CNA Certification in Louisiana — Requirements & Fees

Louisiana Department of Health (LDH), Health Standards Section - Louisiana Certified Nurse Aide Registry (LCNAR). The Department states the arrangement in its own words: ‘The Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) - Health Standards Section (HSS) manages the Louisiana Nurse Aide Registry and the Direct Service Worker Registry,’ and the regulation makes the Department the owner of the register: ‘The Department of Health (LDH) shall develop and maintain the Louisiana Certified Nurse Aide Registry (LCNAR)’ (LAC 48:I.10033.A). Testing is delivered by two Department-approved entities rather than by the Department itself: ‘LDH utilizes Prometric and Louisiana Community & Technical College System (LCTCS) college sites to administer the LA Nurse Aide Competency Evaluation.’ No Board of Nursing is involved - the Louisiana State Board of Nursing licenses nurses, and nothing in the nurse aide chapter routes any part of this credential through it. administers certified nursing assistant licensing in Louisiana. 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

Louisiana’s own noun is CERTIFIED NURSE AIDE, abbreviated CNA, and what the state issues is a CERTIFICATION with a certification number and an expiration date, recorded on the Louisiana Certified Nurse Aide Registry (LCNAR). The regulation’s defined term is ‘Certified Nurse Aide’ (LAC 48:I.10001) and the program is the ‘Nurse Aide Training and Competency Evaluation Program’ (NATCEP). ‘Certified nursing assistant’ is the national vernacular for the same credential; Louisiana’s regulations and Department pages use ’nurse aide’ and ‘certified nurse aide’ throughout, and the state’s testing bulletin is titled ‘Certified Nurse Aide Evaluation Program’. ‘Louisiana CNA license’ is a folk term - no licence is issued, and the Department speaks only of certification, listing and status. Someone still in training is a TRAINEE, a term the regulation defines by age and enrolment (LAC 48:I.10001). THREE LOUISIANA-SPECIFIC NAMING TRAPS. (1) The DIRECT SERVICE WORKER (DSW) registry is a different register for unlicensed personal-care staff, run by the same Health Standards Section - the Department states that ‘Most providers licensed by the LDH are required to check BOTH registries to verify employment eligibility’, and ‘Effective October 1, 2018 the DSW Registry has been moved to the Louisiana Adverse Action web site.’ (2) The MEDICATION ATTENDANT CERTIFIED (MAC) is a separate certification for a CNA who has taken additional medication training to work in a licensed long-term care facility; the Department describes it as ‘certified nurse aides (CNAs) with additional training in medication preparation and administration (to work in nursing homes)’, and it is governed by its own sections of the same administrative chapter. (3) The LOUISIANA REGISTRATION SYSTEM (LARS) is an employer-facing system for submitting work history electronically, not the public certification lookup, and not a place an aide registers. The examination is not the NNAAP: Louisiana’s competency evaluation is administered by Prometric and by LCTCS college sites, under a Louisiana-specific candidate bulletin.

License types & fees

Who does NOT need this license — exemptions

Louisiana does not publish a list of people exempt from the credential; what it publishes is where the requirement bites and the narrow windows inside it. (1) THE 60-DAY EMPLOYMENT WINDOW is the main lawful way to do nurse aide work uncertified: ‘A person shall not be employed as a nurse aide or nurse aide trainee by a nursing facility or hospital based SNF unit for more than 60 days unless he/she has satisfactorily completed an approved training and competency evaluation program’ (LAC 48:I.10045.A), with the matching duty on facility-based trainees to ‘complete training and test within 60 days of hire’ (LAC 48:I.10019.F.1). That is shorter than the federal four-month allowance and it is the number Louisiana enforces. (2) TRAINEES may provide care while training, but only within limits: a facility ‘shall assure that trainees do not perform any care and services for which they have not trained and been found proficient by the instructor,’ and trainees serving residents ‘shall be under the general supervision of a licensed nurse approved to work in a nurse aide training program’ (LAC 48:I.10019.F). No resident contact at all is allowed before the first 16 hours of instruction (LAC 48:I.10015.B.2). (3) NURSES, NURSING STUDENTS, FOREIGN-TRAINED NURSES AND MILITARY-TRAINED PERSONNEL are exempt from the 80-hour program but NOT from the examination - LAC 48:I.10013 routes them through an application and documentation review, and states of foreign-trained nurses that they ‘shall be required to test.’ The one definitional route that reaches certification without the state program still requires the examination: one semester of a registered or practical nursing program including foundational nursing skills, plus a passed competency evaluation (LAC 48:I.10001). (4) OUT-OF-STATE AIDES DURING A DECLARED EMERGENCY may work in Louisiana for up to 30 days on verification of their home-state certification, after which reciprocity is required (Department, Nurse Aide Training and Certification Maintenance). (5) AN ABSOLUTE BAR sits on top of all of this: no employer may employ or contract with a CNA or trainee where a final administrative or judicial decision found abuse, neglect or mistreatment of the elderly, infirm or a nursing facility resident, or misappropriation of a resident’s property, or where there is a conviction of a non-hirable offence under R.S. 40:1203.3, or where a finding appears on the Louisiana Certified Nurse Aide Registry, the Louisiana adverse actions list, or the federal Office of Inspector General’s List of Excluded Individuals and Entities (LAC 48:I.10045.B). Employers must check all three lists before hiring and ‘monthly’ afterwards (LAC 48:I.10033.C). NO Louisiana source read for this record exempts family caregivers, private-duty sitters, home-care workers outside licensed providers, or students of other health programs from the certification requirement - what those settings mostly do is fall outside the definition of an approved setting, which affects whether the work counts toward renewal rather than whether a credential is needed. SEPARATELY, this record does not cover the Direct Service Worker (DSW) credential, a different Louisiana registry for unlicensed personal-care staff, or the Medication Attendant Certified (MAC) credential, an add-on for CNAs working in licensed long-term care facilities.

Fees

THE STATE CHARGES NOTHING FOR THE CERTIFICATION ITSELF. No fee for certification, renewal or registry listing appears anywhere in LAC 48:I, Chapter 100 or on the Department’s nurse aide pages, and the Department states that programs are free to approve as well: ‘Fees not applicable (LDH does not charge fees for nurse aide training programs/schools seeking program approval.)’ What a candidate pays is the TESTING fee, paid to the approved administrator. PROMETRIC’S PUBLISHED TABLE (Candidate Information Bulletin for Louisiana, revision stamp 09102025, linked by the Department from its registry page): Newly Trained Tester - Written and Clinical Skills $125; Oral and Clinical Skills (includes Reading Comprehension Exam) $125. Lapsed/Other Candidate - Written and Clinical Skills $125; Oral and Clinical Skills $125. Re-tester - Written Test ONLY $40; Clinical Skills Test ONLY $85. Reciprocity Application Processing Fee $35. One cell in that table - the re-tester price for the Oral test only - could not be read from the published bulletin, so no figure for it is stated here. Payment terms, in the bulletin’s words: ‘Testing fees are paid to Prometric when the application is processed and must be paid with 3rd party/employer check, cashier’s check, money order, or credit card.’ RESCHEDULING COSTS MONEY AND LATENESS COSTS EVERYTHING: ‘$25 fee if you reschedule at least 5 business days before your test. If you reschedule less than 5 business days before your test you will lose your test fee and be considered a no show for the exam.’ OPTIONAL PRACTICE MATERIAL, priced separately and not required by the state: ‘The Written Nurse Aide Practice Exam contains 50 questions. The fee for each practice exam is $10. A super pack of all 3 practice exams is available for $25’; each Clinical Skill Readiness test is ‘$5 to $7 with a super pack of all skills available for $25.’ LCTCS FEES ARE NOT STATED HERE. The Department names LCTCS as an equally approved administrator but publishes no price for it, and the LCTCS application site loads its content after the page opens, showing nothing but a loading screen to anything that reads the address itself - so no LCTCS figure was readable as of August 16, 2026 and none is asserted. TUITION for the 80-hour program is set by each approved school; the Department publishes a directory of approved schools but no prices - and if a facility employs you or has offered you a job when the program begins, it may not charge you for any part of it (LAC 48:I.10045.G).

Exam

Two parts, both of which must be passed: a Knowledge (written) test, which may instead be taken orally, and a performance-based Clinical Skills test. KNOWLEDGE TEST - the Department-linked Prometric bulletin: ‘The Knowledge Test consists of 60 multiple-choice questions that evaluate your nurse aide knowledge and skills. You will have 90 minutes to take the test.’ Published content weighting includes Role of the Nurse Aide at 20 percent and Basic Nursing Care Provided by the Nurse Aide at 24 percent. ORAL OPTION - ‘The Written test can be taken in an oral form. During an Oral test, you will hear the questions read to you while reading and answering questions on the computer. You may replay questions as many times as needed.’ It must be chosen on the application: ‘This request cannot be made on the day of testing.’ The oral form carries an extra section: ’the Oral test has an additional section of exam questions on Reading Comprehension. The Reading Comprehension Test has approximately 15 questions,’ and ‘Candidates must pass both the Reading Comprehension section and the Knowledge test section on the same day in order to pass the Oral test.’ The regulation is the reason that option exists, and it also allows another language in narrow circumstances: the written component ‘shall be given in English unless the aide will be working in a facility in which the predominant language is something other than English,’ in which case it ‘may be taken in the written predominant language used in the facility, dependent upon the availability of a translator who shall maintain the integrity of the examination’ (LAC 48:I.10021.B); and ‘A substitute examination, including an oral component, shall be developed for those nurse aides with limited literacy skills’ containing all the written content plus ‘a written reading comprehension portion’ (LAC 48:I.10021.C). CLINICAL SKILLS TEST - five skills, all of which must pass: ‘You will be scored on five skills. While performing three assigned skills, you will also be scored on two additional skills - Handwashing and Indirect Care… To pass the Clinical Skills test, you must pass all five skills. You are not required to perform the skill perfectly, but you are required to demonstrate competency of the skill.’ There is no single fixed clock: ‘Each test form has its own time limit based on the combination of skills being asked to perform.’ Corrections are allowed mid-skill if announced, but not after a skill is finished. The regulation sets the same five-task structure and the way tasks are drawn: ‘The skills demonstration of the competency evaluation program shall consist of a minimum performance of five tasks, all of which are included in the performance record. These five tasks shall be selected for each aide from a pool of evaluation tasks which have been ranked according to degree of difficulty. A random selection of tasks shall be made with at least one task from each degree of difficulty being selected’ (LAC 48:I.10021.H), with examples running from making an occupied bed to ‘responding to a demented resident who is calling out, yelling or indicating distress or anger.’ SCHEDULING: ‘First-time testers will be scheduled to take both the Clinical Skills Test and the Knowledge Test on the same day,’ arriving at least 30 minutes early, and the test ‘is scored at the test site.’ NO PASSING SCORE for the state examination is published in any Louisiana source read for this record - the regulation, the Department’s pages and the Department-linked bulletin were all searched on 2026-08-16 and none states one.

Renewal & continuing education

Two years, renewed by WORKING rather than by filing anything. The Department states the term and the condition together: ‘Nurse aides are certified for 2 years, beginning with the certification date. Nurse aides are required to work at least 8 hours during every 24 month period (2 years) once certified. The 8 hours must include “nursing or nurse related” duties and must be performed in approved licensed settings.’ The regulation puts the same duty on the aide: ‘A nurse aide shall perform at least eight hours of nursing or nursing-related services in an approved setting during every consecutive 24-month period for pay after completion of a training and competency evaluation program to maintain certification’ (LAC 48:I.10025.B) - note ‘for pay’. The Department-linked bulletin adds a supervision element: ‘You must have been performing nursing or nursing-related services for pay under the supervision of a licensed registered nurse.’ WHAT COUNTS AS AN APPROVED SETTING is defined by regulation as ‘a provider entity licensed and regulated by the department, a school serving children with special needs, or a correctional facility in which the certified nurse aide performs nursing or nursing-related duties’ (LAC 48:I.10001), and the Department lists examples: ’nursing homes, hospitals, home health agencies, personal care attendant agencies, assisted living programs, hospice agencies, respite agencies, supervised independent living agencies, adult day health care programs and intermediate care facilities for the developmentally disabled (ICF/DD) programs.’ Two settings are called out as NOT qualifying: ‘Private sitting or staffing agency work do not qualify as approved settings’ - with the single exception the Department states elsewhere, that staffing-agency employment counts when the work was performed in a nursing home and the nursing home reports it. THE REPORTING TRAP THAT ENDS MOST LOUISIANA CERTIFICATIONS: an aide cannot report their own hours. ‘CNAs cannot report their own work history. Work history MUST be submitted and will only be accepted from approved entities, including providers licensed by the Louisiana Department of Health, schools serving children with special needs, or correctional facilities where the CNA performs nursing-related duties.’ Only nursing homes are obliged to report: ‘hours worked in settings other than Nursing Homes are not required to be reported by provider but recommend to be submitted to ensure certification renewal.’ Employers must notify the registry of employment or termination ‘within five working days’ (LAC 48:I.10045.C), and facilities must report staffing-agency aides ‘at least monthly’ (LAC 48:I.10045.F). An aide flagged for abuse, neglect or misappropriation is not renewable at all: ‘Nurse aides that are flagged on the Registry for resident abuse, neglect, or misappropriation of property are not eligible for renewal’ (Department-linked bulletin). The aide also carries a standing duty ‘for notifying the registry of current contact information such as address, telephone number, and e-mail address’ (LAC 48:I.10025.A). NO CONTINUING EDUCATION IS REQUIRED OF THE INDIVIDUAL TO RENEW. Louisiana renews a certification on paid work, not on course hours - LAC 48:I.10025 conditions maintenance solely on eight hours of paid nursing or nursing-related service per 24 months, and neither the Department’s registry pages nor its certification-maintenance page names any course requirement for renewal. Tiers searched on 2026-08-16: LAC 48:I, Chapter 100 in full, the Department’s CNA Registry page, its Nurse Aide Training and Certification Maintenance page, its approved-testing-vendor page, and the Department-linked candidate bulletin. WHAT DOES EXIST IS AN EMPLOYER DUTY, and it is paid time: ‘All facilities shall continue to provide on-going training on a routine basis in groups and, as necessary in specific situations, on a one-to-one basis. 1. Each nurse aide shall receive and be compensated for 12 hours of on-going training per year’ (LAC 48:I.10045.D). That training ‘may be conducted in the unit as long as it is: a. directed toward skills improvement; b. provided by appropriately trained staff; and c. documented.’ Missing it is the facility’s compliance failure, not a bar to the aide’s renewal. One further recurring hour is written into the curriculum competencies rather than into renewal: attaining and maintaining proficiency in basic cardio-pulmonary resuscitation ‘including one hour of in-service training that shall be provided by the facility annually’ (LAC 48:I.10015.C.1.j).

How to apply

Applications are handled by Louisiana Department of Health (LDH), Health Standards Section - Louisiana Certified Nurse Aide Registry (LCNAR). The Department states the arrangement in its own words: ‘The Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) - Health Standards Section (HSS) manages the Louisiana Nurse Aide Registry and the Direct Service Worker Registry,’ and the regulation makes the Department the owner of the register: ‘The Department of Health (LDH) shall develop and maintain the Louisiana Certified Nurse Aide Registry (LCNAR)’ (LAC 48:I.10033.A). Testing is delivered by two Department-approved entities rather than by the Department itself: ‘LDH utilizes Prometric and Louisiana Community & Technical College System (LCTCS) college sites to administer the LA Nurse Aide Competency Evaluation.’ No Board of Nursing is involved - the Louisiana State Board of Nursing licenses nurses, and nothing in the nurse aide chapter routes any part of this credential through it.. Start at the official application page .

Verify a license in Louisiana

Louisiana Department of Health - Health Standards Section (the Department links it from its CNA Registry page as ‘our online Registry’) publishes a public license search , searchable by Social Security number (the Department’s instruction: enter this only, including the dashes), first name, middle name, last name, date of birth or employee type. It covers Louisiana certified nurse aide certification status. The Department describes exactly what a result shows: ‘The information available includes original certification date, current certification status, date of expiration, and certification number,’ and the same lookup carries the ‘Retest Required By’ date that decides whether a lapsed aide may still test. How the Department says to use it: ‘The registry can be searched by using only your social security number. Make sure to include the dashes. Once you select search, scroll down to the bottom of the page.’ The wider field list above was read from the live search form’s own inputs on 2026-08-16 - first name, employee type, middle name, last name, Social Security number and date of birth - rather than from a description of the tool. THREE THINGS A READER SHOULD EXPECT. First, the page still carries the Direct Service Worker name seven years after that registry moved away: its heading reads ‘CNA / DSW Search’ and its own lookup label reads ‘CNA/DSW Lookup’, while the browser tab title is just ‘DSW Search’; the page itself carries the notice that ’the old look-up site will remain active for verification of certification status of certified nursing assistants.’ Second, results are produced after you submit the form, so a result has no web address of its own and cannot be bookmarked, emailed or cited - you have to run the search yourself each time, and an automated watch on this address can only ever see the empty form. Third, the page states its own arithmetic rule: ‘Expiration for all CNAs is exactly two years from Certification Date.’ The registry is also the state’s only proof document: ‘The Registry only provides proof of a CNA certification, by printable verification of registry listings.’ Findings of abuse, neglect or misappropriation live on a different address, the Louisiana adverse actions site, which employers must also search before hiring and monthly thereafter.

Records come from Louisiana Department of Health - Health Standards Section (the Department links it from its CNA Registry page as ‘our online Registry’)’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.