Every state runs a nurse aide registry because federal law makes it — 42 CFR 483.150–.158, the OBRA-87 nursing-home reform rules, require a state registry, a training-and-competency pathway, and a floor of 75 training clock hours (42 CFR 483.152). What the states built on that floor diverges more than almost any credential this atlas covers, and the divergence starts with what the credential is: some states issue a certification from a board of nursing or health department, in others being listed on the registry is itself the whole credential, and a few run a registry while offering a separate optional license on top. No state issues a “CNA license,” although that is what much of the search traffic calls it — each state page below leads with the state’s own words on what its credential is and who maintains it.
The training-hour minimums are where states differ most visibly. Missouri requires 175 hours — 75 classroom plus 100 supervised on-the-job — while Florida sets no training-hour requirement at all for certification by examination: a candidate there can test straight in. Between those poles sit states at the federal 75-hour floor and states well above it, and several states also fix the split between classroom, laboratory and clinical time by rule. Each page quotes the state’s own statute, administrative code or agency publication for its figure, and a state that publishes no figure of its own says so rather than borrowing the federal number.
The competency evaluation is everywhere a two-part exam — a written or oral knowledge test plus a demonstrated skills test — but who runs it varies: Credentia’s NNAAP, Prometric, and D&SDT-Headmaster administer it under contract in different states, while some states run their own (Kansas), route it through a state university (Southern Illinois University’s INACE) or a community-college system (Kentucky’s KCTCS, Indiana’s Ivy Tech). Vendors are named here as the state names them — as the administrator of the state’s exam, never as a recommendation.
Staying certified is about work, not coursework, in most states: the federal frame removes a nurse aide from active status after 24 months without paid nursing-related work, states layer in-service hour requirements on top, and what re-entry takes after a lapse — retest, retrain, or reapply — is a state-by-state fact each page states from its own sources. Most states also run a public registry lookup where employers verify status; each page links its state’s official one.
Every figure on every page below is read from the state agency’s own pages, its statute or administrative code, or the official candidate bulletin the state itself links — never summarised from memory or from aggregator charts — and each page names its sources and the date it was last verified. Where two official sources disagree, both are stated and attributed rather than quietly reconciled.