CNA Certification in New York: 100-Hour Training

New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) — Office of Aging and Long Term Care, Bureau of Professional Credentialing (per the live registry page, revised March 2026; the January 2017 training manual places the Bureau under the Division of Nursing Homes and ICF/IID Surveillance); the Nurse Aide Registry and the competency examination are operated under contract by Prometric administers certified nursing assistant licensing in New York. 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

New York’s official phrase is the long one: NEW YORK STATE NURSING HOME NURSE AIDE, certified and listed on the New York State Nurse Aide Registry. The regulation and the DOH manual use ’nurse aide’ and ‘residential health care facility (RHCF) nurse aide’; NYSDOH’s own consumer page and its examination application use ‘Certified Nursing Assistant’ and ‘CNA’; and the DRS letter of July 2026 uses ‘Certified Nurse Aide’. All three name the same credential, and a candidate will meet all three in the same application packet. ‘RHCF’ means residential health care facility, which in practice means nursing home. ‘NATP’ is the Nurse Aide Training Program, ‘NAR’ the Nurse Aide Registry, ‘NAE’ the Nurse Aide Evaluator who scores the skills exam, and ‘CHRC’ the fingerprint-based criminal history record check. THERE IS NO NEW YORK CNA ‘LICENSE’ — the credential is a certification evidenced by a registry listing, and since August 1, 2026 there is not even a paper certificate. Keep separate: HOME HEALTH AIDE and PERSONAL CARE AIDE are distinct New York credentials with their own training programs; a NURSE AIDE TRAINEE is an uncertified person enrolled in an approved program who may work for a limited period; and RN and LPN are licences issued by the State Education Department, not by DOH. ‘STNA’ is Ohio’s term and has no New York meaning.

License types & fees

Who does NOT need this license — exemptions

New York’s rule reaches NURSING HOMES, and the exceptions are about time and about being a nurse. THE BASELINE, quoted by NYSDOH from federal law: ‘Effective October 1, 1990, nursing homes are precluded from employing or using an individual as a nurse aide or nurse aide trainee unless that individual is listed, in good standing, in the State nursing home nurse aide registry or the person is concurrently enrolled in a state approved nursing home nurse aide training program [Section 1919(b)(5)].’ So enrolment in an approved program is itself the authorisation to work — but only briefly: ‘If the individual has not passed the certification examination within the three attempts and/or within 120 days of their first day of training or employment, the individual may no longer work as a nurse aide trainee in the nursing home. The facility may assign the individual to non-resident contact duties.’ LICENSED NURSES ARE OUTSIDE THE TRAINING AND TESTING REQUIREMENT ENTIRELY — a currently active U.S.-licensed RN or LPN takes Route 4 and ‘will not be required to complete further training or take the exam’ — and a U.S.-trained graduate nurse (Route 3) is excused from training though not from the exam. A CURRICULUM-LEVEL CREDIT rather than an exemption: a trainee who completed a NYSDOH Personal Care Aide or Home Health Aide program on or after January 1, 2006 and demonstrates competency in the [BASIC CORE] units ‘would not have to repeat training in these units’, but ‘all NATP trainees must successfully demonstrate all skills listed on the Clinical Skills Performance Record Evaluation’ regardless. WHAT THIS RECORD DOES NOT CLAIM: no New York source read on 2026-08-14 states whether a hospital, adult care facility, hospice or home care agency may employ an uncertified nurse aide. The certification scheme in 10 NYCRR 415.26 sits inside the residential health care facility (nursing home) regulations, and the criminal-history rules reach ‘all nursing homes and home care agencies’ — but that is a screening duty, not a certification duty, and it is not evidence either way. Note in contrast that the RENEWAL side reaches wider than nursing homes: recertification counts paid nurse aide work at any facility ’licensed under Article 28 of NYS Public Health Law’, which the renewal form breaks out as Nursing Home, Hospital or D&TC.

Fees

NEW YORK’S DEFINING FEE FACT IS THAT AN EMPLOYED NURSE AIDE SHOULD PAY NOTHING. The regulation forbids the facility from charging: ‘The operator shall not charge a fee to any individual for the costs of training, including textbooks and materials, or for the costs of the competency examinations’ (10 NYCRR 415.26(d)(5)), and the same for renewal — ‘A fee shall not be charged by the operator to any nurse aide for any cost associated with recertification’ and ‘The recertification fee… shall be paid by the operator except that the nurse aide staffing agency or employment organization which currently employs the nurse aide may pay this fee’ (415.26(d)(6)(ii)-(iii)). The candidate bulletin says the same in plain words: ‘Nursing homes must cover all training and exam costs for their employees. If you are not working at a nursing home, you must pay your own exam fees.’ A STATE REIMBURSEMENT EXISTS FOR THOSE WHO PAID THEIR OWN WAY: ‘If you become employed at a nursing home as a nurse aide or get an offer to work in a nursing home as a nurse aide within one year of the completion of your training or exam date, your fees will be repaid by NYS for part of the training and/or exam fee that you paid’ — the aide gives receipts to the nursing home, which processes the paperwork, the State pays the nursing home, and the nursing home reimburses the aide; the regulation makes it pro rata ‘based on the length of subsequent employment’ and caps it at ’the CAP established by the State’ (415.26(d)(5)(i)-(ii)). THE PUBLISHED FEE SCHEDULE (Prometric, New York bulletin rev. 11/11/2025): Clinical Skills and Written exams, first-time tester $115; Clinical Skills and Oral exams, first-time tester $135; Clinical Skills Retest $68; Written Retest $57; Oral Retest $67; ‘Reciprocity/CNA From Another State and RNs and LPNs’ processing $50; Duplicate Certificate $15; ‘Recertification (paid by employer)’ $40. PAYMENT GOES TO THE STATE, NOT THE VENDOR: ‘you must send a money order or certified check, made payable to the “New York State Commissioner of Health, NYNA.” Fees must be included with the application form. Personal checks and cash are not accepted. Money orders that are older than 30 days will not be accepted as payment’, and ‘Your name must be on the money order or certified check.’ RESCHEDULING — there is no reschedule fee, only forfeiture: at an in-facility site, ‘Contact your facility five full business days before the scheduled exam date to reschedule your exam or your exam fees will be forfeited’; at a regional site, contact Prometric ‘at least five full business days before your scheduled appointment’. ‘If you are late or miss your exam, your exam fees will be forfeited’, though ‘You are allowed to take an exam scheduled later in the day without forfeiting your entire exam fee’, and a site closure means rescheduling ‘without an additional cost’. ⚠ ONE CONFLICT INSIDE THE STATE’S OWN APPLICATION FORM: the New York Certified Nursing Assistant Examination Application (rev. 11/02/2016, hosted on health.ny.gov) prints the reschedule/no-show fees as the full exam amounts ($68 clinical skills, $57 written, $67 oral) AND adds a footnote that ‘An additional rescheduling/no show fee of $25 is required to reschedule an exam appointment with less than five business days notice’ — a $25 charge that appears nowhere in the current bulletin’s fee table or narrative. Both are recorded; neither is chosen.

Exam

Two parts, both required: ‘The New York State (NYS) Nursing Home Nurse Aide Competency Examination consists of two separate parts: the Clinical Skills exam and the Written/Oral exam.’ CLINICAL SKILLS — ‘a hands-on skills exam that requires you to demonstrate five skills performed in the care of nursing home residents.’ The five are structured: ‘While performing three assigned skills, you will also be scored on two additional skills - Handwashing and Indirect Care. Indirect Care is care related to resident rights and preferences, communication with the resident, resident safety, comfort and needs, and infection control.’ Timing varies by skill combination — ‘The time allowed for the Clinical Skills exam ranges from 31 minutes to 40 minutes based on the skills you are asked to perform’ — and ‘To pass the Clinical Skills exam, you must pass all five skills. To pass a skill, you are not required to perform the skill perfectly, but you are required to demonstrate competency of the skill.’ Corrections are allowed mid-skill if announced, but ‘Once you have completed a skill, you may not go back to correct a previous skill’, and ‘If a safety issue has occurred, you will not be able to make a correction.’ The evaluator checklist is published in advance. WRITTEN — ’the Written exam consists of 60 multiple-choice questions that evaluate your overall knowledge and skills in providing safe and competent care.’ An oral administration is available and is priced separately; the candidate bulletin notes that ‘Candidates applying to take the Oral (audio) Exam do not need to apply for ADA accommodations.’ ATTEMPTS AND ORDER — the regulation puts the skills test first: ‘The trainee shall have three opportunities to pass the clinical skills examination’, and ‘(ii) After passing the clinical skills examination, the trainee shall have three opportunities to pass the written or oral competency examination. The nurse aide trainee will obtain certification and be listed in the Registry upon passing the written or oral examination’ (10 NYCRR 415.26(d)(4)). The bulletin restates it with the deadline: ‘Pass the Clinical Skills exam and the Written or Oral exam within two years of completing your training. You will have three attempts to pass the Clinical Skills exam and three attempts to pass the Written or Oral exam.’ A SECOND, SHORTER CLOCK APPLIES TO ANYONE WORKING WHILE UNCERTIFIED: ‘If the individual has not passed the certification examination within the three attempts and/or within 120 days of their first day of training or employment, the individual may no longer work as a nurse aide trainee in the nursing home.’ RESULTS — successful candidates are added to the registry; ‘Individuals that are not successful in passing either the clinical skills test or the written/oral test shall receive an official score report that includes diagnostic information by knowledge or content area’, and training programs and employing nursing homes receive weekly performance reports on their candidates. NOT FOUND IN ANY OFFICIAL NEW YORK SOURCE READ: a numeric passing score for the written exam.

Renewal & continuing education

Every two years, and the test is seven hours of paid work. 10 NYCRR 415.26(d)(6): ‘The certified nurse aide shall be recertifed every two years no later than the last day of the month in which certification was received. To obtain recertification the certified nurse aide shall demonstrate in the form indicated by the Department that he/she has worked at least 7 hours for compensation as a health care nurse aide during the previous 24 month period.’ Prometric’s renewal form repeats the standard and names the setting: ‘A Certified Nurse Aide is eligible to recertify if they have worked as a healthcare nurse aide for at least 7 hours within the previous 24-month period prior to their certification expiration date in a health care facility. Health Care Facilities are defined as Health Care Facilities licensed under Article 28 of NYS Public Health Law.’ The employer’s certification block on that form ties it to the regulation: ‘I certify the individual named herein has worked for pay as a nurse aide, under the supervision of a registered nurse, at the Article 28 Facility listed below, for at least seven hours within the previous 24-month period pursuant to 10 NYCRR 415.26(d)(6).’ WHO FILES AND WHO PAYS: the employer, not the aide. The regulation requires that ‘The required documentation shall be provided in the form indicated by the Department to each nurse aide who either currently works for or last worked for compensation as a nurse aide in the facility’, that no fee be charged to the aide, and that the operator pay the $40 recertification fee — with a staffing agency permitted to pay it instead. Prometric’s form has separate blocks for an Article 28 facility employer (nursing home, hospital or D&TC, with an employer code beginning 33-) and for a staffing or employment agency (which must give the Article 28 contractor’s name and PFI or operating certificate number, and sign). NOT ELIGIBLE TO RENEW AT ALL: ‘Nurse aides with employment restrictions on the registry for resident abuse, neglect, misappropriation of resident property or criminal record disqualifications are not eligible for renewal.’ The renewal is mailed with $40 to Prometric’s Middle River, Maryland address, and the form warns that it will not be processed without an email address. Note that there is NO continuing-education condition on the renewal itself — New York’s in-service requirement runs on a separate six-month cycle enforced through the employer (see ce_hours). Six hours of in-service education in every six-month period — a rolling employer-enforced duty rather than a renewal condition, and the aide must be paid for it. 10 NYCRR 415.26(d)(8)(iv): ‘Each certified nurse aide shall attend and be compensated for inservice education sufficient to ensure the continuing competence of the nurse aide of not less than six hours of inservice education in every six month period.’ The duty sits on the facility: ‘The operator shall ensure that the certified nurse aide regularly attends inservice education programs provided for all personnel.’ WHAT IT MUST COVER: content is driven by the individual’s own review — ‘A portion of each individual’s annual inservice education… shall be based upon the outcome of the individual’s annual performance review… and address the areas of weakness in the individual’s performance’ — and ‘Inservice education must also address the special needs of the residents in the facility, including the care of the cognitively impaired’ (415.26(d)(8)(i)-(ii)). RECORDS: ‘Written records shall be maintained which indicate the content of and attendance at each inservice training program and the outcomes of the performance review’ (415.26(d)(8)(iii)) — kept by the facility, not by the aide. THE PERFORMANCE REVIEW IS A SEPARATE, ANNUAL REQUIREMENT: ‘The operator shall complete a performance review of each nurse aide at least once every 12 months’ (415.26(d)(7)). NOTE THE STRUCTURAL DIFFERENCE FROM MOST STATES: New York does not make continuing education a condition of recertification. Recertification turns on seven hours of paid work in 24 months (see renewal_cycle); the in-service hours are policed through nursing home surveillance instead, which means an aide who is not currently employed has no one to provide them and no renewal-side consequence for their absence. Neither the regulation, the NYSDOH training manual, the Prometric bulletin nor the recertification form imposes a continuing-education condition on the individual’s renewal — all four searched on 2026-08-14.

How to apply

Applications are handled by New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) — Office of Aging and Long Term Care, Bureau of Professional Credentialing (per the live registry page, revised March 2026; the January 2017 training manual places the Bureau under the Division of Nursing Homes and ICF/IID Surveillance); the Nurse Aide Registry and the competency examination are operated under contract by Prometric. Start at the official application page .

Verify a license in New York

Prometric, under contract to the New York State Department of Health, as the NYS Nursing Home Nurse Aide Registry contractor publishes a public license search , searchable by certificate number, first name and last name (middle name and date of birth optional) or employer code (optional, for registered employers). It covers New York State nursing home nurse aide certification status. NYSDOH states who may use it and how: ‘The New York State Nurse Aide Registry may be used by anyone, not just health care providers’; verifications ‘may also be made on-line at https://registry.prometric.com/registry/public . Online verifications may be done by New York State Nurse Aide Certification number or by name.’ The field list above was read from the live search form’s own controls, not from a description of the tool. The registry carries more than status — it also holds ‘information regarding the criminal conviction of a nurse aide by a court of law and/or a finding, sustained upon investigation under Public Health Law § 2803-d, for any resident abuse, neglect, mistreatment or misappropriation of resident property occurring in a nursing home on or after October 1, 1990’ — and ‘New information is added, and the Registry is updated daily.’ The lookup carries an anti-automation check the user must clear before searching, and results come from submitting the form, so an individual record cannot be linked to directly. Employers are asked to enter an employer identifier because ‘The Dept of Health requires that all employers search the registry prior to employing a Nurse Aide’, and the search credit is used to monitor that. A TELEPHONE ALTERNATIVE EXISTS AND IS OFFICIAL: ‘The interactive voice response (IVR) registry will provide you with verbal and written verification of the individual’s registry status. To use the IVR Registry, the caller must have the nurse aide’s New York State Nurse Aide Certification number’ — the published Automated Registry line is 800.918.8818. THIS LOOKUP IS NOW THE PROOF OF CERTIFICATION: from August 1, 2026 paper certificates are no longer issued and ‘facilities are required to verify certification status directly through the New York State Nurse Aide Registry.’.

Records come from Prometric, under contract to the New York State Department of Health, as the NYS Nursing Home Nurse Aide Registry contractor’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.