The Project Management Institute (PMI) defines a Contact Hour as follows: "One contact hour is equal to one hour of participation in an educational activity".

This means that if you sit in a classroom for 60 minutes or you spend 60 minutes online on a project management training you have just earned 1 Contact Hour. 

To register for the PMP Exam you need to demonstrate that you have earned 35 Contact Hours in Project Management.
 

Not necessarily. Many universities are not Registered Education Provider (R.E.P) but offer excellent Project Management courses. Also many web sites offer online project management training without being registered as an R.E.P. You can get your 35 contact hours from various trainings and institutions.
 

Any type of project management training can be counted but it must include content on project quality, scope, time, cost, human resources, communications, risk, procurement, and integration management.

Courses and training sessions offered by one or more of the following education providers apply:

A. PMI Registered Education Providers (R.E.Ps)
B. Courses or programs offered by PMI Component organizations
C. Employer/company-sponsored programs
D. Training companies or consultants
E. Distance-learning companies, including an End-of-Course assessment (Final Test)
F. University/college academic and continuing education programs

In our case, many of our products (such as PMP Platinum Package or PMP Gold Package) fall under Category E. In other words, the 35 hours of education that you will receive are acceptable by the PMI as 35 Contact Hours, and you will get a Certificate to prove it.
 

It doesn't matter how long ago you received a training. You can claim contact hours for it as long as it was on a project management topic. Here is what the PMI says: "Document all education hours regardless of when they were accrued." This means that if you took an "Introduction to Project Management" course 20 years ago, then you can still claim it. However, it is always best to have some form of documentation or proof of your participation in this course. And most of us don't keep training certificates for this long...  
 

Please note that any form of documentation is helpful. This is because the PMI performs random audits on all PMP applications. We therefore recommend that you use the following rule: If you cannot prove that you have participated in a training it is best that you do NOT claim contact hours for it.

If the course you took was an online course, then the PMI requires "an end of course assessment". This usually means, that the online training company will ask you to take an online test and then you will receive or can download a certificate. That's what happens with most of our courses.

If the course was a classroom course, then we recommend that you have some form of proof that you did indeed participate in the course like: invoice, course curriculum, certificate of attendance or any other document that will satisfactorily show that you were there.

 

Note: PDU stands for Professional Development Unit.

Technically they are not the same, but if you are preparing for the PMP Exam you can "think" of them as being the same. Here is the difference:

• You need "Contact Hours" before you apply for the PMP Exam.

• You will need "PDU"s after you have passed the PMP Exam in order to keep your PMP certification going.

After passing the PMP Exam, certified Project Managers must demonstrate commitment to the profession by accumulating 60 Professional Development Units (PDUs) over a 3-year period beginning with the first full calendar year after passing the exam.

Note: We offer hundreds of online courses which can account for your PDUs. Click below to see a list of our PMI approved courses for earning PDUs: