CNA Certification in District of Columbia — Requirements & Fees

District of Columbia Board of Nursing — ‘a division within the DC Department of Health, Health Systems & Preparedness Administration (HSPA)’, which the Board’s own page says is ‘responsible for the licensure and regulation of … Nursing Assistive Personnel (NAPs) (i.e., dialysis techs (DTs), certified nursing assistants (CNAs), and home health aides (HHAs))’ as well as APRNs, RNs and LPNs. Testing and the nurse aide registry are run for the Board by Credentia; the Board’s own online licensing system is separate. administers certified nursing assistant licensing in District of Columbia. Every figure below is verified against the board’s own official pages and dated. Who must personally hold a credential — the contractor, the business, or the individual worker — is set out under Requirements.

What it’s called

THE DISTRICT USES BOTH NAMES AND THE RULE MAKES THEM IDENTICAL: ‘Certified nursing assistant - certified nurse aide’ (17 DCMR § 9699.1). The chapter is titled CERTIFIED NURSE AIDES, the Board’s web pages say ‘Certified Nurse Aide (CNA)’, and certification numbers on the District’s own published abuse registry begin with the prefix NA. THE UMBRELLA TERM THAT CATCHES PEOPLE OUT IS ‘NURSING ASSISTIVE PERSONNEL’ (NAP). It is not a synonym for CNA but a category containing it — the Board defines NAPs as ‘individuals who have received appropriate training or instruction to function in a complementary or assistant role to an RN or LPN, in providing direct patient care or in carrying out delegated nursing tasks’, a term that ‘includes, but is not limited to, nursing students, graduate nurses, home health aides, personal care aides, medication aides, dialysis technicians, CNAs, patient care technicians, or others as specified by the Board of Nursing.’ The Board’s own summary of its remit names only three of them — ‘dialysis techs (DTs), certified nursing assistants (CNAs), and home health aides (HHAs)’ — while the regulations carry separate chapters for the Trained Medication Employee, the Medication Aide-Certified and the Patient Care Technologist as well. ‘CNA license’ is loose but common, and the Board itself writes ‘NEED TO RENEW YOUR CNA LICENSE?’ even though the rules issue a certification. TWO REGISTRIES USE SIMILAR NAMES AND ARE NOT THE SAME LIST: the District of Columbia Nurse Aide Registry, the enrolment list operated by Credentia and searchable by the public; and the CNA Abuse Registry, a page DC Health publishes itself naming individuals with substantiated findings or convictions. NNAAP is the examination, not the credential. And note that the District is a single jurisdiction with no county or city layer — a DC certification is the whole credential.

License types & fees

Who does NOT need this license — exemptions

THE DISTRICT’S CNA CHAPTER CONTAINS NO GENERAL EXEMPTION LIST — its closest analogues are the trainee provision and the four-month window, and neither is a permanent excuse. THE TRAINEE PROVISION: ‘A trainee who is fulfilling educational requirements of this chapter may engage in supervised practice without a District of Columbia certification’ (17 DCMR § 9621.2), subject to four conditions in the same section — all supervised practice ‘shall take place under the general or immediate supervision of an RN or LPN’; ‘A trainee shall identify himself or herself as a trainee before practicing’; ‘A trainee shall not receive compensation of any nature, directly or indirectly, from a client or a client’s family member’; and the supervising nurse carries the responsibility and the disciplinary exposure. The Board may also deny certification to, or discipline, a trainee who violates the Act or the chapter, and may ‘revoke, suspend, or restrict the privilege of the trainee’ (§ 9621.7). THE FOUR-MONTH WINDOW is a deadline, not an exemption: ‘No person shall practice as a CNA in the District of Columbia longer than four (4) months without first being certified by the Board’, and the clock carries over between long-term care employers (§ 9601). THE TITLE BAR HAS NO CARVE-OUT AT ALL: ‘Nor shall any person refer to him or herself as a nurse aide, nursing assistant, or CNA unless he or she is certified in accordance with this chapter’ (§ 9600.4). ONE PIECE OF TRANSITIONAL PROTECTION EXISTS for people credentialed under the predecessor rules: ‘Any person certified, on the effective date of these provisions, as a nurse aide in accordance with Chapter 32 of Title 29 of the DCMR or as a nursing assistant in accordance with this chapter is considered for all purposes to be certified under this chapter for the duration of the term for which the certification was issued, and may renew, reinstate, or reactivate that certification in accordance with the appropriate provisions of this chapter’ (§ 9600.2) — the chapter having superseded 29 DCMR ch. 32 (§ 9600.1). Tiers searched on 2026-08-16: 17 DCMR ch. 96 in full (every section served), the Board of Nursing’s page, the District’s Nurse Aide Curriculum, and the District’s candidate handbook. No exemption for family caregivers, volunteers, federal employees or students of other health professions appears in any of them, and this record asserts none.

Fees

EXAMINATION FEES ARE PUBLISHED; THE CERTIFICATION FEE IS NOT. THE EXAM SIDE, from the District’s candidate handbook: Skill Evaluation only $110; Written Examination $55; Oral Examination only (Spanish) $55; Oral Examination only (English) $55. ‘Fees are not refundable. If you do not bring proper identification, you will not be allowed to test, and your examination fee will not be refunded.’ Payment must be ‘in the form of a credit card, debit card, single use card or electronic voucher. Vouchers can be purchased by the training programs.’ MANY CANDIDATES DO NOT PAY THESE AT ALL: ‘Under federal and District of Columbia laws, nursing homes are required to pay the NNAAP fees for their nurse aide employees, including individuals required to re-test.’ RENEWAL COSTS NOTHING TO FILE: the handbook’s renewal instructions state ‘No payment is required to submit your renewal application.’ THE ONE PUBLISHED DISTRICT FEE FOR A CNA is the fast-track route: the Board’s announcement of the 90-day temporary certification for Maryland and Virginia CNAs says to ‘submit proof of certification, pay the $50 fee, and pass a background check.’ A criminal background check payment is required through the DC Health CBC Payment Portal before fingerprinting; its amount is not stated in any CNA-facing source read for this record, though the District’s fee rule sets a $50 criminal background check charge for the licensed professions it does cover. NO CNA LINE EXISTS IN THE DISTRICT’S FEE REGULATION, and that is a searched finding rather than an oversight in this record: 17 DCMR § 3500, as last amended 17 May 2024, lists fee schedules for HOME HEALTH AIDE (initial certification $50, endorsement $50, renewal $50, reinstatement $70, inactive status $10, late renewal $20, certificate duplication $34, added authority $10), MEDICATION AIDE (identical figures), DIALYSIS TECHNICIAN, PATIENT CARE TECHNICIAN and TRAINED MEDICATION EMPLOYEES — and contains no entry for Certified Nurse Aide, Nurse Aide or Nursing Assistant. NOT A DISTRICT FEE: training program tuition.

Exam

TWO PARTS — a knowledge examination and a skill evaluation — and both must be passed within two years. The District’s candidate handbook states the window and the attempt limit together: ‘You must pass both parts of the examination within a two (2) year time period to be a part of the DC Nurse Aide Registry. Candidates are permitted three (3) attempts to pass the exam. After a third failure, you must complete another Nurse Aide training program and submit another application for examination.’ ⚠ THE SAME HANDBOOK STATES THE THIRD-FAILURE CONSEQUENCE TWICE, AND THE TWO VERSIONS DIFFER. The passage above is from ‘Eligibility for NNAAP® Testing’ on printed page 9. Fifty-seven pages later, under ‘Exam Results’ and the heading ‘Failing Score’ on printed page 66, the same document says: ‘If you fail either part of the NNAAP® Examination three (3) times, you will need to complete either a remedial course or new program depending on your program completion date, and retake only the examination you failed’, with a further bullet running onto page 67: ‘In addition, if you were scheduled to take the exam 3 times and did not become licensed — either as a result of failing the exam or absence(s) — you will need to retrain.’ THE TWO DIVERGE ON BOTH HALVES OF WHAT A CANDIDATE MUST DO: ‘another Nurse Aide training program’ against ’either a remedial course or new program depending on your program completion date’, and ‘submit another application for examination’ against ‘retake only the examination you failed’. Both passages are printed in the District’s current candidate handbook and neither is marked as superseding the other, so this record states both and attributes each rather than picking one. The handbook’s own first bullet in that same list is the practical pointer: ‘If you fail the Written (or Oral) Examination or the Skills Evaluation, your Score Report will tell you how to retake either or both parts.’ WRITTEN EXAMINATION: ‘The Written Examination has seventy (70) multiple-choice questions. You will have two (2) hours to complete the Written Examination. You will be told when fifteen (15) minutes are left to finish. Select only one (1) answer for each question.’ ORAL EXAMINATION, offered in English and in Spanish, is a different instrument rather than a read-aloud of the same one: ‘The Oral Examination consists of sixty (60) multiple-choice questions and ten (10) reading comprehension questions. Each of the sixty (60) multiple-choice questions will be repeated two (2) times, after which you mark your answer on an answer sheet. The reading comprehension questions test your knowledge of and familiarity with common, job-related words. Each of these words is repeated three (3) times. You have two (2) hours to complete the entire Oral Examination. You must pass both the multiple-choice and reading comprehension sections to pass the Oral Examination.’ A self-assessment reading test in the handbook ‘will help you decide if you should take the Oral Examination.’ SKILL EVALUATION: a separately priced, separately scheduled in-person component, and there is a hard medical bar on taking it early — ‘Candidates are prohibited from taking the Skills Evaluation if on limited activity or light duty due to medical reasons… Candidates on light duty cannot take the Skills Evaluation; however, they can take the written/oral exam. Medical documentation stating return to full duty is required to take the skills evaluation.’ The District publishes its own Nurse Aide Clinical Evaluation and Nurse Aide Skills documents alongside the curriculum. The District does not publish a passing score, and this record states none.

Renewal & continuing education

⚠ TWO OFFICIAL ANSWERS COEXIST, AND THE RULE ITSELF AUTHORISES THE SECOND. THE RULE SAYS OCTOBER 31 OF ODD YEARS: ‘[A] certification issued pursuant to this chapter shall expire at 11:59 p.m. on October 31 of each odd-numbered year’ (17 DCMR § 9602.1). THE VERY NEXT SUBSECTION LETS THE DIRECTOR CHANGE THAT: ‘The Director may modify the renewal system pursuant to § 4006.3 of Chapter 40 of this title and may modify the date on which a certification expires’ (§ 9602.2). THE DIRECTOR HAS DONE SO. DC Health, citing that authority: ‘DC Health is transitioning all professional licenses, certificates, and registrations to a birth-month renewal cycle. All credentials issued on or after June 16, 2024, will expire on the last day of the holder’s birth month. This will also apply to renewing licensees beginning September 2024. Your new expiration date will always fall on the last day of your birth month. If your birthday is in an odd year, your future renewals will occur in odd years (and the same for even years). Applies to all new and renewal applicants.’ So a CNA’s actual expiry date now depends on when the certification was issued or last renewed, and the rule text has not been amended to match. Check your own record rather than assuming either date. ⚠ A DATED BOARD NOTICE SITS ABOVE ALL OF THIS AND CARRIES A HARD WORK CUTOFF. On the Board of Nursing’s own page, as published on August 16, 2026, a block headed ‘RENEWAL NOTICE’ states that renewals are running behind — ‘due to the large number of licensees seeking renewal and the need to complete the required review (of criminal background check, etc.), the issuance of the renewed license is taking longer than expected’ — and sets out what that means for the holder: ‘Licensees who submit the renewal application before the expiration date of the license/certification/registration (June 30, 2026) are permitted to continue to work while their application is pending’; ‘when the renewal applications are approved, the licenses will be renewed and active as of July 1, 2026’; ‘For individuals who have applied for their renewal prior to the June 30, 2026, deadline, their status will be “Renewal Pending/ Authorized to Work”. For those who apply after the deadline, their status will be “Expired - renewal eligible”’; and the operative sentence, ‘Licensees may not work beyond September 1, 2026, without an active license.’ WHAT THE NOTICE DOES NOT SAY IS WHICH CREDENTIALS IT REACHES, and this record does not resolve that. It is published under the Board of Nursing heading and uses the District’s standard three-part formula ’license/certification/registration’ — and a DC CNA holds a certification under 17 DCMR ch. 96 — which reads inclusively; but the single June 30, 2026 expiry it names is a fixed date rather than the birth-month date the transition above puts on a CNA credential. The Board does not reconcile the two on the page. Anyone holding a District credential that is pending renewal should read the notice on the Board’s page and check their own record: the September 1, 2026 cutoff is stated without qualification. WHAT RENEWAL REQUIRES — 17 DCMR § 9607.1, three conditions: ‘(a) Having performed at least eight (8) hours of functions enumerated in § 9615.1 for compensation during the prior twenty-four (24) months; (b) Having completed, during the two (2) years before the expiration of the certification, twenty-four (24) hours of in-service training or continuing education relevant to the functions of nurse aides’ including the two mandatory components described in ce_hours; and ‘(c) Having received criminal background check clearance in accordance with § 9603.’ HOW IT IS FILED: through Credentia — create or log into the account, submit the renewal application for review, and upload the Certified Nurse Aide Employment Attestation Form, on which the supervising nurse confirms ’that this Certified Nurse Aide has provided a minimum of eight (8) hours of patient care within the past two years and the person is competent to provide the skills enumerated in 17 DCMR § 9615.1.’ The form warns that ‘Knowingly making a false statement on this form is a violation of D.C. Official Code § 22-2405(b) and may lead to criminal penalties.’ A SHORTENED TERM BUYS A CONTINUING-EDUCATION DISCOUNT BUT NOT A FEE DISCOUNT: because the birth-month transition gave some holders less than a full two-year term, ‘All Boards have approved acceptance of 50% of the Continuing Education (CE) requirements for licensees who have received less than two (2) years on their license term during this transition period… License holders are still responsible for the two (2) LGBTQ Cultural Competency and the 10% Public Health Priorities’, while ’no fees will be discounted or prorated.’ The Board is also required by statute to send a renewal notice at least 30 days before expiry stating the expiration date, the deadline and the renewal fee (D.C. Official Code § 3-1205.10(c)). INACTIVE STATUS IS AVAILABLE: ‘A CNA with an active certification may request to be placed on inactive status’, and ‘While on inactive status, the individual shall not be subject to the renewal fee and shall not practice, attempt to practice, or offer to practice as a CNA’ (§ 9608.1-.2). 24 HOURS EVERY TWO YEARS, WITH TWO MANDATORY COMPONENTS INSIDE IT. 17 DCMR § 9607.1(b) requires, during the two years before the certification expires, ’twenty-four (24) hours of in-service training or continuing education relevant to the functions of nurse aides’, of which: ‘(i) Two (2) hours shall be in cultural competency or specialized clinical training focusing on patients or clients who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer in accordance with D.C. Official Code § 3-1205.10(b)(5); and (ii) Ten percent (10%) of the total shall be in subjects determined by the Director as public health priorities of the District, which shall be duly published every five (5) years or as deemed necessary.’ Ten percent of 24 hours is 2.4 hours. The District’s candidate handbook states the same requirement as an annual rhythm — ‘12 hours per year, totaling 24 hours over the two-year certification period’, with training that ‘must be related to the health or nursing needs of your client population’ — and repeats both mandatory components. IN-SERVICE COUNTS, AND THE RULE SAYS WHOSE IT IS: ‘In-service - activities provided by the employer intended to assist the CNA in acquiring, maintaining, or increasing competence in fulfilling the assigned responsibilities specific to the expectations of the employer’ (§ 9699.1). HOURS CAN BE SHARED ACROSS DISTRICT CREDENTIALS: ‘Applicants who have another active District of Columbia certification as a nursing assistive personnel may apply continuing education hours to Nursing Assistive Personnel renewal requirements’ (§ 9607.2). THE BOARD AUDITS AND CAN ADJUST: ‘The Board may conduct a random audit of renewal applicants or certified Nurse Aides to determine compliance’ (§ 9607.3), and it ‘shall have the authority to modify the number of hours… for good cause or if an extraordinary circumstance necessitates such modification’ (§ 9607.4) — which is the authority under which the 50% transition allowance was granted. NOT LISTED IN THE CNA RULE: an HIV/AIDS component. The Health Occupations Revision Act directs the Mayor to require ‘3 credits of instruction on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (“HIV”) and the Auto Immune Deficiency Syndrome (“AIDS”)’ in the continuing education for several practices including ‘The practice by nursing assistive personnel’ (D.C. Official Code § 3-1205.10(b)(4)(A)(iv)), but the same section lets the Mayor waive that requirement by rule for one or more of those practices (§ 3-1205.10(b-1)(3)), and 17 DCMR § 9607.1(b) names only the LGBTQ and public-health components. This record therefore states the rule’s two components and does not assert an HIV/AIDS requirement for CNAs.

How to apply

Applications are handled by District of Columbia Board of Nursing — ‘a division within the DC Department of Health, Health Systems & Preparedness Administration (HSPA)’, which the Board’s own page says is ‘responsible for the licensure and regulation of … Nursing Assistive Personnel (NAPs) (i.e., dialysis techs (DTs), certified nursing assistants (CNAs), and home health aides (HHAs))’ as well as APRNs, RNs and LPNs. Testing and the nurse aide registry are run for the Board by Credentia; the Board’s own online licensing system is separate.. Start at the official application page .

Verify a license in District of Columbia

Credentia, which operates the District of Columbia Nurse Aide Registry for the DC Board of Nursing (the Board routes candidates and renewals to it and publishes its District candidate handbook) publishes a public license search , searchable by name, city and date of birth or registration number. It covers Enrolment on the District of Columbia Nurse Aide Registry. The operator states the search requirement in its own words: ‘To conduct a search, you will need the name, city, and date of birth OR registration number of the nurse aide’ — so a name alone is not enough, which is unusual and worth knowing before you try. THERE ARE TWO OTHER DISTRICT LOOKUPS AND THEY ANSWER DIFFERENT QUESTIONS. DC Health runs its own Online License Search covering health professional licences, certifications and registrations generally, which the Board links from its Quick Links as the way ‘To Get a Verification of an Active License’. And DC Health separately publishes a CNA Abuse Registry as an ordinary web page — a list of names with certification numbers, effective dates and, for many entries, the Superior Court case number and the conviction — which is the only one of the three that can be read without submitting a form. NONE OF THE THREE SEARCH TOOLS CAN BE READ AUTOMATICALLY. Both the registry search and DC Health’s licence search build their entire interface in the browser: the pages served to a plain reader contain no search fields at all, so an automated check can confirm the address responds without confirming what it shows, and an individual person’s result has no address that can be linked or bookmarked.

Records come from Credentia, which operates the District of Columbia Nurse Aide Registry for the DC Board of Nursing (the Board routes candidates and renewals to it and publishes its District candidate handbook)’s own system. LicensingAtlas does not hold license records and cannot confirm any individual’s status — the date on this page refers to the requirements described above, not to anyone’s credential.