The API 570 exam is 170 questions. Only 140 of them are scored. The other 30 are pretest items that API seeds to gather statistics for future forms, and nothing on the screen tells you which thirty they are.
The day comes in two halves. A short tutorial, then 110 closed-book questions across 2 hours 45 minutes. Forty-five minutes for lunch. Then 60 open-book questions across 3 hours 45 minutes. API’s schedules page lists API 570 as 6.5 hours, which is the testing time on its own; add the tutorial and the break and you are in the building for 7.5 hours.
If you came here for a date rather than a format, the one to write down is November 26, 2026. That is when applications close for the January 29 to February 19, 2027 administration.
What does the API 570 exam day actually look like?
Put the questions against the clock and the design shows itself. The closed-book half gives you 2.75 hours for 110 questions, which is about a minute and a half each. The open-book half gives you 3.75 hours for 60, which is nearly four minutes each. Same candidate, same chair, two completely different jobs.
API 570 Exam Prep: 23 Worked Questions, Fully Explained Watch on YouTube · CertCrafter The closed-book half tests what you carry in your head. API’s body of knowledge is explicit about the part people most want to look up: the formulas for corrosion rates in API 570 clause 7.1.2, for remaining life, and for inspection interval in 6.3.3 and Table 1 may be closed book, along with the rules for setting the intervals themselves. It also expects you to work in US customary units and SI, and to use the formulas in both systems. A candidate who has only ever worked in mils per year will lose time converting under pressure.
Twenty-three worked questions from the paper, solved end to end, sit on our channel: API 570 exam prep, 23 worked questions.
The open-book half tests whether you can find things. Papers, notes and books are not allowed in Prometric computer testing centers. The codes and standards come up as PDFs on your computer during the open-book portion, presented in English, and only the specific sections listed on the effectivity sheet are loaded. So a beautifully tabbed paper copy of B31.3 builds a skill the room will not let you use. Practise searching a PDF instead, because that is the whole of your reference material.
How is the API 570 exam scored?
Passing is a scaled 400 on a 200-500 scale. Not a percentage.
That distinction carries more weight than it looks. Scaling lets API hold a single standard across exam forms that differ slightly in difficulty, which means the count of correct answers behind a 400 moves from one form to the next. API publishes no raw figure, so any specific percentage target you read on a forum is somebody’s reconstruction rather than a number API stands behind.
There are no published domain weights either. API lists the body of knowledge sections, calculations, welding procedure and qualification evaluation, nondestructive examination, general practical knowledge and specific practical knowledge, without attaching a percentage to any of them. A practice product quoting an exact split has estimated it, and should say so.
API 570 certification runs a three-year term and is accredited by ANSI, which built the exam to meet ISO 17024. That accreditation is the reason scoring works this way rather than as a raw mark out of 140.
When are the next API 570 exam windows and application deadlines?
API 570 runs three administrations a year, each a three-week window, each closing applications about two months before it opens.
| Exam window | Application deadline |
|---|---|
| October 9 to 30, 2026 | August 7, 2026 (closed) |
| January 29 to February 19, 2027 | November 26, 2026 |
| June 4 to 25, 2027 | April 1, 2027 |
| October 8 to 29, 2027 | August 5, 2027 |
The deadline is the line people miss. They diary the window, see three weeks of appointment availability, and discover in December that the January sitting stopped taking applications in late November. Nothing downstream speeds up to make that back.
Watch the 2027 calendar shift as well. API 570 sat in February, June and October through 2026, but the first 2027 window opens January 29 rather than in February, which pulls its deadline back to November 26, 2026. Anyone pattern-matching off last year’s dates loses two weeks they did not know they had spent.
What does the API 570 exam cost?
| Fee | API member | Non-member |
|---|---|---|
| Initial certification, 2026 schedule | $875 | $1,125 |
| Initial certification, 2027 schedule | $890 | $1,140 |
| Recertification, 2026 schedule | $745 | $855 |
| Recertification, 2027 schedule | $760 | $870 |
| Reschedule | $350 | $350 |
| Late application | $200 | $200 |
Read the reschedule line before you book anything. Moving a booked appointment costs $350 whichever side of the membership line you sit on, roughly forty percent of a member’s exam fee, and API charges it flat. Treat the date as fixed from the moment you have it.
Worked example: planning backward from the June 2027 window
- The window runs June 4 to 25, 2027. Your appointment sits somewhere inside those three weeks, at a designated test center.
- Applications close April 1, 2027. File after that and the $200 late application fee lands on top of the exam fee.
- Budget from the 2027 schedule, since that is the one the window falls under: $890 for API members, $1,140 for non-members.
- Confirm you qualify before anything else. A BS or higher in engineering or technology, or three or more years of military service in a technical role, needs 1 year of supervising or performing the inspection activities API 570 describes. A two-year degree or certificate, or two years of technical military service, needs 2 years. A high school diploma needs 3 years. No formal education needs 5 or more. The experience has to have been acquired within the last 10 years, working for or under contract with an authorized inspection agency as API 570 defines it, and it gets verified after you apply.
- Study against the February and June 2027 effectivity sheet, not the 2026 one. The two sheets cover different windows and the edition list differs.
- Sit one full timed rehearsal in the real shape: 110 questions in 2:45, a 45-minute break, then 60 questions in 3:45 with your references on a screen rather than on paper.
Work backward like that and the whole plan collapses onto one hard constraint, the application date, which sits months ahead of everything else and does not move.
Which publications is the February and June 2027 exam written from?
The effectivity sheet for those two windows lists API 570 in its 5th Edition of February 2024. Around it sit API RP 571 in its 3rd Edition of March 2020, API RP 574 in its 5th Edition of February 2024 with Addendum 1 of March 2025, API RP 576 in its 5th Edition of September 2024, API RP 577 in its 3rd Edition of October 2020, and API RP 578 in its 4th Edition of February 2023.
ASME arrives as the 2023 Edition of the Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code, cut down by section. Section V gives you Articles 1, 2, 6, 7, 9, 10 and 23, with Article 23 narrowed to SE-797 alone. Section IX is welding only, and brazing is out. B16.5 is the 2020 Edition issued January 2021, B31.3 the 2024 Edition issued December 2024, and PCC-2 the 2022 edition, examinable article by article from 101 through the repair articles to 502.
Two of these catch people out. API RP 571 is examinable only in Section 2 plus fifteen named damage mechanisms, from amine stress corrosion cracking through corrosion under insulation and sulfidation. API RP 576 is narrower still, just Section 5, paragraphs 6.1 to 6.5, and Section 7. Reading either cover to cover is a fine use of a career and a poor use of exam preparation time.
B31.3 runs the other way: the body of knowledge names thirty engineering requirements that are excluded, among them branch connections in 304.3, closures in 304.4, flexibility analysis in 319.4, the whole of Chapter IX on high pressure piping, and Appendix D. What stays in is the in-service arithmetic, pressure design thickness of straight pipe in 304.1.1 and 304.1.2, blanks in 304.5.3, the casting and weld joint quality factors, leak test pressures, impact testing exemptions, preheat and heat treatment. On weld procedure review the paper limits itself to SMAW, GTAW, GMAW and SAW, one process per WPS, base metals P-No. 1, 3, 4, 5 and 8, and tells you to treat the lower transition temperature as 1330 degrees F and the upper transformation temperature as 1600 degrees F.
What does it take to keep API 570 once you have it?
The certificate runs three years. To renew it you need to show that at least 20 percent of your time across the cycle went on performing or supervising in-service piping inspection work of the kind API 570 describes. An inspector who has drifted off the tools sits the full examination again.
You also need 24 hours of continuing professional development inside each three-year cycle, spread across at least two categories, uploaded as proof with the application. Every six years there is an open-book web quiz on top: 25 questions on how the codes changed over those six years, four hours to finish, pausable up to three times. Fail it once and you can retake it. Fail it twice and recertification is off the table until you pass a full exam again.
The application window opens 90 days before expiry and stays open for a 90-day grace period afterward, with late fees once the expiration date passes. Miss the end of the grace period and the certification expires outright: new application, new fees, full exam.
What to do next
Put your application deadline in the calendar before you decide anything about study. November 26, 2026 for the January window, April 1, 2027 for June. Then work out which one you can be ready for, because picking the window first and the readiness second is how people end up paying $350 to move a date.
Then check your footing. The scored ten-question sample tells you where you stand in an afternoon, the two questions on this page cover a localized thinning call and a thickness gauge verification, and the certification guide sets out eligibility and the body of knowledge in full. More API 570 posts go section by section, and the four practice tests are built around the closed-book and open-book split. Pull the current dates yourself from API’s schedules and fees page and keep them next to your notes.
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