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API 653 March 2027 Changes: API 650 14th Edition

By Sandeep Bandyopadhyay, Senior aerospace engineer · PMP, MBA, Six Sigma

TL;DR

Every API 653 window from March 2027 runs on a new effectivity sheet. API 650 moves from the 13th Edition to the 14th Edition of August 2025, ASME BPVC Sections V and IX move from 2023 to 2025, API RP 652 moves to its 6th Edition, and API 653 picks up Addendum 4 and Errata 2. The November 2026 window was the last one on the old sheet.

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Rows of white oil storage tanks at the Sinclair oil refinery in Wyoming
Photo: Sinclair Oil Refinery Storage Tanks - Wyoming by Tony Webster (Wikimedia Commons), CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Nine publications sit on the API 653 effectivity sheet, and seven of them carry something new on the March 2027 version of it. One of those changes is large. API 650, the construction standard this exam leans on hardest, goes from the 13th Edition of March 2020 to the 14th Edition of August 2025.

If you are applying for a seat now, the newer list is yours. The November 2026 window was the last one examined against the March 2026 list, and its application deadline passed on September 4, 2026. Every window from March 12, 2027 onward uses the publications below.

Both sheets are two-page documents, and the differences between them are easy to miss when you read them a year apart. So here they are, line by line.

What changed between the March 2026 and March 2027 effectivity sheets?

PublicationMarch 2026 sheetMarch 2027 sheet
API Std 650, Welded Tanks for Oil Storage13th Edition, March 2020, with Errata 1 of January 202114th Edition, August 2025
ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code, Sections V and IX2023 Edition2025 Edition
API RP 652, Lining of Aboveground Petroleum Storage Tank Bottoms5th Edition, May 20206th Edition, December 2025
API Std 653, Tank Inspection, Repair, Alteration, and Reconstruction5th Edition November 2014, Addenda 1 to 3, Errata 15th Edition November 2014, Addenda 1 to 4, Errata 1 and Errata 2 of February 2025
API RP 575, Inspection Practices for Atmospheric and Low-Pressure Storage Tanks5th Edition, September 20245th Edition, plus Addendum 1 of July 2025 and Addendum 2 of June 2026
API RP 576, Inspection of Pressure-relieving Devices (two sections only)5th Edition, September 20245th Edition, plus Addendum 1 of February 2026
API RP 577, Welding Processes, Inspection, and Metallurgy3rd Edition, October 20203rd Edition, plus Errata 1 of September 2025
API RP 571, Damage Mechanisms (listed paragraphs only)3rd Edition, March 20203rd Edition, March 2020
API RP 651, Cathodic Protection of Aboveground Petroleum Storage Tanks5th Edition, August 20245th Edition, August 2024

The bottom two rows are the only ones you can ignore. Everything above them moved.

Video: API 653 — Settlement, thickness, interval — one calculation, one number. API 653 — Settlement, thickness, interval — one calculation, one number. Watch on YouTube · CertCrafter
Image: video thumbnail, source: CertCrafter on YouTube (@certcrafters).

API 653 did not get a new edition, which is the part that catches people. It is still the 5th Edition of November 2014, same cover, same spine. What it picked up is Addendum 4 of July 2025 and Errata 2 of February 2025, on top of the three addenda and one errata the earlier sheet listed. An addendum revises requirements inside a standard without renumbering the book around them, so a copy that looks current can be quietly out of date in the clauses you quote most.

Why does the API 650 edition change matter more than the rest?

Because the open-book half of the exam is mostly API 650 work. Table and figure lookups, the one-foot method, the toughness and impact-test tables, weld-size details, the Annex B settlement procedures. That is where 60 questions and 3 hours 45 minutes of your exam day go.

What the March 2027 sheet changes: API 650 from 13th Edition of March 2020 to 14th Edition of August 2025, ASME BPVC Sections V and IX from the 2023 to the 2025 Edition, API RP 652 from 5th to 6th Edition, and new addenda or errata on API 653, RP 575, RP 576 and RP 577
Only the lines that moved. Illustration: CertCrafter, from API 653 Publications Effectivity Sheet, March 2027.

An edition change does two things to that work. It can change what a requirement says, and it can change where the requirement lives. The second one is what costs you time in the chair. When lookup practice turns into muscle memory for table numbers and annex letters, a new edition breaks that memory without announcing it. You still arrive at the right value. You just spend ninety seconds finding it instead of twenty, sixty times over.

So rebuild the lookup practice against the edition on the sheet. Take each path you rely on, open it, and confirm the requirement is still where you expect. Do that on a screen with a search box, because the test center shows the documents as on-screen PDFs during the open-book portion and nothing you tabbed at home comes into the room with you.

The short version of how a thickness, settlement and interval question hangs together is on our channel: Settlement, thickness, interval.

ASME moves too. Sections V and IX go to the 2025 Edition of the Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code, while the examinable scope stays as it was: Section V Articles 1, 2, 6, 7 and 23, with Article 23 limited to SE-797, and Section IX for welding only.

Which exam windows run on the new sheet?

The March 2027 sheet covers three administrations: March 2027, July 2027 and November 2027.

Exam windowApplication deadline
March 12 to April 2, 2027January 7, 2027
July 9 to 30, 2027May 6, 2027
November 5 to 26, 2027September 2, 2027

API 653 sits in March, July and November, which is its own cycle and not the one API 510 or API 570 follow. Each deadline falls roughly two months before its window opens, and that gap is where most planning goes wrong. People diary the window and miss the application.

Worked example: planning backward from the March 2027 window

Take the first window on the new sheet and work backward from it.

  1. The window runs March 12 to April 2, 2027. You pick your Prometric appointment inside those dates.
  2. The application closes January 7, 2027, about twelve weeks from today. Apply after that and a late application fee of $200 applies on top of the exam fee.
  3. The 2027 initial certification fee is $890 for API members and $1,140 for non-members. Recertification is $760 and $870. Moving a booked appointment costs $350, so treat the date as fixed once you have it.
  4. Obtain the publications on the March 2027 list, not the ones you studied last cycle. API 650 14th Edition and ASME BPVC 2025 are the two that will bite.
  5. Split the study the way the exam splits itself: 110 closed-book questions against 60 open-book ones, which is most of your reading in the smaller half.

There is no reschedule out of an edition change. Apply for March 2027 with notes written to API 650 13th Edition and you study the wrong book for twelve weeks, then find out about it in the chair with the clock running.

Which publications does the March 2027 sheet list?

  • API RP 571, 3rd Edition of March 2020, only the paragraphs the sheet names
  • API RP 575, 5th Edition of September 2024, with Addenda 1 and 2
  • API RP 576, 5th Edition of September 2024, with Addendum 1, two sections only
  • API RP 577, 3rd Edition of October 2020, with Errata 1
  • API Std 650, 14th Edition of August 2025
  • API RP 651, 5th Edition of August 2024
  • API RP 652, 6th Edition of December 2025
  • API Std 653, 5th Edition of November 2014, with Addenda 1 to 4 and Errata 1 and 2
  • ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code 2025, Section V Articles 1, 2, 6, 7 and 23, and Section IX for welding

Anything outside that list is not examinable, however sensible it looks on a tank job. ASME Section VIII is not on it, and neither is API RP 2350.

What has not changed?

The exam shape. There are still 170 questions, 140 of them scored and 30 unscored pretest items that are not flagged, so you answer everything. The closed-book session is 110 questions in 2 hours 45 minutes, then a 45-minute break, then 60 open-book questions in 3 hours 45 minutes. That is 390 minutes of testing.

Passing is still a scaled 400 on a 200-500 scale, with no published percentage behind it. Delivery is still in person at Prometric. For a sense of the difficulty, the most recent published result is the November 2025 administration: 503 candidates at 60.8 percent.

The construction standard is still API 650, which is why its edition carries so much weight here.

What to do next

Check which window your application actually targets. If it is March 2027 or later, bin any practice material written to the 13th Edition, because its table references and acceptance values may not survive the edition change, and a wrong lookup in the open-book half is indistinguishable from not knowing the subject.

Then pull the current sheet yourself from API’s schedules and fees page and keep it with your notes. Run the scored ten-question sample to see where you stand, work the two questions on this page, and read the free API 653 practice questions for the exam-day mechanics. The certification guide covers eligibility and the body of knowledge, the other API 653 posts go section by section, and the six practice tests are written to the March 2027 list.

Try these free questions

  1. [Open book] Shell course 1 of TK-0940 now measures below the thickness required for the current maximum liquid level, the owner needs 18 more months of service, and no shell repair can be done with product in the tank. What is the correct path?

    1. Re-evaluate and reduce the maximum allowable liquid level from the measured thickness, and record it.
    2. Rerate the tank to a lower maximum allowable working pressure and stamp that value on the nameplate.
    3. Fit a lap welded patch plate to shell course 1 while the tank stays in service with product in it.
    4. Run a hydrostatic test to the original design liquid level to prove the course is still fit for duty.
    Show the answer and explanation

    Answer: A.API 653 does not rerate a tank. When a shell course no longer holds the thickness required for the liquid level in use, the route is to re-evaluate the maximum allowable liquid level from the minimum thickness relationship rearranged for height, using the measured thickness of the governing course, then set and document a reduced maximum fill height operations can hold for the eighteen months. The second option speaks of a maximum allowable working pressure and a nameplate stamp, which belongs to pressure vessel practice and has no meaning for an atmospheric tank. The third option puts a lap welded patch on a shell course, a detail permitted on bottoms and not on the shell, and it also calls for welding on a tank in service that the stated constraint rules out. The fourth option loads the weakened course to the very level the measurements say it can no longer carry.

  2. [Open book] Radiographs of a butt welded replacement shell plate on T-411 were shot with the image quality indicator on the film side because the inside was not accessible. What must appear before the inspector accepts them?

    1. A lead letter B of the required size, since film side placement is verified through backscatter.
    2. Nothing further, because film side placement is assumed whenever the source side is inaccessible.
    3. A written waiver from the owner, after which the indicator may be omitted from that exposure.
    4. A lead letter F on or beside the indicator, with the indicator identity and essential hole or wire visible.
    Show the answer and explanation

    Answer: D.Film side placement of an image quality indicator is allowed where the source side is not accessible, but it has to be declared on the radiograph itself. A lead letter F, at least as large as the indicator identification numbers, is placed on or next to the indicator, the indicator identity and the essential hole or wire must both be visible on the film, and the technique record states the placement so the reviewer knows which sensitivity basis applies. The first option uses the letter B, which is the backscatter marker fixed to the back of the cassette and read as a light image when backscatter is present, a different check entirely. The second option assumes the placement is self-evident from geometry and leaves the film reviewer guessing. The third option offers an owner waiver, but nobody may waive the indicator, since without it there is no evidence of the required sensitivity. The films are rejected until the marking appears.

Take the full free 10-question sample with scoring →

Frequently asked questions

Does the March 2027 sheet apply to the November 2026 window?

No. The November 6 to 27, 2026 window is examined against the March 2026 sheet, which lists API 650 in its 13th Edition and the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code in its 2023 Edition. That window's application deadline was September 4, 2026, so it is closed to new applications. Anyone applying now sits March 2027 or later and is examined on the newer list.

Do you need your own copy of API 650 14th Edition to sit the exam?

Not in the test center. The listed publications appear as PDFs on your screen during the open-book portion, and you cannot bring books in. For study you do want the edition on the sheet, because practice material written to the 13th Edition can point you at table and clause references that have moved or changed.

Which publications did not change at all?

Two. API RP 571 stays at the 3rd Edition of March 2020, with only the listed paragraphs examinable, and API RP 651 stays at the 5th Edition of August 2024. API 653 itself is still the 5th Edition of November 2014; what changed there is the addenda and errata attached to it.

Official sources

  1. API 653 Publications Effectivity Sheet, March 2027 — accessed 12 October 2026
  2. API 653 Publications Effectivity Sheet, March 2026 — accessed 12 October 2026
  3. API ICP Schedules and Fees — accessed 12 October 2026

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