CNA Requirements in Pennsylvania: 80-Hour Training

Q: How old do you have to be to become a nurse aide in Pennsylvania?

16. The Department of Education states that 'The candidate must be 16 years of age before taking the Nurse Aide Competency Examination', and adds the practical qualifier: 'Some nursing facilities (employers) may require the candidate to be at least 18 years of age.' The state also puts the criminal-history check at the front of the process rather than the end — a PA State Police report obtained during the year before you begin training, plus an FBI report if you have not lived in Pennsylvania for the past two years, both submitted before you enter a class.

How to become a CNA in Pennsylvania: a 80-hour state training minimum, the Credentia competency exam — verified from Pennsylvania Department of Health, Division of Nursing Care Facilities.

Source-verified

Requirements below are drawn from Pennsylvania Department of Health, Division of Nursing Care Facilities — Nurse Aide Registry (the Department states it 'administers the Commonwealth contract to provide nurse aide registry services' and that it 'has oversight responsibility of the Registry and contracts with Credentia to do day-to-day management'). Nurse aide TRAINING programs are approved by a different agency: the Pennsylvania Department of Education, Bureau of Career and Technical Education. (official site) and last verified August 14, 2026. Boards change fees and rules often — confirm before acting.

Requirements at a glance

What the credential is: Pennsylvania does not issue a nurse aide licence or a state certificate — it ENROLLS you on a registry, and the registry is the credential. The Department of Health's Nurse Aide page states the operative rule in its own words: 'A nurse aide who is not enrolled or in good standing on the registry may not be employed in a nursing care facility that receives Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement. Facilities must verify that aides they employ or are considering for employment are eligible for enrollment (or re-enrollment) as nurse aides and have no record of resident abuse, neglect or misappropriation of residents' personal property.' Who runs it: 'The Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH) has oversight responsibility of the Registry and contracts with Credentia to do day-to-day management' (Department of Health, Nurse Aide Enrolling and Testing). The registry's legal parentage is federal — 55 Pa. Code 1181.531(b) records that 'The registry required by OBRA-87 is established and will be maintained by the Department of Health in cooperation with the Department and the Department of Education.' TRAINING approval sits with a THIRD agency: 'The Pennsylvania Department of Education approves Pennsylvania nurse aide training programs' (Pennsylvania NNAAP Candidate Handbook, Quick Reference), and the Department of Education says of the exam side, flatly, 'The PA Department of Education has no authority over nurse aide examinations.'
The two-step path: 'To become a nurse aide In Pennsylvania and to have your name on the PA Nurse Aide Registry, you must: Complete a Pennsylvania Department of Education approved nurse aide training program [and] Pass the nurse aide exam' (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Apply to Become a Nurse Aide). The Department of Education states the same rule in employment terms: 'To be eligible for permanent employment as a nurse aide and to have your name enrolled on the PA Nurse Aide Registry, you must successfully complete a PDE-approved nurse aide training program and pass the test.' The Department of Education publishes the approved-program list by county and directs candidates to 'select the program to attend and contact them directly for information regarding class start dates and fees' — the state does not set or publish tuition.
Age: 16. The Department of Education states: 'The candidate must be 16 years of age before taking the Nurse Aide Competency Examination. Some nursing facilities (employers) may require the candidate to be at least 18 years of age.' The Pennsylvania NNAAP Candidate Handbook puts the same floor on employment: 'in order to be eligible for employment as a nurse aide in Pennsylvania, you MUST be sixteen (16) years of age or older.'
Criminal history check — before training, not after: Pennsylvania puts the background check at the FRONT of the sequence, before enrolment in a class. Department of Education: 'The candidate must obtain a Criminal History Record Information (CHRI) report from the PA State Police during the year prior to beginning a nurse aide training program. The CHRI report must be free of prohibitive offenses. Prohibitive offenses include those contained in Act 14, Nurse Aide Resident Abuse Prevention Training Act 14.' And for newcomers: 'If the candidate has not been a resident of Pennsylvania for at least the past two years, they must obtain an FBI report as well as the PA State Police CHRI.' The Pennsylvania NNAAP Candidate Handbook restates it and adds the timing rule: 'All reports must be submitted PRIOR to enrollment in a training class.' The offences and the sanction are in regulation — the Department of Education's own NATCEP application form points programs to 'Offenses listed in 22 PA Code 701.13' and warns that 'Failure to comply with 63 P.S. 671 et. Seq., or 701.12(2) and (3), or 701.13 shall be subject to a civil penalty as provided for in 701.21.'
Health and physical requirements set by the Department of Education: 'The candidate must have a physical examination prior to starting the Nurse Aide Training and Competency Evaluation Program (NATCEP). This examination must include: (1) evidence that the individual is free of any communicable diseases and (2) a negative 2-step Mantoux. If the Mantoux is positive, a negative chest x-ray that is less than five years old is required.' The same page adds: 'The occupational responsibilities of the candidate may involve having full use of their hands, the ability to stand for extensive periods of time, and the ability to perform bending, pushing, pulling, and lifting a minimum of 40 pounds without restrictions' and 'The candidate must possess basic math, reading, and writing skills in English.'
Who pays — and why the answer is usually 'not you': 'Long-term nursing care facilities are responsible for the full payment of training and testing costs for candidates employed or offered employment at the time they start the nurse aide training program. Federal Department of Health regulations prohibits training and testing costs from being imposed on the nurse aide' (Department of Education). If you paid your own way and then get hired, the facility owes you the money back: reimbursement runs on a pro rata basis — 'half of the costs of training and testing are reimbursed after the nurse aide has worked for 130 hours and the remaining half after the nurse aide has worked an additional 130 hours' — provided you become employed or receive an offer within 12 months of completing the program. The Pennsylvania NNAAP Candidate Handbook adds when the clock starts: 'The hours start accruing when the individual has successfully tested and is listed on the registry.'
Three attempts, and a two-year window: 'You are permitted three attempts by State and Federal regulations to pass both clinical skills and written/oral competency evaluation tests. If you do not pass the clinical skills and written/oral tests within two years after completing your nurse aide training program, you are required to complete a new nurse aide training program to be eligible to test again. If you do not report to the test on the day and time of testing, you are considered a no-show which will count as one of the three attempts to pass the test' (Department of Health, Nurse Aide Enrolling and Testing). Failing three times is not the end: 'If an individual fails the state competency examination three times, they may re-train and have another three (3) opportunities' (Pennsylvania NNAAP Candidate Handbook FAQ).
Medication Aide — a boundary, not a step: Nothing in the Department of Health's nurse aide pages, the Department of Education's Nurse Aide Training Program pages or the Pennsylvania NNAAP Candidate Handbook establishes a Medication Aide or Certified Medication Aide credential riding on this registry — all three were searched on 2026-08-14 and none names one. This record therefore claims neither the existence nor the absence of such a credential in Pennsylvania; it covers the nurse aide registry only.

Legal basis

Pennsylvania Department of Health, Division of Nursing Care Facilities — Nurse Aide Registry (the Department states it ‘administers the Commonwealth contract to provide nurse aide registry services’ and that it ‘has oversight responsibility of the Registry and contracts with Credentia to do day-to-day management’). Nurse aide TRAINING programs are approved by a different agency: the Pennsylvania Department of Education, Bureau of Career and Technical Education. administers certified nursing assistant licensing in Pennsylvania. 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

Pennsylvania’s own noun is ’nurse aide’, and what it grants is ENROLLMENT on a registry — the Department of Health’s headings read ‘Nurse Aide Registry’ and ‘Nurse Aide Enrolling and Testing’, and the document you receive is a ‘Registry Card (also known as a Notice of Enrollment)’. ‘CNA’, ‘certified nursing assistant’ and ‘CNA license in Pennsylvania’ are the terms the public uses; Pennsylvania issues no nurse aide licence and no certificate under those names. The word ‘certified’ is not entirely absent from Pennsylvania’s own text — 55 Pa. Code 1181.531(e) refers to ’names of certified nurse aides’ being entered onto the registry — but that 1988-vintage regulation is the only place it appears in the sources read, and the Department of Health’s live pages use ’nurse aide’ throughout. Credentia, the Department’s contractor, calls the same status a ’nurse aide registration’, which is why renewal is described in some official material as renewing a ‘registration’ rather than a credential. The training program has its own initialism used constantly by the Department of Education: NATCEP, the Nurse Aide Training and Competency Evaluation Program. ‘NNAAP’ is the examination, not the credential — the National Nurse Aide Assessment Program. And the three agencies are routinely confused: the Department of EDUCATION approves training programs, the Department of HEALTH owns the registry, and the Department of HUMAN SERVICES fields reimbursement and testing complaints.

License types & fees

Type	Notes	Who Its For
Enrollment on the Pennsylvania Nurse Aide Registry (the Department of Health's own term; Credentia, the Department's contractor, calls the same status a 'nurse aide registration' and issues a 'Registry Card (also known as a Notice of Enrollment)')	This is a REGISTRY LISTING, not a licence or a board certification. Pennsylvania's own instruction is two steps and no third: 'To become a nurse aide In Pennsylvania and to have your name on the PA Nurse Aide Registry, you must: Complete a Pennsylvania Department of Education approved nurse aide training program [and] Pass the nurse aide exam.' No Board of Nursing is involved — the State Board of Nursing licenses nurses, and the Department of Health's own abuse-referral procedure keeps the two apart: 'If the abuse investigation named another individual licensed by the commonwealth, an appropriate referral of the information would be made, such as a nurse would be reported to the Department of State.' The Registry Card is valid for 24 months.	A person who wants to work as a nurse aide in a Pennsylvania nursing care facility. The Department of Health states the consequence of not holding it: 'A nurse aide who is not enrolled or in good standing on the registry may not be employed in a nursing care facility that receives Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement.'
Working as a nurse aide before enrollment — a time-limited allowance, not a credential	'Consistent with 42 CFR 483.75(e)(2), nursing home administrations may employ a non-registered individual as a nurse aide for up to 120 days while the individual works to achieve registration in Pennsylvania either through the nurse aide training and testing program, or by way of reciprocity from another state' (Pennsylvania NNAAP Candidate Handbook, Eligibility Criteria). The Handbook's FAQ adds a detail most summaries omit: 'The one hundred twenty (120) days start over every time the nurse aide trainee changes employers.' A separate background-check clock runs alongside it — in-state residents 'may work for thirty (30) days while awaiting PA background clearance but may not enter a training class until the background check is completed', and out-of-state residents may work 90 days while awaiting the FBI clearance.	A person hired by a nursing facility who has not yet completed training and testing.
Temporary nurse aide (an eligibility route to the examination, named by the Department of Health)	The Department of Health's enrolling-and-testing page lists as one of four testing-eligibility categories: 'You are a temporary nurse aide and have completed a Nurse Aide Attestation Form and intend to sit for the PA nurse aide examination.' The Department does not, on that page or on its Nurse Aide landing page, define who qualifies as a temporary nurse aide, publish the Attestation Form, or state a time limit for the status; and the Pennsylvania NNAAP Candidate Handbook's Eligibility Criteria article lists only routes E-0, E-3 and E-4 and does not mention the temporary route at all. That gap is recorded rather than filled.	A person who has completed a Nurse Aide Attestation Form and intends to sit the Pennsylvania nurse aide examination.

Who does NOT need this license — exemptions

Pennsylvania publishes no occupational exemption list of the kind a trade licence carries — the registry requirement is a condition of EMPLOYMENT in a Medicare- or Medicaid-certified nursing care facility, so the boundary is drawn by where you work, not by what you do. The Department of Health states the rule as an employment bar: ‘A nurse aide who is not enrolled or in good standing on the registry may not be employed in a nursing care facility that receives Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement.’ The only time-limited carve-out published is the trainee window: ’nursing home administrations may employ a non-registered individual as a nurse aide for up to 120 days while the individual works to achieve registration in Pennsylvania either through the nurse aide training and testing program, or by way of reciprocity from another state’, with the state’s own gloss that ‘The 120 days start over every time the nurse aide trainee changes employers.’ A shorter clock covers the background check rather than the credential: in-state residents ‘may work for thirty (30) days while awaiting PA background clearance but may not enter a training class until the background check is completed’, and out-of-state residents may work 90 days pending the FBI clearance ‘provided five (5) specified conditions are met’ — the Handbook does not list those five conditions, and no Pennsylvania page read on 2026-08-14 lists them either. WHAT PENNSYLVANIA DOES NOT SAY: no Pennsylvania source read establishes that a nursing student, a licensed practical nurse, a home care worker outside a certified nursing facility, or a personal care home aide is exempt from, or subject to, this registry — the Department of Health’s pages address nursing care facilities, and the Handbook’s renewal article separately names ‘personal care home, hospital, home health setting or intermediate care facility’ as places where WORK COUNTS for renewal, which is not the same as saying the registry is required there. That distinction is left standing rather than collapsed.

Fees

PENNSYLVANIA PUBLISHES NO STATE APPLICATION OR ENROLMENT FEE for the nurse aide registry — the Department of Health’s fee section says only ‘Refer to current Nurse Aide Handbook, consult with a Credentia Customer Service Representative or your employer if you need help to determine the proper fees.’ The examination fees are in that Handbook: Written & Skills Exam (both exams) $135; Oral & Skills Exam (both exams) $135; Written Exam, re-test only, $50; Oral Exam, re-test only, $50; Skills Exam, re-test only, $85. ‘You must pay for both the Skills Evaluation and the Written (or Oral) Examination the first time you test’ and ‘Fees are not refundable.’ WHO PAYS: ‘Under Federal and Pennsylvania laws, nursing homes are required to pay the NNAAP fees for their nurse aide employees, including individuals required to re-test’ (Handbook), which the Department of Health restates as ‘According to the OBRA Rules and Regulations, if you are currently employed in a nursing facility in Pennsylvania, your employer must pay this fee. If you are not currently employed in a nursing facility in Pennsylvania, you must pay this fee.’ Payment is ‘in the form of a credit card, debit card, ACH (electronic check), or electronic voucher.’ NO CHARGE FOR: a duplicate Registry Card — ‘There is no charge for this service’ (Handbook). NOT SET BY THE STATE: training tuition — the Department of Education tells candidates to ‘select the program to attend and contact them directly for information regarding class start dates and fees’; and the PA State Police criminal-history report and any FBI report, which the candidate obtains from those agencies. A missed exam is charged: ‘If you do not report to an examination at your scheduled time, you will be considered a “no-show” and fees paid will be forfeited.’

Exam

Two parts, both required: a skills evaluation and a written (or oral) examination. ‘There are two parts to this examination process-a skills examination and a written examination. All nurse aide applicants must pass both examinations before being listed on the Nurse Aide Registry’ (Department of Health). WHERE: ‘You may take Written (or English Oral) examination either online or at a test center. Skills Evaluations are only offered at a test center.’ WRITTEN: ‘The Written Examination consists of seventy (70) multiple-choice questions written in English’, with up to two hours allowed. SKILLS: ‘you will be asked to perform five (5) randomly selected nurse aide skills. You will be rated on these skills by a Nurse Evaluator’, and ‘For the Skills Test, the allowable testing period is 30 minutes.’ ORAL — AND A CONFLICT ON THE SAME OFFICIAL PAGE, RECORDED BOTH WAYS AND NOT RESOLVED SILENTLY: the Department of Health’s Examination Overview section states that the oral form ‘consists of sixty (60) multiple-choice questions plus ten (10) reading comprehension/word recognition questions’, while its own ‘Oral Test in English’ section further down the same page states that ‘The oral test in English consists of 50 multiple choice questions that are presented orally on cassette tape plus ten reading comprehension questions in which the nurse aide must identify common job-related words.’ Both sentences are the Commonwealth’s; this record reports both and picks neither. (The same section’s reference to a cassette tape sits oddly against the same page’s statement that the written or oral exam may be taken online — noted, not reconciled.) An oral form must be chosen at scheduling: ‘If you want to take the English Oral Examination, you must select it when you schedule your exam.’ SCHEDULING: through a Credentia Platform account, and ‘You may not be scheduled and tested until you have completed your training.’ RESULTS: ‘Score reports are generally available within a few hours after a testing event is completed for the day’, delivered online — ‘Examinations results will not be given over the telephone nor can they be sent by Credentia to your employer.’

Renewal & continuing education

Every 24 months, and the renewal test is WORK, not education. ‘To be eligible for continued enrollment you are required to work for pay as a nurse aide in a nursing environment such as a nursing home, hospital or home health setting for at least eight hours during the previous 24 months of enrollment. Self-employed or private duty experience is not recognized as work experience for continued enrollment’ (Department of Health). The Pennsylvania NNAAP Candidate Handbook states the same requirement as one shift: ‘you are required to work as a nurse aide at least one documented day (i.e. 8 consecutive hours) for pay in an approved facility (such as a nursing home, personal care home, hospital, home health setting or intermediate care facility) during the previous twenty-four (24) months.’ NOTICE: ‘The Department of Health will mail a notification of continued enrollment on the nurse aide registry to the home address of the nurse aide as listed on the registry approximately 90 days prior to expiration’ — which is why the state repeats that ‘The Registry must be kept informed of your current address.’ AFTER RENEWING: ‘you will receive an electronic Registry Card by email and Credentia will also mail a new Registry Card (also known as a Notice of Enrollment), which will be valid for the next twenty-four (24) months.’ A 2026 EXPANSION OF WHAT COUNTS, in the Department of Health’s own words: ‘The Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH) recently updated the DOH Approved Employer List to include Home Care Agencies/Registries for Nurse Aide Registry Renewal. If individuals have been denied a renewal based on using a Home Care Agency/Registry, please consider submitting a new application for renewal if the employer has been added to the list.’ The Department does not date that update, and the Approved Employer List itself is published on the contractor’s site rather than the Department’s. NONE for registry renewal. The state-linked Pennsylvania NNAAP Candidate Handbook answers it directly: ‘How many training hours must I have annually to renew my registry? There are no “training requirements” to renew your registry. Rather, the nursing homes administration is required to provide nurse aides a minimum of twelve (12) hours of in-service education each year based on the results of yearly performance evaluations.’ The Handbook is explicit that the in-service obligation runs to the employer and not to the aide’s registry status: ‘42 CFR 483.75(e)(8) requires that facilities provide at least twelve (12) hours of training to their nurse aides based on needs identified in yearly performance reviews… While these are requirements associated with State and Federal Long-Term Care regulations, they are not requirements inherent to the Nurse Aide Registry and have no impact on registry renewal.’ ⚠ A STALENESS FINDING THE READER SHOULD KNOW: the Handbook attributes a twelve-topic annual in-service list to ‘PA State Code 201.20’. The live text of 28 Pa. Code § 201.20 (Staff development), as amended December 23, 2022 and effective July 1, 2023, does NOT contain that list. It now requires ‘annual in-service training on the topics outlined in 42 CFR 483.95 (relating to training requirements) in addition to the following topics: (1) Accident prevention. (2) Restorative nursing techniques. (3) Emergency preparedness in accordance with 42 CFR 483.73(d). (4) Fire prevention and safety in accordance with 42 CFR 483.90. (5) Resident rights, including nondiscrimination and cultural competency. (6) Training needs identified through a facility assessment.’ The Handbook’s list is the pre-2023 version of the rule. Either way it is a facility duty, not a condition of the aide’s enrolment.

How to apply

Applications are handled by Pennsylvania Department of Health, Division of Nursing Care Facilities — Nurse Aide Registry (the Department states it ‘administers the Commonwealth contract to provide nurse aide registry services’ and that it ‘has oversight responsibility of the Registry and contracts with Credentia to do day-to-day management’). Nurse aide TRAINING programs are approved by a different agency: the Pennsylvania Department of Education, Bureau of Career and Technical Education.. Start at the official application page .

Verify a license in Pennsylvania

Credentia, under contract to the Pennsylvania Department of Health (the Department links it from its Nurse Aide page as the ‘Nurse Aide Registry Online’) publishes a public license search , searchable by first name, last name, city, date of birth, Social Security number or registration number. It covers Pennsylvania nurse aide registry entries. The Department of Health describes the tool’s purpose in employer terms: ‘Verification has been made easier by the use of the Nurse Aide Registry Online which allows facilities to use the Internet to check the status of any nurse aide on the registry.’ A result shows the aide’s first name, last name, city, state, eligibility route, registry status and registration number. TWO THINGS A READER SHOULD EXPECT BEFORE CLICKING. First, the lookup asks you to prove you are a person — it puts a CAPTCHA challenge between the search form and the result. Second, 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. For the same reason an automated watch on this address can only ever see the empty form, never the data behind it. Anyone who needs a document rather than a screen can request a Letter of Good Standing, which the Department’s contractor publishes instructions for; a duplicate Registry Card can be downloaded from the aide’s own account at no charge. Bulk access is separate and goes to the Department’s contractor by written request: the Department of Health directs anyone wanting ’the complete Nurse Aide registry which includes all active, inactive and annotated Nurse Aides’ names and address (city and state only)’ to email or write to the Credentia Registry Team.

Records come from Credentia, under contract to the Pennsylvania Department of Health (the Department links it from its Nurse Aide page as the ‘Nurse Aide Registry Online’)’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.

Frequently asked questions

Is a Pennsylvania CNA a licence or a certification?

Neither, strictly. Pennsylvania enrolls you on the Nurse Aide Registry — no board issues a licence and no certificate is granted under the name ‘certified nursing assistant’. The Department of Health states the rule as an employment bar rather than a licensing rule: ‘A nurse aide who is not enrolled or in good standing on the registry may not be employed in a nursing care facility that receives Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement.’ What you receive is a ‘Registry Card (also known as a Notice of Enrollment)’, valid for 24 months. Three agencies split the work: the Department of Education approves training programs, the Department of Health owns the registry, and the Department of Human Services handles reimbursement and testing complaints.

How many training hours does Pennsylvania require?

80 hours, of which 37.5 must be supervised clinical experience. The Pennsylvania NNAAP Candidate Handbook — the booklet the Department of Health links from its own Nurse Aide page — answers it in one line: ‘Pennsylvania is an eighty (80) hour state of which thirty-seven point five (37.5) hours must be supervised clinical experience.’ The Department of Education’s published Recommended Time Schedule matches it exactly, breaking 80 hours into 28.5 classroom, 14.0 laboratory and 37.5 clinical, and also publishing a 120-hour option. Two caveats: the Department of Education’s program-approval application does not itself state a minimum total, and the only hours figure in Pennsylvania’s regulations is the federal 75-hour floor quoted in 55 Pa. Code 1181.521.

Who gives the Pennsylvania nurse aide exam, and what is on it?

Credentia, under contract to the Department of Health, administering the National Nurse Aide Assessment Program. There are two parts and you must pass both: a written examination of 70 multiple-choice questions (up to two hours), and a skills evaluation in which ‘you will be asked to perform five (5) randomly selected nurse aide skills’ rated by a Nurse Evaluator within a 30-minute window. The written part can be taken online or at a test centre; the skills evaluation is test-centre only. An oral form in English can replace the written test if you select it when scheduling — though the Department of Health’s page describes the oral form two different ways in two different sections, once as 60 multiple-choice questions plus 10 reading-comprehension questions and once as 50 plus 10.

What does it cost to become a nurse aide in Pennsylvania?

Pennsylvania charges no state application or enrolment fee. The examination costs $135 for the first sitting, which covers both the skills evaluation and the written or oral examination together; a written or oral re-test is $50 and a skills re-test is $85. Fees are not refundable. In most cases you should not be paying at all: ‘Under Federal and Pennsylvania laws, nursing homes are required to pay the NNAAP fees for their nurse aide employees, including individuals required to re-test.’ Training tuition is set by the individual approved program, not by the state — the Department of Education tells candidates to contact programs directly about fees.

If I paid for my own CNA training in Pennsylvania, do I get the money back?

Yes, if you are hired within a year. The Department of Education states that a candidate without an employment relationship at the start of training ‘is eligible for reimbursement if they become employed by a long-term care nursing facility within twelve (12) months of completing the nurse aide training program.’ It comes in two halves: ‘half of the costs of training and testing are reimbursed after the nurse aide has worked for 130 hours and the remaining half after the nurse aide has worked an additional 130 hours.’ Those hours start accruing once you have passed and are listed on the registry. If you were already employed or held a job offer when you started, the facility owes the full cost from the outset and ‘Federal Department of Health regulations prohibits training and testing costs from being imposed on the nurse aide.’

How do I renew a Pennsylvania nurse aide registration, and is there continuing education?

You renew every 24 months, and there is no continuing education. What Pennsylvania asks for is work: ‘you are required to work for pay as a nurse aide in a nursing environment such as a nursing home, hospital or home health setting for at least eight hours during the previous 24 months of enrollment’, which the Candidate Handbook states as ‘at least one documented day (i.e. 8 consecutive hours) for pay in an approved facility.’ Self-employment, private duty and work in doctors’ offices do not count. The Department of Health mails a continued-enrollment notice to your registry address roughly 90 days before expiry — which is why keeping your address current matters. The 12 hours of annual in-service training you may hear about is an obligation the nursing home owes you, not a condition of your registry status.

What happens if my Pennsylvania nurse aide registration lapses?

After 24 consecutive months without paid nursing-related work your enrolment is no longer valid, and it is a federal rule rather than a Pennsylvania one. You get back on one of two ways: document the qualifying work you did during the period, or re-test — but the re-test is a single shot. ‘An E-3 candidate has one (1) opportunity to successfully pass the NNAAP Examination. If the examination is failed, the candidate must complete nurse aide training again.’ The same one-attempt rule applies to someone whose registry has lapsed in another state.

I am a CNA in another state — can I transfer to Pennsylvania?

Yes, by reciprocity application, if you are currently active and in good standing where you are registered: ‘If you are a nurse aide currently listed on another state’s nurse aide (or equivalent) registry as active and in good standing… you will need to submit a reciprocity application.’ The application goes through a new Credentia Platform account. The catch that stops most transfers is lapse: ‘If you are lapsed on another state registry, you have to be updated on your original state registry to be eligible for reciprocity’ — you fix your home-state registry first, or you test in Pennsylvania under the lapsed-out-of-state route with a single attempt. Pennsylvania facilities also check the other direction and must ‘verify that nurse aides are in good standing on all other state registries’ before letting you work.

How do I check whether someone is on the Pennsylvania Nurse Aide Registry?

Use the Nurse Aide Registry Online lookup the Department of Health links from its Nurse Aide page. You can search by name and city, by date of birth, by Social Security number, or by registration number, and a result shows name, city, state, eligibility route, status and registration number. Expect a CAPTCHA challenge before the results appear, and note that a search result has no address of its own — you cannot bookmark or forward it, so anyone needing proof on paper should request a Letter of Good Standing instead. Employers who need the whole file, including inactive and annotated aides, request it in writing from the Department’s registry contractor.

How old do you have to be to become a nurse aide in Pennsylvania?

The Department of Education states that ‘The candidate must be 16 years of age before taking the Nurse Aide Competency Examination’, and adds the practical qualifier: ‘Some nursing facilities (employers) may require the candidate to be at least 18 years of age.’ The state also puts the criminal-history check at the front of the process rather than the end — a PA State Police report obtained during the year before you begin training, plus an FBI report if you have not lived in Pennsylvania for the past two years, both submitted before you enter a class.

See every license and certification LicensingAtlas covers in Pennsylvania.

Sources & verification

Last verified against these sources: August 14, 2026.

We re-fetch every cited source on a weekly schedule: see what changed at the agencies, or every correction we have ever made.

LicensingAtlas states licensing and certification requirements categorically from official sources. It is a reference, not legal or career advice, and requirements change frequently — confirm details with the issuing board before you act.