AZ-204 Exam Guide: Retired Exam, Skills and Study Plan

Where AZ-204 stands today

Microsoft retired Exam AZ-204 on July 31, 2026, at 11:59 PM Central Standard Time. The official study guide says so in a warning at the top. The certification page adds that both the certification and the renewal assessment are retired.

That changes how you should use this guide. Use the content below to understand what the exam covered, or as a learning outline for Azure development. Check Microsoft's certification page for what is offered today.

What the exam proved and who it was for

AZ-204 led to Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate. It is listed as an Intermediate, Developer-role credential in application development.

The candidate profile covers every phase of development: requirements, design, development, deployment, security, maintenance, performance tuning and monitoring. Microsoft expected you to be proficient in:

• Azure SDKs

• Data storage options and data connections

• APIs

• App authentication and authorization

• Compute and container deployment

• Debugging

The stated background is at least two years of programming experience, plus skill with Azure SDKs, Azure CLI and Azure PowerShell. Developers worked alongside cloud solution architects, DBAs, DevOps and infrastructure admins.

Skills measured and their weights

The study guide lists these weights under "Skills measured as of January 14, 2026".

The weights show where to spend your time. Compute and service integration together make up roughly half the exam. Monitoring is small, but it is the easiest area to finish quickly.

Exam format and rules

Here is what the official sources state.

For duration and the exam experience, Microsoft points to its exam duration page. The exam is retired, so these details are for reference only.

Price, voucher validity and refund terms

Microsoft retired AZ-204 on July 31, 2026, so do not order this voucher to sit the exam. A delivered code is non-refundable except in the rejection cases listed below.

The list price in our catalog is $165.00 USD, the Microsoft official exam price as published by the vendor. Our AZ-204 voucher is listed at $44.99 as of November 10, 2026. The voucher is valid for 12 months and is redeemed with Pearson VUE.

Here are our store terms:

• The code is emailed within 12 hours of payment and also appears in your account.

• You can cancel for a full refund before delivery.

• A delivered code is non-refundable unless the test provider rejects it as invalid, already used or expired on first use.

• In that case, contact support within 14 days with the order number and a screenshot. The code is replaced or refunded.

Full details are on our refund policy and delivery policy pages.

A 6-week study plan using the skills outline

This plan assumes you already write code in C#, Python, JavaScript or Java. It uses about 8 hours a week, 48 hours in total. The time is split by the weights.

Weekly schedule

1. Weeks 1–2 (16 hours): Build a containerized app, push it to Azure Container Registry, and deploy it to Container Apps. Create an App Service web app with a staging slot. Write one Azure Function with an HTTP trigger and one with a timer trigger.

2. Week 3 (8 hours): Do storage. Create a Cosmos DB container, try each consistency level, and read the change feed. Upload blobs, set metadata, and add a lifecycle rule.

3. Week 4 (8 hours): Do security. Register an app in Microsoft Entra ID, sign in users with the Microsoft Identity platform, and call Microsoft Graph. Store a secret in Key Vault and read it using a managed identity.

4. Week 5 (8 hours): Do integration and monitoring. Publish an API through API Management with a policy. Send messages through Service Bus, Event Hubs and Queue Storage, and react to events with Event Grid. Add Application Insights and an availability test.

5. Week 6 (8 hours): Take the free practice assessment. Redo labs for every topic you missed. Stop adding new material.

A small lab to start Week 3

This builds and removes a storage setup in a few minutes. Replace <unique-name> with a globally unique name.

az group create --name rg-az204 --location eastus
az storage account create --name <unique-name> --resource-group rg-az204 --sku Standard_LRS
az storage container create --name demo --account-name <unique-name> --auth-mode login
az group delete --name rg-az204 --yes

Always delete the resource group at the end. Forgotten resources are the usual source of surprise Azure bills.

Common mistakes

• Reading instead of building. The profile asks for SDK, CLI and PowerShell proficiency. Type the code yourself.

• Ignoring weights. Spending a week on monitoring while compute gets two days is backward.

• Skipping the sandbox. Microsoft offers an exam sandbox so you can see the interface and question types before test day.

• Using dumps. They teach answers, not skills, and can be out of date. The free practice assessment shows the style and difficulty of questions.

• Learning only from old material. The final skills list (as of January 14, 2026) includes Container Apps and Microsoft Entra ID, so use current Microsoft Learn pages.

• Leaving resources running. Delete lab resource groups after each session.

What to do now if you hold or want this credential

If you already earned it, check your Microsoft Learn profile. The study guide says associate certifications expire annually and can be renewed with a free online assessment. The certification page now says the renewal assessment is retired, so confirm your status there.

If you want the skills, follow the plan above and build real projects. If you want a current exam, browse our cloud certification vouchers and check each exam's status on Microsoft's site first.

Sources

• Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate (official certification page)

• Study guide for Exam AZ-204: Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure