Ohio Department of Health — Nurse Aide Registry (Bureau of Regulatory Operations), with training programs licensed by the Department’s Bureau of Survey and Certification, Nurse Aide Training and Competency Evaluation Program (NATCEP) unit. Ohio Revised Code 3721.32(A) places the duty on the agency head: ‘The director of health shall establish a state nurse aide registry.’ The competency examination is delivered under contract: ‘The Ohio Department of Health (ODH) has approved D&S Diversified Technologies, LLP (D&SDT) to provide tests and scoring services for nurse aide testing.’ No board of nursing is involved in the CNA credential. administers certified nursing assistant licensing in Ohio. 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
Ohio’s legal term is ‘certified nurse aide’ and its abbreviation is CNA, and Ohio Revised Code 3721.32(E) makes that a protected designation: ‘Only individuals listed on the registry shall use the designation “certified nurse aide” or “CNA.”’ ‘Certified nursing assistant’ is the phrase the public uses and the Department itself slips into on its programme-licensing page (‘individuals wishing to become a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA)’), so both are current in Ohio’s own material. STNA — State Tested Nurse Aide — is the Ohio-specific vernacular a reader will meet constantly in job listings and in the testing contractor’s older document titles; the phrase appears in the contractor’s file naming rather than in Ohio Revised Code 3721.32 or the Department’s current pages, so it is best treated as everyday Ohio usage for the same registry status rather than as a separate credential. ‘Ohio CNA license’ is a folk term: Ohio issues no nurse aide licence, and what arrives in the post is a laminated CNA card from the testing contractor. Two more initialisms travel with this credential: NATCEP, the Nurse Aide Training and Competency Evaluation Program (the licensed course), which the administrative rules also shorten to TCEP; and TMU, the TestMaster Universe account through which candidates schedule, pay and collect results. ‘Dining assistant’ and ‘medication aide’ are separate Ohio roles, not synonyms.
License types & fees
| Type | Notes | Who Its For |
|---|---|---|
| Certified Nurse Aide (CNA) — listing on the Ohio Nurse Aide Registry, with the title protected by statute | Ohio is unusual in tying the TITLE to the registry by law rather than to a certificate: 'An individual who is listed on the registry in good standing shall be referred to as a certified nurse aide. Only individuals listed on the registry shall use the designation "certified nurse aide" or "CNA"' (Ohio Revised Code 3721.32(E), effective September 30, 2025). The Department says the same thing in plain words: 'An individual who is listed on the Nurse Aide Registry in good standing is referred to as a certified nurse aide (CNA) in Ohio. To be listed on the registry, the nurse aide must successfully pass the state-approved competency evaluation.' You do receive a physical token — the testing contractor 'will mail your "PASSED" results letter with your laminated CNA card' — but the card is issued by the contractor, not the state, and the registry entry is the credential. | A person who will provide nursing and nursing-related services to residents in an Ohio long-term care facility. |
| Nurse aide in training — a four-month allowance, not a credential | 'No long-term care facility is allowed to use an individual as a nurse aide for more than four months unless the individual is competent to provide the services he or she is to provide; the facility has received from the nurse aide registry... the information concerning the individual' and one of eight qualifying conditions applies (Ohio Administrative Code 3701-17-07.1(B)). During that window the facility must have the person enrolled in a training and competency evaluation programme, a competency evaluation programme, or both (3701-17-07.1(C)). Two protections ride along: the trainee may not provide services until they have completed the pre-service hours their programme prescribes AND are 'under the personal supervision of a registered or licensed practical nurse', where personal supervision means the nurse is 'present physically on the floor'; and the trainee 'will wear a name pin at all times that clearly indicates that the individual is a trainee' (3701-17-07.1(H)). The four months is cumulative across employers: 'The four month periods... include any time, on or after June 1, 1990, that an individual is used as a nurse aide on a full time, temporary, per diem or other basis by the facility or any other long-term care facility' (3701-17-07.1(G)). | A person a long-term care facility employs as a nurse aide before they have completed training and testing. |
| Routes to the competency evaluation that skip the training programme | Ohio publishes three waivers of the training requirement, and they are eligibility routes to the same examination, not separate credentials. By rule: a person 'enrolled in a prelicensure program of nursing education approved by the board of nursing' who has completed the courses teaching basic nursing skills, infection control, safety and emergency procedures, and personal care; and a person with 'the equivalent of twelve months or more of full-time employment in the preceding five years as a hospital aide or orderly', which the rule defines precisely as 'at least one thousand six hundred continuous hours in a twelve month period' (Ohio Administrative Code 3701-18-23(A)). The testing contractor's handbook adds the military route in the Department's terms: 'An individual with military occupational training and experience in the United States Armed Forces in positions including, but not limited to, Medical Specialist, Healthcare Specialist, and Hospital Corpsman may qualify for this waiver if they can provide documentation of at least sixteen hundred (1600) hours of providing direct patient care.' Statute adds a fourth that skips the exam entirely: someone who completed an approved prelicensure nursing programme and passed the nursing licensure examination 'shall be deemed as successfully completing a competency evaluation program' (Ohio Revised Code 3721.32(A)(9)). | Nursing students, experienced hospital aides and orderlies, and military-trained personnel. |
| Dining assistant — a separate, narrower Ohio role | Named here as a boundary because Ohio draws it explicitly inside the nurse aide rule: the definition of 'nursing and nursing-related services' 'does not include assisting residents with feeding when performed by a dining assistant pursuant to rule 3701-17-07.2 of the Administrative Code' (Ohio Administrative Code 3701-17-07.1(A)(5)). The Department lists Dining Assistant Training alongside nurse aide training on its NATCEP pages. A dining assistant is not a CNA and this record does not cover that role. | A person trained only to assist residents with feeding. |
Who does NOT need this license — exemptions
The credential requirement attaches to being used as a nurse aide in a long-term care facility, so Ohio’s carve-outs are drawn around the role and the setting rather than around individuals. THE ROLE ITSELF EXCLUDES TWO GROUPS BY DEFINITION: ‘Nurse aide’ means an individual providing nursing and nursing-related services to residents in a long-term care facility ‘other than a licensed health professional practicing within the scope of his or her license or an individual who provides nursing or nursing-related services as a volunteer without monetary compensation’ (Ohio Administrative Code 3701-17-07.1(A)(4)). The rule then defines ’licensed health professional’ expansively, listing occupational and physical therapists and their assistants, physicians and physician assistants, registered and licensed practical nurses, licensed social workers and certified social work assistants, speech pathologists and audiologists, dentists and dental hygienists, optometrists, pharmacists, psychologists, chiropractors, licensed nursing home administrators, dietitians, respiratory care professionals and massage therapists. SCOPE IS BOUNDED AT THE TOP TOO: ’nursing and nursing-related services’ ‘does not include activities that are part of the nursing regimen which demand the specialized knowledge, judgment, and skill of a registered nurse or the application of the basic knowledge and skill of a licensed practical nurse’ — a limit on what a CNA may do, not an exemption from being one. FEEDING ASSISTANCE IS CARVED OUT to the separate dining assistant role under rule 3701-17-07.2. THE FOUR-MONTH ALLOWANCES are time limits, not exemptions: four months to qualify after being hired (3701-17-07.1(B)), and four months again for a returning aide who has been out for twenty-four months (3701-17-07.1(E)), with the clock running across all employers since June 1, 1990 (3701-17-07.1(G)). SETTING MATTERS: the rule applies to a ’long-term care facility’, defined as an Ohio nursing home other than one certified as an intermediate care facility for the mentally retarded, or a facility certified as a skilled nursing facility or nursing facility under Medicare or Medicaid (3701-17-07.1(A)(3)). Nothing in the sources read on 2026-08-14 states whether an Ohio hospital, home health agency, assisted living or residential care facility must use registry-listed aides — and because Ohio Revised Code 3721.32(E) protects the TITLE everywhere while rule 3701-17-07.1 governs USE in long-term care, this record deliberately does not extend either rule beyond what its own text covers.
Fees
OHIO CHARGES NO STATE FEE TO BE LISTED ON THE NURSE AIDE REGISTRY — the costs are examination fees payable to the Department’s testing contractor, on the contractor’s Ohio Nurse Aide Candidate Payment Form 1402CND-OH (updated 9-2025) and its December 2025 candidate handbook: Knowledge Exam, or Knowledge Retake, $30.00 per candidate; the optional AUDIO version of the knowledge exam $40.00 (the form shows the arithmetic as ‘$30 + $10 = $40’); Skill Test, or Skill Retake, $90.00 per candidate. Both components together are $120.00. Additional charges: a $5.00 fax fee if a paper payment form is faxed; a non-refundable $25.00 fee for a replacement CNA card; and a $25 deposit to file a test review request. A no-show earns ‘NO REFUND’, and the form spells out the commitment — ‘BY SUBMITTING THIS FORM, YOU AGREE TO PAY THE TESTING FEES, EVEN IF YOU ARE A NO-SHOW FOR YOUR TEST EVENT.’ PAYMENT MECHANICS: Visa or MasterCard credit/debit online through the candidate’s TMU account is the normal path; money order or cashier’s cheque via the paper form is ‘For special circumstances only’; ‘PERSONAL CHECKS AND CASH ARE NOT ACCEPTED.’ Fees must be paid before a test date can be chosen. RETAKES ARE PARTIAL: ‘If this is a re-take test, I must re-test only on the portion I failed’ — so a candidate who passed the knowledge test and failed the skill test pays $90, not $120. WHO SHOULD NOT BE PAYING AT ALL: a CNA employed by, or holding an offer from, a facility on the day the training programme begins may not be charged for any part of it including the competency evaluation (see requirements). MILITARY: the contractor is ‘approved by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) as an approved testing vendor for the Ohio NA exam’, and an active-duty or retired service member may seek reimbursement of exam fees through the GI Bill using VA Form 22-0803. NOT A CANDIDATE FEE: training tuition, which each licensed programme sets; and the $300 non-refundable application fee a training programme pays to be re-approved (Ohio Administrative Code 3701-18-05(B)(3)).
Exam
Two components, both required: a knowledge test and a hands-on skill test. ‘The examination has two parts: a multiple-choice knowledge test and a skill test. Candidates must pass both parts to be identified and listed on the Ohio Nurse Aide Registry.’ KNOWLEDGE TEST: ‘79 multiple-choice questions’, 90 minutes, delivered on screen — ‘All test sites in Ohio utilize electronic TMU© testing using Internet-connected computers’ — with a 15-minute warning. The pass mark is fixed and the state set it: ‘You must have a score of 70% or better to pass the knowledge portion of the exam.’ Questions come from twelve published subject areas with fixed counts: Basic Nursing Skills 9, Personal Care 9, Safety 8, Mental Health 7, Infection Control 7, Role and Responsibility 7, Care Impaired 6, Communication 6, Older Growth & Development 5, Data Collection 5, Disease Process 5, Resident Rights 5. An AUDIO version is available in which the questions and answers are read through headphones while the candidate reads along. The knowledge exam is in English; word-for-word foreign-language translation dictionaries are permitted, but not dictionaries with definitions or notes and not electronic translators. A remotely proctored option exists for KNOWLEDGE RETAKES ONLY. SKILL TEST: ‘Each of your randomly selected three (3) or four (4) tasks will have scenarios associated with them’, with 35 minutes total and an alert when 15 minutes remain. The scoring rule is strict and asymmetric: ‘You must correctly perform all of the critical/key steps (in bold font) and 80% of all non-key steps on each task assigned to pass the Skill Test.’ Candidates may correct a step they believe they performed wrongly, and ‘All steps must actually be demonstrated. Steps that are only verbalized or simulated WILL NOT COUNT.’ A dress code is enforced as an admission condition, not a suggestion: full clinical attire — scrub top and scrub bottom, closed-toe clinically appropriate shoes, long hair pulled back, fingernails no longer than a quarter inch — and ‘You will not be admitted for testing if you are not wearing full clinical attire… You will be considered a no-show status. You will forfeit your testing fees.’ Identification is equally rigid: a US government-issued, non-expired, signed photo ID AND the original Social Security card; ‘A letter from the Social Security office will not be accepted’ and photocopies, images and digital versions are refused. Arrive 20 minutes early or lose the seat: ‘If you arrive late, you will not be permitted to take the test.’ AFTER PASSING: ‘your test results will be sent electronically to the Ohio Department of Health by D&SDT-HEADMASTER. Your name will be placed on the Ohio Nurse Aide Registry.’ A candidate who disputes a result may file a test review request, which carries a deposit fee.
Renewal & continuing education
Ohio has NO periodic renewal, no expiry date and no renewal fee — and no renewal form to file. What the state has instead is a work test written as a limit on employers rather than as an expiry on the person: ‘No long-term care facility is allowed to continue to use as a nurse aide for longer than four months, an individual who previously met the demands of paragraph (B) of this rule but since most recently doing so has not performed nursing and nursing-related services for monetary compensation for twenty-four consecutive months, unless the individual successfully completes additional training and competency evaluation’ (Ohio Administrative Code 3701-17-07.1(D)). Read plainly: perform paid nursing or nursing-related services at least once in any twenty-four consecutive months and nothing lapses; go twenty-four months without, and the entry stops working. Note two things the rule builds in. First, the work must be for MONETARY COMPENSATION — the rule’s own definition of ’nurse aide’ excludes ‘an individual who provides nursing or nursing-related services as a volunteer without monetary compensation’ (3701-17-07.1(A)(4)). Second, the four-month grace at the front of the rule applies again on the way back: a returning aide may be used for up to four months while participating in the required training or competency evaluation (3701-17-07.1(E)). KEEPING THE ENTRY RIGHT: the Department says the registry ‘can assist CNAs with updating their information to show an “active” status’, and directs registry questions — ’nurse aide registry requirements, lapsed certification, and certification transfer to or from another state’ — to the Nurse Aide Registry on (800) 582-5908 in state or (614) 752-9500 out of state. ⚠ The Department’s own plain-language ‘Nurse Aide Registry Requirements’ page, which both its registry page and the state-approved candidate handbook tell readers to consult, could not be located. NONE is published as a condition of remaining on the Ohio Nurse Aide Registry. Ohio’s continuing requirement is paid work, not coursework — see renewal_cycle. Searched on 2026-08-14 and found to impose no continuing-education duty on a listed CNA: Ohio Revised Code 3721.31 and 3721.32; Ohio Administrative Code 3701-17-07.1 (the rule that governs how long a facility may use an aide and what ends that), 3701-18-05 and 3701-18-23; the Department’s Nurse Aide Registry, Nurse Aide Training and Establishing a NATCEP pages; and the state-approved Ohio Nurse Aide Candidate Handbook (December 2025, Version 27) in full. NOT SEARCHED, and named rather than assumed: Ohio Administrative Code Chapter 3701-17 beyond rule 07.1 and the nursing-home licensure rules generally, which is where a facility-side in-service duty would live if Ohio imposes one. This field therefore records the absence of an aide-side continuing-education requirement in the tiers read and claims nothing about an employer’s in-service obligation.
How to apply
Applications are handled by Ohio Department of Health — Nurse Aide Registry (Bureau of Regulatory Operations), with training programs licensed by the Department’s Bureau of Survey and Certification, Nurse Aide Training and Competency Evaluation Program (NATCEP) unit. Ohio Revised Code 3721.32(A) places the duty on the agency head: ‘The director of health shall establish a state nurse aide registry.’ The competency examination is delivered under contract: ‘The Ohio Department of Health (ODH) has approved D&S Diversified Technologies, LLP (D&SDT) to provide tests and scoring services for nurse aide testing.’ No board of nursing is involved in the CNA credential.. Start at the official application page .
Verify a license in Ohio
Ohio Department of Health publishes a public license search , searchable by registry number (full number only), last name and first name or last 4 digits of the Social Security number. It covers The Ohio Nurse Aide Registry — ‘a list of all Certified Nurse Aides (CNA) in Ohio’, together with findings of abuse, neglect or misappropriation of property. The registry’s contents are a public record under Ohio Revised Code 3721.32(D). HOW THE SEARCH BEHAVES, from the form itself: entering a registry number requires the whole number and ‘The search result will return an exact match’; searching by last name and first name, or by the last four digits of the Social Security number, ‘allows for partial search values to be entered’ and returns ’the closest matches for the values entered’. The registry number field accepts up to 12 characters. WHAT TO EXPECT: results are produced by submitting the form, so an individual result has no web address of its own and cannot be bookmarked, forwarded or cited — you re-run the search each time, and an automated watch on this address sees only the empty form. Ohio publishes three other ways in, and says so: a caller can ‘call the nurse aide registry and use the voice automated system’ or ’talk to a nurse aide registry customer service technician’ on (800) 582-5908 in state or (614) 752-9500 out of state, and the Department maintains a separate facility search and a separate abuse listing. Where a person on the registry has a finding against them, the law requires the Department to release both sides: the director’s statement of findings and any statement the individual filed disputing them, or accurate summaries of each.
Records come from Ohio Department of Health’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.