CISSP exam cost: what candidates actually paid

The price of the CISSP is rarely a single line item: between the voucher, the retake option, date changes and travel, the bill is built in layers — and it grows with every failure. Expect between $750 and $1,000 per attempt, up to roughly $1,200 outside the United States with taxes included.

Every amount on this page is spending declared by candidates between 2023 and 2026, in US dollars; the price that counts is the one displayed on isc2.org at the time of purchase.

How much does one CISSP exam attempt cost?

Candidates who publish their accounts almost never discuss list prices: they give what came out of their own pocket. Here are the declared amounts.

Declared amount	Context	Date of the account
Up to about $1,200	ceiling mentioned for a purchase outside the United States, taxes included	2023-2026
$1,000	"exam fee" quoted by a European candidate	June 2026
$950	voucher with retake option, paid out of pocket	2024
$948	attempt including "Peace of Mind Protection"	March 2024
$750	attempt paid out of pocket, no option	October 2024
$750 + $50	attempt out of pocket, plus one date change	February 2025
$250	SSCP exam, cited for comparison	2024-2025

The four lines at $948 and $750 come from the same candidate, who kept count of his six failures between 2010 and 2025; he is also the one who points out that the CC exam is free through ISC2. The upper bound does not come from an exam account but from discussions about funding the CISSP: one participant describes a voucher "over 950 dollars, up to about 1,200 dollars outside the United States, taxes included." That is the range used in our article on whether the CISSP is worth it, and this page is the reference for the amounts. The gap between $750 and $1,200 may come down to a price increase, a local tax, or bundled options.

What is Peace of Mind Protection and is it worth the price?

It is the retake option sold with the exam. Four of the fifty candidates in the sample mention it, always as a psychological safety net as much as a financial one.

"I took Peace of Mind Protection offering (Risk transfer indeed)."

"I told myself that I would get Peace of Mind and therefore the first one would be a freebee and I wouldn't be too attached to the outcome."

A candidate who failed under the previous 175-question format describes the retake voucher as a spare wheel you would rather not use:

"Luckily I have the 2nd retake voucher, but I was really hoping not to have to use it."

Only one ballpark figure comes up for the extra cost of the option. Under the post of a candidate who writes "Oh and I bought the 950 dollar peace of mind," a commenter puts a figure on the gap with the plain voucher: "Basically an additional 200 dollars," while noting periodic promotions on the ISC2 site. The same order of magnitude comes back in retake accounts, where the option is described as "about 200 dollars more for a second attempt included."

The full declared amounts point the same way — $948 with the option in March 2024 against $750 without it in October 2024, two different dates. For the exact price and conditions of the option, the source to consult is isc2.org.

How much does a date change cost?

Only one figure comes up, and it is consistent.

Declared fee	Detail
$50 per reschedule	described as a "$50 delay"; the same candidate declares it three times — two reschedules on his June 2024 attempt ("2*$50 for delays= $100"), a third on the February 2025 one, i.e. $150 in total

Notice period, cap on the number of reschedules, outright cancellation: those rules should be checked on pearsonvue.com. On the mechanics of rescheduling itself — and on the 24-hour window that governs everything — see rescheduling your CISSP exam.

Are there vouchers, promotions or discounts?

The accounts document four leads, all anecdotal.

Lead	What a candidate says about it
Voucher included in a bootcamp paid for by the employer	"this gave me a free voucher, which was the biggest perk of this!"
Seasonal November promotion	"I dont even plan on buying the voucher maybe until November until they have that promo again" (February 2025)
Member discount on the official training	one candidate applies a "20% discount code as a member" to the official self-paced course

One point of caution comes up repeatedly: the voucher has an expiry date, and it can force your hand on scheduling.

"I had to hurry and schedule a date because my voucher would have expired at the end of this month."

Validity period, conditions of the November promotion and scope of the member discount should be checked on isc2.org.

How much does a failure really cost?

A failure does not only cost the price of a second attempt: it often adds reschedules, and sometimes a whole trip. The best-documented trajectory, that of the candidate with six failures, breaks down as follows.

Stage	Result	Declared cost
March 2024	failed at 100 questions	$948 (with Peace of Mind)
October 2024	failed	$750 out of pocket
February 2025	passed	$750 out of pocket + $50 reschedule

On top of that come the incidental costs the accounts mention without always putting a figure on them: a four-hour drive each way for one candidate, 900 km by train and metro, day and night, for another. And the extreme case, where 1,000 dollars were lost without a single question being asked, because of a timeout on the non-disclosure agreement:

"ISC2/Pearson VUE is refusing to let me retake the exam, with no refund, for a 1,000 USD exam fee, not counting the 200 EUR and hours of travel on top of that."

That case is detailed in our article on exam day at a Pearson VUE center. It is a reminder that the first way to save money is to sit the exam only once: Cybridia is built on 4,298 explained questions and 8 timed practice exams, so that the decision to book a date rests on results rather than on an impression.

How do you get your employer to pay for the exam?

Two observations come back in the accounts.

The first: employer funding adds a wait that has to be built into your study plan.

"Waited 3 weeks for approval from my work to cover exam fee (the wait was brutal)"

The second: when the employer funds training rather than the exam alone, the voucher is sometimes included, and that is what the candidate concerned found most useful about it.

What fees come after passing?

Passing the exam does not end the spending. The path reported by one candidate in 2023 runs as follows: experience file and endorser submitted, wait for the ISC2 review, then payment. That wait is documented separately — three to six and a half weeks after submission across nine dated timelines — in our article on the endorsement timeline.

"Zero news from ISC2 until I received the Congratulations email 3 weeks later. Paid my Annual Maintenance Fee within an hour."

That annual fee — the "Annual Maintenance Fee," sometimes called an "assessment fee" in the accounts — is quantified by already certified members: 125 US dollars until mid-2024, then 135 US dollars from late 2024 to 2026, a single rate regardless of how many ISC2 certifications you hold. The detail — first payment, Emeritus status, currency effects and cases of lost certifications — is in our article on the ISC2 AMF and the annual cost of maintaining the certification.

The Associate of ISC2 route, taken by candidates who do not yet have the required experience, involves the same fee: one account mentions having to "annually pay my membership maintenance and gather 15 CPE" without giving an amount. On what that status does and does not allow, see Associate of ISC2.

Two useful clarifications, so you do not budget for imaginary costs: no account mentions either a physical certificate or a welcome kit — only the digital certificate and the Credly badge added to LinkedIn appear. And the credential only becomes active at the start of the month following approval, a lag flagged by one commenter who advises checking the portal before claiming it. For the exact membership and endorsement fees, the source is isc2.org.