Training, exams and certification
Training, exams and certification
Eighty questions in three hours, open book, seventy per cent to pass. Three quarters of the paper is about auditing: knowing ISO/IEC 42001 well is necessary, but on its own it is worth twenty questions.
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The PECB Certified ISO/IEC 42001 Lead Auditor exam tests whether you can plan, conduct and close an audit of an AI management system (AIMS) against ISO/IEC 42001, and manage an audit programme, following the practice of ISO 19011.
| Questions | 80, multiple choice with three options each — standalone and scenario-based |
|---|---|
| Duration | 3 hours |
| Pass mark | 70% — 56 of 80 |
| Materials | Open book — a hard copy of ISO/IEC 42001, the training course materials, your own notes and a dictionary |
| Delivery | Online in the PECB Exams app with a remote invigilator, or on paper at a PECB partner’s site |
| Non-native language | 30 additional minutes for Lead-level exams taken on paper, on request |
| Retakes | One free retake within 12 months for candidates trained by a PECB partner (included in our Exam Bundle) |
| Typical course | Five days, with the exam on the fifth |
| Validity | Three years, with CPD and an annual maintenance fee of USD 120 (first year included) |
| Credential | Passing the exam is one of several requirements. See below |
Seven domains, eighty questions, published weights:
| Conducting an ISO/IEC 42001 audit | 19 questions · 23.75% | |
| Fundamental audit concepts and principles | 16 questions · 20% | |
| Fundamental principles and concepts of AI and an AIMS | 12 questions · 15% | |
| Preparing an ISO/IEC 42001 audit | 9 questions · 11.25% | |
| Managing an ISO/IEC 42001 audit programme | 9 questions · 11.25% | |
| AI management system requirements | 8 questions · 10% | |
| Closing an ISO/IEC 42001 audit | 7 questions · 8.75% |
The five audit domains add up to 60 of the 80 questions. The two domains about artificial intelligence and the requirements of the standard are 20.
That cuts both ways. An experienced ISO/IEC 27001 or ISO 9001 auditor already knows most of the ground and has to add the AI layer. An AI specialist who has never audited has the opposite problem: the subject is familiar, the method is not, and the method is where the marks are.
The exam is one requirement of several. PECB awards four credentials from this paper, separated by professional experience and by hours of audit activity:
| Provisional Auditor | No experience required |
|---|---|
| Auditor | 2 years, 1 in AI management · 200 audit hours |
| Lead Auditor | 5 years, 2 in AI management · 300 audit hours |
| Senior Lead Auditor | 10 years, 7 in AI management · 1,000 audit hours |
Practise the audit cycle, not the standard. Conducting, preparing, closing and managing audits are 44 questions; fundamental audit concepts add 16 more.
Learn enough AI to judge evidence. Twenty questions test AI concepts and the AIMS requirements: you need to recognise what conforming evidence looks like.
Index your notes by audit phase. Two minutes and fifteen seconds a question leaves no time to search the course materials from the beginning.
Eighty multiple-choice questions, with three options each, standalone and scenario-based.
70 per cent, which is 56 of 80.
Three hours. Lead-level exams taken on paper allow 30 extra minutes, on request, for candidates sitting in a language other than their own.
Conducting an ISO/IEC 42001 audit, with 19 of the 80 questions.
Not by itself. That credential also requires five years of professional experience, two of them in AI management, plus 300 audit hours.
Sources. Every figure on this page comes from PECB’s published candidate handbooks, brochures and certification pages, checked in October 2026.
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