CNA Certification in Maryland — Requirements & Fees

Maryland Board of Nursing (MBON), an agency of the Maryland Department of Health - Nursing Assistant Certification Program. Unlike the health-department registries several states run, Maryland’s nurse aide credential is issued by the NURSING BOARD itself: regulation defines a ‘Certificate’ as ‘a certificate issued by the Board to practice as a certified nursing assistant in the State’ (COMAR 10.39.01.02B(4)), and the Board also approves every training program and every competency examination. The federally required nurse aide registry is folded into the same system rather than kept separately: ‘The Board has a combined CNA certification database with the GNA registry,’ and the Board publishes the abuse-finding list itself as the ‘CNA-I (formerly GNA) Abuse Registry’. Applications, renewals and the public lookup all run through the Department’s CHART licensing system. administers certified nursing assistant licensing in Maryland. 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

Since April 1, 2026 Maryland’s titles are CERTIFIED NURSING ASSISTANT-I (CNA-I) and CERTIFIED NURSING ASSISTANT-II (CNA-II), and what the Board issues is a CERTIFICATE with a certificate number. Anything published before that date - including several pages still on the Board’s own site - uses the older vocabulary. THE TERMS THAT WERE RETIRED, and what they map to now: GERIATRIC NURSING ASSISTANT (GNA) was the federally required designation for nursing-home work and is now folded into CNA-I (‘CNA-I is the new name for what is currently called a CNA/GNA’); the SCHOOL HEALTH, HOME HEALTH and DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES categories were abolished outright, and holders became CNA-IIs without losing the ability to work in those settings, ‘because CNA-IIs are able to practice in any setting except long-term care’. The Board’s abuse-finding list is now headed ‘CNA-I (formerly GNA)’. ‘Maryland CNA license’ is a folk term - Maryland issues certificates, not nurse aide licences, and the Board’s own definition of ‘Certificate’ says so. ‘Nurse aide’ is the federal word (the Board notes it is ’the federal term for nursing assistant’) and appears in the registry name and in 42 CFR; Maryland’s statutes and regulations say ’nursing assistant’. FOUR NEARBY MARYLAND CREDENTIALS THAT ARE NOT THIS ONE. (1) CERTIFIED MEDICINE AIDE (CMA) - a certified nursing assistant who ‘(1) Has completed a Board-approved course in medication administration; and (2) Is certified as a medicine aide by the Board’ (Health Occ. 8-6A-01(l)) - required to administer medications in a licensed comprehensive care facility, and counted inside the CNA-I class. Note the second limb: the course alone is not the credential, and the shorter one-limb definition that circulates is Maryland’s pre-April-2026 text. (2) CERTIFIED MEDICATION TECHNICIAN - a separate Board certification, expressly outside the CNA definition, minimum age 18. (3) CERTIFIED DIALYSIS TECHNICIAN - also a separate Board certification outside the CNA definition, minimum age 18, requiring an active national certification from the Nephrology Nursing Certification Commission, the National Nephrology Certification Organization or the Board of Nephrology Examiners Nursing Technology. (4) TEMPORARY NURSE AIDE (TNA) - a COVID-era status defined in regulation as someone who ‘practiced as a geriatric nursing assistant without certification during the national Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Public Health Emergency’; it is not an available pathway today, but the regulation still carries a route for former TNAs to be deemed to have completed a training program. The Board’s testing arrangements also carry two names for one thing: the examination is the nursing assistant competency evaluation, called the GNA-CE before April 2026 and delivered through the Maryland Geriatric Nursing Assistant Testing Service, which the Board describes as offered by Credentia.

License types & fees

Who does NOT need this license — exemptions

Maryland puts its carve-outs in the first regulation of the certification chapter, and they are unusually explicit. COMAR 10.39.01.01 - ‘This chapter does not apply to an individual who’: ‘A. Other than a certified nursing assistant, practices a health occupation, that the individual is authorized to practice under the Health Occupations Article’; ‘B. Provides for the gratuitous care of friends, domestic partners, or family members’ - the unpaid family and friends carve-out, and note that ‘for compensation’ is already part of the definition of a CNA; ‘C. Performs nursing assistant tasks while a nursing student enrolled in an accredited nursing program if the individual either: (1) Is practicing under the direct supervision of qualified faculty or preceptors; or (2) Successfully completed the portion of the approved nursing education program that the Board determines meets the requirements of an approved nursing assistant training program’ - the second limb is new with the April 2026 change, and the Board warns where it ends: ‘Upon graduation from an accredited nursing education program, the graduate must apply for CNA-I certification in order to continue performing nursing assistant tasks’; ‘D. Performs nursing assistant tasks: (1) While a student enrolled in an approved nursing assistant training program or approved acute care nursing assistant training program; and (2) While practicing under the direct supervision of qualified faculty or preceptors’; ‘E. Practices as a certified nursing assistant-I for less than 4 months in accordance with 42 CFR 483.35(d)’ - the federal four-month allowance, imported by reference; ‘F. Performs nursing tasks delegated by a registered nurse or licensed practical nurse so long as the delegated nursing tasks do not become a routine part of the individual’s job duties’ - the word ‘routinely’ in the definition of a CNA is doing the work here; ‘G. Performs nursing tasks delegated by an advanced practice registered nurse in accordance with Health Occupations Article, 8-6A-02(d)’; and ‘H. Performs technical tasks delegated by a licensed certified midwife in accordance with Health Occupations Article, 8-6A-02(e).’ OUTSIDE THOSE, THE RULE IS ABSOLUTE, and the Board says so in the plainest words on its own page: ‘All nursing assistants must be certified in order to work. If there are any nursing assistants working in your facility who are not certified, they must immediately apply for certification.’ NOT COVERED BY THIS RECORD, though the Board certifies them under the same subtitle: certified medicine aide, certified medication technician and certified dialysis technician. Regulation keeps the last two outside the CNA definition entirely - ‘Certified nursing assistant (CNA) does not include dialysis technician or medication technician’ (COMAR 10.39.01.02B(5)(b)) - and dialysis and medication technicians must be at least 18, not 16 (Health Occ. 8-6A-05(c)(1)(vi)-(vii)).

Fees

MARYLAND’S CNA FEES ARE SET BY REGULATION AND ARE SMALL. COMAR 10.39.01.03A: ‘Initial certification fee - $20; Endorsement fee - $20; Renewal fee - $40; Verification of certification to another jurisdiction - $25; Returned check fee - $25; Duplicate certificate fee - $10.’ Subsection B is one line: ‘Fees are not refundable.’ The Board’s page states the renewal figure the same way: ‘CNA certification is for a 2-year period following the date of the first renewal. Costs for renewal is $40 for the 2-year period.’ NOTHING IS CHARGED FOR THE REGISTRY OR FOR THE ADD-ON CERTIFICATIONS: ‘There is no cost for the registry’, and ‘There is no cost for GNA certification or renewal if the individual meets the requirements for GNA certification’ - a statement written before the April 2026 merger, when GNA was still a separate designation. COSTS MARYLAND DOES NOT SET AND DOES NOT COLLECT: (1) the criminal history records check - the applicant submits ‘All fees required by the Central Repository and the FBI’ (COMAR 10.39.01.04A(3)(b)), and those are paid to the fingerprinting service and the FBI, not to the Board; (2) the competency evaluation, which is paid to the Board-approved testing vendor; (3) tuition for the training program; and (4) for foreign-educated nursing graduates, the transcript evaluation by the Board-approved vendor the Board’s application form names as TruMerit. No figure for any of those four is published on the Board pages or in the regulations read for this record, and none is asserted here. ONE PENALTY WORTH KNOWING: a certificate holder must notify the Board of a name or address change within 60 days, and ‘If the certificate holder fails to notify the Board within the time required … the Board may impose an administrative penalty of $25’ (Health Occ. 8-6A-08(j)).

Exam

A written (or oral) test plus a clinical skills demonstration - the federally required nurse aide competency evaluation, called the nursing assistant competency evaluation in Maryland since April 1, 2026 and the GNA-CE before that. WHO MAY SIT IT: ‘An individual is eligible to sit for a nursing assistant competency evaluation if the individual: (1) Meets the education requirements set forth in Regulation .05A(1) of this chapter; or (2) Must retake a nursing assistant competency evaluation in order to renew or reinstate a certification’ (COMAR 10.39.01.07A). Since April 1, 2026 there is no way around it: ‘After April 1, 2026, all applicants for CNA certification must take the nursing assistant competency evaluation,’ including nursing students who have already had a portion of their nursing programme accepted as equivalent training. ATTEMPTS - FOUR IN TOTAL, WITH A 45-DAY WAIT: ‘An individual who fails to obtain a passing score on the first examination may retake a nursing assistant competency evaluation three additional times’; ‘An individual shall wait at least 45 calendar days from the date of the prior evaluation before retaking’; and ‘An individual who fails to obtain a passing score after taking a nursing assistant competency evaluation four times must complete a new approved nursing assistant training program or approved acute care nursing assistant training program before retaking’ (COMAR 10.39.01.07D). THE 24-MONTH WINDOW: an individual must sit the evaluation within 24 months of meeting the educational requirements, and missing that means retaking the training programme (10.39.01.07B-C). Service members are excepted from that window. WHAT IS ON IT: the Board points candidates to the vendor’s Maryland candidate handbook, which it describes as explaining ’the written and clinical testing process, including the 20 skills tested in Maryland’. No question count, time limit or passing score for the state competency evaluation is published in any Maryland source read for this record - regulation, the Board’s pages and the Board’s implementation FAQ were all searched on 2026-08-16. The 75 percent figure that does appear in Maryland’s rules is the pass mark for the TRAINING PROGRAM’s own written final examination (COMAR 10.39.02.07B(3)), which is a different test.

Renewal & continuing education

Every two years, on a birthday-parity schedule that surprises people. ‘Unless renewed for an additional two-year term … a certificate expires in accordance with the following schedule: (a) The certificate of a certificate holder with an odd-numbered birth year expires on the 28th day of the certificate holder’s birth month in an odd-numbered year; and (b) The certificate of a certificate holder with an even-numbered birth year expires on the 28th day of the certificate holder’s birth month in an even-numbered year’ (COMAR 10.39.01.10A(1)). A new certificate is protected at the front end: ‘A certificate shall not expire within 180 calendar days of the date of issuance.’ THE WORK REQUIREMENT IS 16 HOURS, NOT 8. To renew, a certificate holder must provide ‘satisfactory evidence, as required by the Board, of 16 hours of active employment, for compensation, as a nursing assistant within the 2-year period immediately preceding the date of expiration’ (COMAR 10.39.01.10C(1)(d)); the statute says the same as ‘Completion of 16 hours of active certified nursing assistant practice within the 2-year period immediately preceding the date of expiration’ (Health Occ. 8-6A-08(c)(4)(i)). Maryland’s figure is double the federal-style eight hours several states use. IF THE 16 HOURS ARE MISSING, the two classes diverge: ‘If a CNA-I, take and pass a nursing assistant competency evaluation; or If a CNA-II, complete a nursing assistant training program’ (COMAR 10.39.01.10C(2)). NOTICE AND GRACE: ‘At least 3 months before a certificate expires, the Board shall send the certificate holder a renewal notice’ by first-class mail or electronic means, stating the expiration date, the date by which the renewal application must be received, the renewal fee, and - where a criminal history records check is due that cycle - notice and written instructions for completing it (10.39.01.10B). The Board is blunt that the notice is a courtesy, not a condition: ‘Failure of a certificate holder to receive the renewal notice sent by the Board does not relieve the certificate holder of the responsibility to renew a certificate before it expires.’ There is then a real cushion: ‘A certificate holder has a 30 calendar day grace period beyond the expiration date of the certificate to renew the certificate’ (10.39.01.10E), which the statute frames as a Board-granted 30-day extension (Health Occ. 8-6A-08(g)). A RECURRING BACKGROUND CHECK is scheduled by birth month across a twelve-year rotation - 2025 covers August and September birth months, 2026 covers September and October, and so on through 2036 (COMAR 10.39.01.10D). NO CONTINUING EDUCATION is part of any of this for a CNA - see ce_hours. NO CONTINUING EDUCATION IS REQUIRED to renew a Maryland CNA-I or CNA-II certificate. The renewal conditions in COMAR 10.39.01.10C are entitlement, a complete application, the $40 fee, 16 hours of paid active practice in the preceding two years (or the retest/retrain alternative), and a criminal history records check when the birth-month rotation calls for one. The statute’s renewal subsection for certified nursing assistants, Health Occ. 8-6A-08(c), contains no education element either. Tiers searched on 2026-08-16: COMAR 10.39.01 in full, COMAR 10.39.02 in full, Health Occ. 8-6A-05 and 8-6A-08, the Board’s Nursing Assistant Certification pages and the Board’s CNA Bill implementation FAQ. THE CONTRAST INSIDE MARYLAND’S OWN STATUTE IS THE POINT: the legislature plainly knew how to attach continuing education and attached it to the neighbouring credentials, not to this one. A certified medicine aide must ‘Successfully complete a Board-approved medicine aide continuing education program’ plus 100 hours of practice (8-6A-08(d)); a dialysis technician must complete ‘3 hours of continuing education approved by the Board’ on top of 16 hours of practice and an active national certification (8-6A-08(e)); a medication technician must complete ‘a Board-approved clinical refresher course’ every two years plus 100 hours of practice (8-6A-08(f)). A CNA owes 16 hours of work and nothing else. WHAT AN EMPLOYER OWES IS A DIFFERENT MATTER, and Maryland puts it in the Nurse Practice Act rather than in a renewal rule: ‘Any additional clinical practice skills specific to a setting of practice shall be taught in that setting as a part of the employment training process in that setting’ (Health Occ. 8-6A-14(d)). The federal 12-hours-a-year in-service duty on nursing facilities operates on the facility under 42 CFR Part 483 and is not a Maryland renewal condition.

How to apply

Applications are handled by Maryland Board of Nursing (MBON), an agency of the Maryland Department of Health - Nursing Assistant Certification Program. Unlike the health-department registries several states run, Maryland’s nurse aide credential is issued by the NURSING BOARD itself: regulation defines a ‘Certificate’ as ‘a certificate issued by the Board to practice as a certified nursing assistant in the State’ (COMAR 10.39.01.02B(4)), and the Board also approves every training program and every competency examination. The federally required nurse aide registry is folded into the same system rather than kept separately: ‘The Board has a combined CNA certification database with the GNA registry,’ and the Board publishes the abuse-finding list itself as the ‘CNA-I (formerly GNA) Abuse Registry’. Applications, renewals and the public lookup all run through the Department’s CHART licensing system.. Start at the official application page .

Verify a license in Maryland

Maryland Board of Nursing / Maryland Department of Health, through the Department’s CHART licensing system (the Board links it as ‘Look Up a License’) publishes a public license search , searchable by name, certification number or partial Social Security number. It covers Maryland Board of Nursing licences and certifications, including certified nursing assistants. The Board describes the tool in its own words: ‘Verify a Nursing Assistant’s Certification - A nursing assistant can be verified using name, certification number or partial social security number (addresses, and social security numbers do not appear for security reasons). The information can be printed for facility files.’ THE BOARD TREATS THIS AS THE ONLY RELIABLE PROOF: ‘Primary source verification of certification status is found in the “Look Up A License” feature of this website. This secure program is updated daily. Paper licenses are not secure and are only accurate at the time they are printed. Paper licenses and certificates are easy to forge and are used by impostors for fraud and identity theft … In the rare event an employer will not accept the Look Up A License verification, you may request a paper verification form.’ TWO THINGS A READER SHOULD EXPECT. First, the page builds itself in your browser after it loads, so a search 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 an empty shell. Second, the older address the Board still links from some of its pages no longer serves the lookup itself; it forwards to this one. THE ABUSE REGISTRY IS PUBLISHED SEPARATELY, as a document rather than a search: the Board’s ‘CNA-I (formerly GNA) Abuse Registry’ lists last name, first name and middle initial, certificate number, date of birth, date of finding and the offence, and the copy read for this record is dated July 15, 2026. Certification status and findings therefore live in two different places despite the Board’s description of a combined database.

Records come from Maryland Board of Nursing / Maryland Department of Health, through the Department’s CHART licensing system (the Board links it as ‘Look Up a License’)’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.