CNA Certification in Florida — Requirements & Fees

Florida Board of Nursing, Florida Department of Health (Division of Medical Quality Assurance) — the Board maintains the Certified Nursing Assistant Registry administers certified nursing assistant licensing in Florida. 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

Florida’s statutory term is CERTIFIED NURSING ASSISTANT (CNA) — ’nursing assistant’, not ’nurse assistant’ or ’nurse aide’ — and chapter 464, part II is titled ‘Certified Nursing Assistants’. Florida is therefore one of the states where the national shorthand and the legal term coincide. What the Board issues is a CERTIFICATE; the Board’s own web pages nonetheless slide between ’license’ and ‘certificate’ (its CNA pages are headed ‘CNA Initial License by Examination’ and ‘CNA Initial License by MOBILE Endorsement’ while the statute says ‘The board shall issue a certificate to practice as a certified nursing assistant’), so both words appear in official Florida material for the same thing. Note that Prometric’s materials use the federal vocabulary — ‘Florida Nurse Aide Exam’, ‘Nurse Aide Registry’, ’nurse aide’ — for the same credential the state calls a nursing assistant; a candidate will meet both terms in the same application. Other names to keep apart: QUALIFIED MEDICATION AIDE (QMA) is a designation layered on top of a CNA certificate under Fla. Stat. 400.211(5), not a separate credential and not the same as a CNA; PERSONAL CARE ATTENDANT is a distinct, uncertified role with its own training programme under s. 400.141(1)(w) that may be employed in a nursing facility for four months; and ‘STNA’ is Ohio’s term, not Florida’s. ‘MOBILE’ is Florida’s endorsement programme (Mobile Opportunity by Interstate Licensure Endorsement), and the Nurse Licensure Compact — which Florida joined in 2018 — applies to RNs and LPNs, never to CNAs.

License types & fees

Who does NOT need this license — exemptions

The certification requirement itself lives in the nursing home statute, not in the nursing chapter, and so do the exceptions. Fla. Stat. 400.211(1): ‘To serve as a nursing assistant in any nursing home, a person must be certified as a nursing assistant under part II of chapter 464, unless the person is a registered nurse or practical nurse licensed in accordance with part I of chapter 464 or an applicant for such licensure who is permitted to practice nursing in accordance with rules adopted by the Board of Nursing.’ So licensed nurses and permitted nursing applicants are outside it entirely. FOUR CATEGORIES GET A FOUR-MONTH WINDOW — 400.211(2): ‘The following categories of persons who are not certified as nursing assistants under part II of chapter 464 may be employed by a nursing facility for a single consecutive period of 4 months: (a) Persons who are enrolled in, or have completed, a state-approved nursing assistant program. (b) Persons who have been positively verified as actively certified and on the registry in another state with no findings of abuse, neglect, or exploitation in that state. (c) Persons who have preliminarily passed the state’s certification exam. (d) Persons who are employed as personal care attendants and who have completed the personal care attendant training program developed pursuant to s. 400.141(1)(w).’ The subsection closes with the deadline: ‘The certification requirement must be met within 4 months after initial employment as a nursing assistant in a licensed nursing facility.’ Note the phrase ‘a single consecutive period’ — it is not renewable by changing employers. A SCOPE LIMIT WORTH STATING PLAINLY: 400.211(1) reaches NURSING HOMES. No Florida source read on 2026-08-14 states that a hospital, assisted living facility or home health agency may employ only certified nursing assistants, and this record makes no such claim; note that 464.2035(1) separately contemplates a CNA administering medication to ‘a patient of a home health agency licensed under part III of chapter 400’ and ‘a patient in a county detention facility as defined in s. 951.23(1)’, which shows CNAs working in those settings without stating that certification is required there. One more boundary comes from the definition itself: the practice section ‘does not restrict the ability of any person who is otherwise trained and educated from performing such tasks’ (464.201(5)). Employers carry their own duty regardless: ‘Nursing homes shall require persons seeking employment as a certified nursing assistant to submit an employment history to the facility. The facility shall verify the employment history unless, through diligent efforts, such verification is not possible’ (400.211(3)).

Fees

FLORIDA CHARGES NOTHING TO CERTIFY, BUT $50 TO RENEW. The Board states that for initial certification ‘All fees are paid directly to Prometric and the Livescan service provider’, and for the endorsement route that ‘Applicants are responsible for fees required by the Livescan provider for electronic fingerprinting process. Fees may vary from provider to provider.’ RENEWAL FEE — rule 64B9-15.0045 F.A.C.: ‘(1) For renewal of Certified Nursing Assistant Certificate, as provided in Section 464.203(8), F.S., the fee is $50.00. (2) The fee for change in status on a delinquent license, as provided in Section 456.036(8), F.S. is $50.00.’ The statute frames it as a range — the department shall renew ‘upon receipt of the renewal application and imposition of a fee of not less than $20 and not more than $50 biennially’ (464.203(8)) — and the Board has set it at the top of that range. EXAM FEES, paid to Prometric with the application — ⚠ THE BULLETIN STATES ITS PAYMENT METHODS TWO WAYS: the narrative fee section says ‘Payment may be made by including a Visa, MasterCard or American Express number, money order, company check or cashier’s check. Personal checks, purchase orders, vouchers and cash are not accepted’, while the bound-in application form says ‘Acceptable Forms of Fee(s) Payment: certified check, money order, MasterCard, Visa or American Express… Personal checks and cash are not accepted.’ Both are recorded; neither is merged into the other. The fees themselves: Clinical Skills (English only) and Written Test (audio, English or Spanish) together $155; Written Test alone (English or Spanish, standard or audio) $35; Clinical Skills Test alone (English only) $120. ‘Fees are non-refundable and non-transferrable.’ RESCHEDULING — ⚠ PROMETRIC’S OWN BULLETIN CONTRADICTS ITSELF: the fee table lists ‘Rescheduling Fee (see Page 4) $30’ and the narrative says ‘$30 fee to reschedule up to five full working days before your test’, while the application form inside the same bulletin says ‘An additional rescheduling/no show fee of $25 is required to reschedule an exam appointment with less than five business days notice, no-shows, late arrivals, or not allowed to test.’ Both figures are recorded; neither is chosen. Rescheduling inside five working days otherwise costs ‘A full exam fee’, and a missed test forfeits the fee — though ‘The rescheduling fee may be waived with proof of your illness or emergency.’ EXAM REVIEW — the fee table says ‘Exam Review $25’ while the narrative says ‘The fee for a written test review is $30’; again a same-document conflict, recorded both ways. OPTIONAL PRACTICE MATERIALS: a 50-question written practice exam is $10, ‘A super pack of all 3 practice exams is available for $25’, and Clinical Skills Readiness tests are ‘$5 to $7 with a super pack of all skills available for $25.’ A NAME-CHANGE CERTIFICATE is $25; updating the registry with a name or address change is free. AND THE ONE THAT SAVES REAL MONEY: ‘If a nursing home employs you within 12 months of getting your certification, the facility is required to pay for your training and testing fees under federal law.’

Exam

Two parts — a Written (Knowledge) Test and a Clinical Skills Test — and BOTH must be passed within a two-year window. Rule 64B9-15.008(1) F.A.C.: ‘The Certified Nursing Assistant Examination shall consist of the Written Exam and the Clinical Skills Test. Both the Written Exam and the Clinical Skills Test must be passed within a two-year period in order to achieve certification. Results on either the Written Exam or the Clinical Skills Test which are over two years old are invalid and both the Written Exam and the Clinical Skills Test must be repeated.’ WRITTEN TEST — the Board describes it precisely: ‘The Written Test is a ninety (90) minute test with sixty (60) multiple-choice questions written in English. An Oral or Spanish Test may be requested for the Written Test if you have difficulty reading English and you must ask for it when you submit your application.’ The statute guarantees the oral option: ‘An oral examination shall be administered as a substitute for the written portion of the examination upon request’ (Fla. Stat. 464.203(3)). The rule names five content areas in its own words — ‘Role of the Nursing Assistant; Promotion of Safety; Promotion of Function and Health of Residents; Basic Nursing Care Provided for Residents with Changes in Health; and, Specific Care Provided for Residents with Changes in Health’ (64B9-15.008(2)) — and Prometric’s outline weights its five as: Role of the Nurse Aide 20%, Promotion of Safety 22%, Promotion of Function and Health of Residents 20%, Basic Nursing Care Provided by the Nurse Aide 24%, Providing Specialized Care for Residents with Changes in Health 14%. The two lists differ in three of the five names; each is given here as its source states it. PASSING SCORE — Florida publishes it, which few states do: ‘For the written exam, the Board adopts a passing minimum score on the base from of 76%, equating for subsequent forms’ (64B9-15.008(3)). CLINICAL SKILLS TEST — ‘The Manual Skills Evaluation requires the applicant to perform five (5) randomly selected nursing assistant skills’ (Board), and the rule specifies the structure: ‘The Clinical Skills Test includes three of the following tasks in addition to hand washing and indirect care’, drawn from Personal Care (perineal care female, catheter care, dressing, partial bed bath, toileting bedpan, mouth care brushing teeth, mouth care care of dentures, grooming hair and nail care, feeding, change occupied bed, foot care — the rule’s eleven Personal Care tasks), Promotion of Function, Health, and Safety (change of position, transfer, range of motion upper extremity, range of motion lower extremity, ambulation) and Reporting and Recording (measure and record pulse and respirations, weight, content of urinary drainage bag, blood pressure) (64B9-15.008(4)). The skills passing standard is form-dependent: ’the recommended minimum passing level for each task is 3 Standard Errors of Measure below the mean… The candidate must have a minimum passing score on each of the five tasks on an examination form to pass the Clinical Skills Test’ (64B9-15.008(5)). WHO WATCHES — a Clinical Skills Observer must be a Florida-licensed registered nurse with at least two years of nursing experience and at least one year in long-term care or caring for the chronically ill, with no personal or professional relationship to the candidate (64B9-15.008(7)). ATTEMPTS — three, then training: ‘If an applicant fails to pass the nursing assistant competency examination in three attempts, the applicant is not eligible for reexamination unless the applicant completes an approved training program’ (Fla. Stat. 464.203(2); rule 64B9-15.008(6)). A FAILED WRITTEN TEST CAN BE REVIEWED: request it by email within 21 days of the test, complete the review within 60 days, and you are ‘given a printout of the test showing the questions missed, incorrect answers given, and correct answers.’ ESL ACCOMMODATION is separate from ADA accommodation — extra time is available on proof that English is not the candidate’s primary language, and ‘Exams scheduled before the ESL request has been approved will not include extra time.’

Renewal & continuing education

Biennial, filed with the Board of Nursing (not with Prometric), for $50 — and the renewal is a declaration that you worked. Fla. Stat. 464.203(8): ‘The department shall renew a certificate upon receipt of the renewal application and imposition of a fee of not less than $20 and not more than $50 biennially. The department shall adopt rules establishing a procedure for the biennial renewal of certificates.’ Rule 64B9-15.0045(1) fixes the fee at $50.00. Prometric describes what the renewal actually asks for: ‘To renew, you will have to pay a fee and complete a form documenting that you have worked for pay during your certification period performing nursing-related services.’ The Board handles renewals; certificates carry expiration dates and ‘To keep your certificate current (active), you will need to renew your certificate before the expiration date.’ A SEPARATE, EMPLOYER-SIDE OBLIGATION runs alongside it for nursing home staff: ‘When employed by a nursing home facility for a 12-month period or longer, a nursing assistant, to maintain certification, shall submit to a performance review every 12 months and must receive regular inservice education based on the outcome of such reviews’ (Fla. Stat. 400.211(4)). That inservice must ‘Be sufficient to ensure the continuing competence of nursing assistants’ and must include, at a minimum, techniques for assisting with eating and proper feeding; principles of adequate nutrition and hydration; techniques for assisting and responding to the cognitively impaired resident or the resident with difficult behaviors; techniques for caring for the resident at the end-of-life; recognizing changes that place a resident at risk for pressure ulcers and falls; and recognizing signs and symptoms of venous thromboembolism and techniques for providing an emergency response. Costs ‘may not be reimbursed from additional Medicaid funding through interim rate adjustments.’ 24 hours of in-service training per biennium, prorated for a first partial cycle. Fla. Stat. 464.203(7): ‘A certified nursing assistant shall complete 24 hours of inservice training during each biennium. The certified nursing assistant shall maintain documentation demonstrating compliance with this subsection.’ Rule 64B9-15.011(1) adds the proration: ‘For candidates certified during the biennium period, the training shall be prorated to 1.0 hours of in-service training per month from the month of initial certification to the end of the biennium.’ REQUIRED SUBJECT AREAS — 64B9-15.011(2), repeated verbatim by the Board: ‘Bloodborne Pathogens, Infection Control; Domestic Violence; Medical Record Documentation and Legal Aspects Appropriate to Nursing Assistants; Resident Rights; Communication with Cognitively Impaired Clients; CPR Skills; and, Medical Error Prevention and Safety.’ The list is a floor, not a ceiling — the statute-side language is ‘shall include, but are not limited to’ — and once those areas are covered, ‘(3) health care career/technical courses in a college, university, or approved nursing program may be used to meet the hour requirement.’ TWO MILITARY EXEMPTIONS, both unusual enough to be worth stating: a CNA is exempt ‘if the certified nursing assistant was on active duty with the Armed Forces for 6 months or more during the calendar year, and was in good standing with the Board at the time active duty began’ — but ’this exemption will not arise on the basis of the performance of short periods of active duty (such as summer or weekend drills)… Duty in the United States Public Health Service is not considered duty in the Armed Forces’ (64B9-15.011(4)); and a CNA who is the spouse of an Armed Forces member ‘and was caused to be absent from Florida due to the spouse’s duties’ is exempt on satisfactory proof (64B9-15.011(5)). RECORDS: ‘Each certified nursing assistant must retain in-service compliance records for a period of 4 years and submit records to the Board if required for auditing’ (64B9-15.011(6)). MEDICATION-ADMINISTRATION HOURS ARE EXTRA: a CNA who administers medication must ‘annually and satisfactorily complete 2 hours of inservice training in medication administration and medication error prevention approved by the board’, and that ‘inservice training is in addition to the other annual inservice training hours required under this part’ (Fla. Stat. 464.2035(2)).

How to apply

Applications are handled by Florida Board of Nursing, Florida Department of Health (Division of Medical Quality Assurance) — the Board maintains the Certified Nursing Assistant Registry. Start at the official application page .

Verify a license in Florida

Florida Department of Health, Division of Medical Quality Assurance (MQA License Verification / FL HealthSource) publishes a public license search , searchable by board/council (Board of Nursing), profession (Certified Nursing Assistant), license number, business name, last name, first name, city, county, ZIP code or license status (all statuses / practicing statuses only / non-practicing statuses only). It covers Every Florida health-care practitioner credential in one search, with ‘Certified Nursing Assistant’ as a selectable profession under the Board of Nursing. The field list above was read from the live search form’s own controls and option lists, not from a description of the tool. The statutory duty behind it is Fla. Stat. 464.202, which requires the registry to carry certification status, effective date, information about crimes or abuse, neglect or exploitation under chapter 435, and any disciplinary action, and to be ‘accessible to the public, the certificateholder, employers, and other state agencies.’ Practical notes the page states about itself: the licence-number field wants ‘License Prefix and License Number with no spaces, leading zeros or colons’; the business-name field doubles as a practitioner last-name field; and the department advises using fewer fields to produce more results. The status filter is the useful one for an employer — ‘Practicing statuses only (i.e. Clear, Military, Obligations, Probation)’ versus ‘Non-practicing statuses only (i.e. Null and Void, Retired, Closed)’. Results are produced by submitting the form, so a particular person’s record cannot be linked to directly, and a search that finds nothing returns only ‘No records found. Please try your search again with other search values.’ The page also points elsewhere for two things it does not cover: multi-state RN and LPN licences (NURSYS) and psychology compact authorisations (PSYPACT); neither is relevant to a CNA. Prometric’s Florida page links this same state registry for verifying a CNA’s status.

Records come from Florida Department of Health, Division of Medical Quality Assurance (MQA License Verification / FL HealthSource)’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.