Microsoft sets no formal az 400 prerequisites; anyone can register. Microsoft does recommend experience both administering and developing in Azure, with strong skills in at least one of those areas, plus experience implementing both GitHub and Azure DevOps solutions before attempting this exam, which is part of the DevOps Engineer Expert requirements.
Searching for az 400 prerequisites usually turns up conflicting answers. Here is what Microsoft's own AZ-400 exam page actually states, with nothing added.
Are there formal AZ 400 prerequisites?
No. Microsoft does not list a formal prerequisite for AZ-400 — no required prior certification, no mandatory course, and no gatekeeping check at registration. You can book the exam the same way you would book any other Microsoft certification exam.
AZ 400 eligibility Microsoft recommends
Formal requirements are not the same as being ready. Microsoft's recommended background for AZ-400 is experience both administering and developing in Azure, with strong skills in at least one of those two areas, plus experience implementing both GitHub and Azure DevOps solutions. Read that carefully: Microsoft expects breadth across administration and development, depth in at least one, and hands-on time in both toolchains rather than just one.
Who this exam suits
AZ-400 sits at the intersection of two roles: people who already administer Azure infrastructure and want to add DevOps engineering skills, and people who already build software on Azure and want to formalize their pipeline, security, and monitoring practice. Given that build and release pipelines alone make up more than half the exam's domain weight, candidates who have actually built and maintained CI/CD pipelines — not just read about them — are in the strongest position.
This exam is also explicitly part of the path toward Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert, so if that expert-level credential is your goal, AZ-400 is a required step, not an optional add-on.
Who should build more experience first
If you have not yet administered an Azure environment or written application code that deploys to Azure, Microsoft's own recommended background suggests you are not the target candidate yet. Similarly, if your Azure DevOps or GitHub experience is limited to using an existing pipeline someone else built, rather than designing one, the exam's build-and-release-pipeline domain will likely expose that gap. In either case, spending time actually administering Azure resources and building pipelines from scratch will serve you better than jumping straight to exam booking.
Why Microsoft frames this as recommended, not required
Microsoft's certification exams generally avoid hard prerequisite gates, preferring to describe a recommended background and let the exam content itself do the filtering. AZ-400 follows that pattern closely: there is no course completion certificate to upload, no lower-level exam you must pass first, and no manager sign-off required at registration. The tradeoff is that the exam questions assume the recommended background is already in place. A scenario about branch protection rules, release gates, or secretless authentication in a pipeline is written for someone who has configured those things, not someone encountering the concept for the first time. Treat the lack of a formal gate as a reason to be honest with yourself about readiness, not as evidence that the exam will be easy without preparation.
Recommended experience checklist
- Comfortable administering Azure resources: networking, identity, monitoring.
- Comfortable developing applications that deploy to Azure.
- Hands-on experience with GitHub Actions or GitHub-based workflows.
- Hands-on experience with Azure DevOps, including Azure Pipelines and Azure Repos.
- At least one real project where you designed, not just used, a CI/CD pipeline.
Where to go next
Once you have confirmed you match Microsoft's recommended background, review the exam objectives to see exactly what is tested, the exam format page for scoring, and the study plan to schedule your preparation. When you are ready to book, cost and booking covers the process, and the career path page shows where AZ-400 leads afterward.
Exam facts on this page come from Microsoft’s own pages (official exam page). Prices, versions and policies change — confirm there before you book.