Guide · North Carolina renewal walkthrough · checked October 22, 2026

How to renew your CNA license in North Carolina

North Carolina runs a work-clock renewal system: Work at least 8 hours for pay performing Nurse Aide I duties delegated and supervised by a Registered Nurse during your 24-month listing period. You file the online renewal form before your listing expires, and the RN who supervised you (or an RN with access to the employer's records) must then file the matching online Employment Verification Form within 7 calendar days; the RN signature verifies the work dates, not your competency. Private duty and sitter work do not count, but home care for a licensed facility/agency and Medicaid CAP waiver work are not treated as private duty.

Where it happens

The NC Nurse Aide I Registry online forms (NCDHHS / Division of Health Service Regulation) — registry: North Carolina Nurse Aide I Registry (NC Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Health Service Regulation) · (919) 855-3969.

The steps, in order

  1. Work at least 8 hours for pay performing Nurse Aide I duties, delegated and supervised by a Registered Nurse, inside your 24-month listing period. Private duty and sitter work do not count; home care for a licensed facility or agency and Medicaid CAP waiver work are not treated as private duty.
  2. File the online renewal form on the registry site before your listing expires.
  3. Get your RN to file the matching online Employment Verification Form within 7 calendar days. The RN who supervised you — or an RN with access to the employer's records — verifies your work dates (the signature verifies dates, not your competency).
  4. Confirm your new listing date on the registry search.

The fee

No registry fee and no continuing-education requirement. The 8 supervised paid hours are the whole renewal.

The North Carolina trap

A North Carolina renewal is two filings, not one — yours, and your RN's verification on a 7-calendar-day clock. Aides lapse here with their own form filed on time because the verification never landed. Tell your RN the day you file, not the week after. And if you can see the 8 hours won't happen, North Carolina lets you retest instead: file the training waiver application (registry guidance: at least 45 days, and up to 90 days, before your listing expires) and pass the Credentia exam before the listing runs out.

Not sure where you stand?

Renewal instructions assume you're still inside the window. If you're not sure you are, run the status checker with your real dates first — it computes active, at-risk, or lapsed and names your cheapest route back. Your state's full rule table, lapse tiers, and transfer-in verdicts live on the North Carolina state page. The general mechanics behind every state's renewal are in CNA renewal, explained plainly.

Procedure summarized from the registry and state pages in our dataset, checked October 22, 2026. The registry's own page is the authority — confirm there before a deadline that matters.