Nurse Aide · rules checked October 22, 2026
To stay enrolled you must work for pay as a nurse aide in a nursing environment such as a nursing home, hospital, or home health setting for at least 8 hours (one documented day) during the previous 24 months of enrollment. Self-employed and private duty work do not count. The Department of Health mails a continued-enrollment notice about 90 days before expiration.
If you have never worked for pay since certifying, use your certification date.
| Credential | Nurse Aide |
|---|---|
| Registry | Pennsylvania Nurse Aide Registry · 888-204-6249 |
| Training required | 80 hours |
| Exam | Credentia — $135 (written $50 · skills $85) |
| How renewal works | Stays active through paid work inside the window — no calendar expiry while you keep working. Renewal fee: $0. |
| Keep-active work rule | To stay enrolled you must work for pay as a nurse aide in a nursing environment such as a nursing home, hospital, or home health setting for at least 8 hours (one documented day) during the previous 24 months of enrollment. Self-employed and private duty work do not count. The Department of Health mails a continued-enrollment notice about 90 days before expiration. |
| Continuing education | No continuing-education requirement for registry renewal. Your employer must provide at least 12 hours of in-service education per year, but that is the facility's duty and does not affect your registry status. |
| Who reports your work | You do — nobody files it for you |
Portal, forms, the steps in order, the exact fee, and the trap that lapses Pennsylvania aides — our guide How to renew your CNA license in Pennsylvania walks the renewal end to end.
The DOH testing page expressly makes you eligible to test again if your Pennsylvania registry lapsed because you did not work one documented day for 24 months or more — pass both the written/oral and skills parts of the Credentia exam to be re-listed. No new training program is required on that DOH eligibility route.
If it has also been more than two years since you completed your training program, DOH exam rules require completing a new PDE-approved nurse aide training program before you are eligible to test again (three attempts are allowed per exam part within two years of training).
Pennsylvania renewal is filed by the aide through the Credentia Platform (CNA365), not automatically by the employer, even though the work itself must be in an approved setting. DOH recently expanded the approved employer list to include home care agencies/registries — aides previously denied for home-care work were told they could file a new renewal application.
Application fee: $0. Must be currently listed on another state's nurse aide registry as active and in good standing under federal nurse aide statutes, and pass Pennsylvania background checks (state check, plus federal/FBI check if you have lived in Pennsylvania less than two years). Apply by reciprocity through a Credentia Platform account. No reciprocity fee is charged per current fee tables (one older secondary page lists $37 — not used here because it conflicts with the fee-table sources and no fee appears on the DOH/Credentia process pages). Background-check costs are separate.
The table below is computed for an active aide in good standing, trained to the origin state's standard hours. Your own hours or status can change your row — run the transfer checker with your real facts.
| Certified in | Verdict for Pennsylvania | Fee | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Alaska | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Arizona | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Arkansas | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| California | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Colorado | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Connecticut | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Delaware | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| District of Columbia | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Florida | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Georgia | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Hawaii | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Idaho | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Illinois | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Indiana | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Iowa | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Kansas | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Kentucky | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Louisiana | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Maine | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Maryland | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Massachusetts | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Michigan | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Minnesota | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Mississippi | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Missouri | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Montana | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Nebraska | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Nevada | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| New Hampshire | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| New Jersey | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| New Mexico | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| New York | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| North Carolina | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| North Dakota | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Ohio | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Oklahoma | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Oregon | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Pennsylvania | Same state — no transfer needed | ||
| Rhode Island | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| South Carolina | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| South Dakota | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Tennessee | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Texas | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Utah | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Vermont | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Virginia | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Washington | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| West Virginia | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Wisconsin | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
| Wyoming | Accepted as-is | $0 | Pennsylvania endorses an active, good-standing certification with no application fee and no retest. Application and background check still apply. |
The kit carries Pennsylvania's full recovery path — the forms, the order to file them, the phone scripts — plus transfer checklists for every destination. See the kit →
