identity is verified, and how access is reviewed. Breaking the clf-c02 exam topics down this way, one objective statement at a time, keeps your notes aligned with how AWS actually writes exam questions — each question usually maps back to one specific objective rather than blending several together.
What this syllabus does not cover
The clf-c02 syllabus is intentionally conceptual. It does not require you to write infrastructure code, configure a service end to end, or memorize command-line syntax. If a topic you are reading about starts to feel like hands-on engineering rather than an AWS concept or terminology check, it is likely outside the scope of this particular exam and belongs to one of the associate-level exams referenced on the career path page instead.
Exam facts on this page come from Amazon Web Services’s own pages (official exam page). Prices, versions and policies change — confirm there before you book.