FREE Minnesota CNA Exam Guide 2026: Current Headmaster Rules

Minnesota CNA Exam Guide: Verified for 2026

To work as a nurse aide in a Minnesota nursing home or certified boarding care home, you must be listed on the Minnesota Nurse Aide Registry (NAR). Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) oversees the registry, and D&SDT-Headmaster delivers the state-approved knowledge and skills tests through TMU. This is not a Minnesota Board of Nursing license.

The fastest path is: choose the correct eligibility route, use the current Headmaster handbook, verify the price at your actual test site, pass both components, and confirm your NAR listing.

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Verified 2026 Exam Snapshot

The alternate languages apply to the knowledge/audio exam only, not the hands-on skills test. The knowledge exam has a documented Flesch-Kincaid reading level of 5.1–5.7.

Use the current Minnesota candidate handbook and check the Headmaster Minnesota hub for posted updates before test day.

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What Does the Minnesota CNA Exam Cost?

There is no single statewide Minnesota State test-site fee. The Headmaster handbook directs Minnesota State candidates to contact their selected site for payment information. Prices can differ by campus and can change.

Three verified 2026 examples show why a universal price is misleading:

• MDH's in-facility program currently charges candidates $60 for knowledge and $100 for skills.
• Northwest Technical College currently lists $75 for knowledge and $150 for skills.
• Pine Technical and Community College currently lists $225 combined, with a $100 knowledge retest and $150 skills retest.

Before paying, open Minnesota State Nursing Assistant Testing, choose a site and date, and confirm both component prices and refund rules on that site's live registration page. If testing through a facility, confirm whether the facility sponsors the fee.

A certified nursing home or boarding care home may have to pay or reimburse eligible training and competency-evaluation costs. Keep receipts and review MDH's training and testing reimbursement guidance before assuming the cost is yours.

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Choose the Correct Eligibility Route

Route 1: Minnesota-approved training

Complete an MDH-approved Nurse Aide Training and Competency Evaluation Program, then pass both exams within 24 months of the completion date. An approved program is at least 75 clock hours, including at least 16 hours of supervised practical training with a live person in a laboratory or other setting. That wording does not require all 16 hours to be clinical care with nursing-home residents.

Find current programs through MDH's training and testing directory.

Route 2: Challenge or test out

Minnesota allows a candidate to challenge the competency evaluation without completing a Minnesota-approved course. Examples include someone trained in another country, someone who has not completed nurse aide training, or someone who has not worked as a nurse aide in the previous 24 months. Challenge candidates still take both knowledge and skills and must contact a test site to register. Their 24-month cycle starts with the first exam attempt.

Route 3: Expired Minnesota listing

A previously listed Minnesota nurse aide whose registry status expired may qualify to take both components again as a challenge candidate. Retraining is not automatically required unless the candidate exhausted the allowed attempts in the prior cycle.

Route 4: Interstate endorsement

A nurse aide in good standing on another state's registry may apply for Minnesota endorsement if they worked at least 8 paid hours as a nurse aide in that state during the previous 24 months. MDH charges no registry processing fee. Follow the current MDH endorsement instructions; do not book the Minnesota exam first if endorsement applies.

MDH and Headmaster do not publish a universal statewide minimum exam age in the current candidate handbook. Training programs and test sites may set enrollment or identification requirements, so confirm directly instead of relying on an old age claim.

Background study is separate

A DHS background study is an employment or clinical-placement requirement for covered direct-contact roles; it is not a Headmaster exam component, and the NAR does not maintain background-check records. The program or employer generally initiates NETStudy 2.0. As of March 30, 2026, the separate IDEMIA fingerprint-and-photo service fee is $13.50.

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Exact Knowledge Exam Blueprint

The current handbook assigns all 70 questions across 12 subject areas. Study by question count, not an unofficial nine-domain outline.

The first three rows account for 31 of 70 questions, so build your base there. Then practice Care Impaired, resident rights, and role boundaries as scenarios rather than memorized definitions.

Be careful with scope-of-practice absolutes. A nurse aide should never perform a task without the required training, authorization, delegation, care-plan direction, and supervision. MDH's NATCEP FAQ notes that Minnesota law can allow medication administration by appropriately trained unlicensed personnel under authorized delegation in some settings, so CNAs can never administer medications is not a safe statewide rule.

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How the Skills Test Actually Works

You receive three or four tasks, not five. The first is one mandatory task randomly selected from these four:

• Bedpan use with urine measurement and hand washing
• Female catheter care with hand washing
• PPE, drainage-bag emptying, urine measurement, PPE removal, and hand washing
• Female perineal care with hand washing

TMU then assigns two or three additional tasks from the published list. The current handbook contains 17 total task titles. Female catheter care and female perineal care use a manikin; other tasks use a live resident actor.

To pass, you must complete every bold key step and at least 80% of the non-key steps on every assigned task. There is no accurate universal list of ten automatic-fail steps: the bold key steps are task-specific.

Three rules improve both safety and scores:

1. Demonstrate the step. The handbook says verbalizing a step without performing it does not count.
2. Correct errors before finishing. You may tell the observer you want to correct a step and demonstrate it again within the 30 minutes, until you say you are finished.
3. Practice from the current task sheets. Bold wording, BEFORE/AFTER sequencing, measurements, and cleanup details determine credit.

Use the Headmaster Minnesota hub to download the current handbook and Minnesota mock skills.

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A Practical 14-Day Study Plan

Days 1–4: Cover 31 knowledge questions

• Day 1: Basic Nursing Skills—vital signs, positioning, nutrition, elimination, observation and reporting
• Day 2: Infection Control—hand hygiene, PPE, standard precautions, clean/dirty separation
• Day 3: Safety—falls, transfers, body mechanics, emergencies, equipment and fire response
• Day 4: Mixed timed set from those three areas; review every error

Days 5–8: Complete the blueprint

• Day 5: Care Impaired and Mental Health
• Day 6: Resident Rights, abuse reporting, privacy and choice
• Day 7: Role and Responsibility, communication and documentation
• Day 8: Aging/restorative care, data collection, disease process and personal care

Days 9–12: Skills circuits

• Download the current task sheets and mark every bold step
• Rehearse one mandatory task plus three random tasks per circuit
• Use a 30-minute timer and an observer with the exact checklist
• Correct mistakes aloud and physically demonstrate the corrected step

Days 13–14: Simulate the event

• Take one 70-question, 120-minute practice exam
• Repeat missed blueprint areas rather than rereading everything
• Run two full skills circuits in test attire
• Confirm site, server, identification, start time, fees and TMU login

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Register Without a Server Mistake

Minnesota uses two TMU servers:

• Minnesota State server: Minnesota State college and university test sites at mn.tmutest.com
• In-facility server: MDH-approved facility sites at mr.tmutest.com

After you establish testing history in one server, you must complete retests in that same server. Training-program candidates receive eligibility after the program enters completion data. Challenge candidates must contact the chosen test site so it can create the account and schedule both components.

Knowledge may be offered in person or remotely; skills are in person. Request and obtain MDH/Headmaster approval for ADA accommodations before scheduling, then allow the site 10–14 business days to coordinate them.

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Test-Day Checklist

• Be in the test-site waiting area 20 minutes early. Late arrival can become a no-show with forfeited fees.
• Wear full clinical attire, closed-toe shoes, and pull back long hair.
• Bring the original identification required by the current handbook. Your first and last names must exactly match TMU.
• Do not rely on a phone image or digital-wallet ID; the handbook rejects photocopies and electronic versions.
• Turn off and store phones, smartwatches, fitness monitors and Bluetooth devices in the designated area.
• Know your TMU username or email and password for the knowledge exam.

Read the identification section yourself because it includes a two-ID exception and document-specific rules.

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Retakes and the 24-Month Boundary

You have four knowledge attempts and three skills attempts within 24 months of training completion, or within 24 months of the first component attempted as a challenge candidate. A passed component remains usable only inside that testing cycle.

If you exhaust either component's attempt limit before the cycle ends, you must complete another MDH-approved training program before testing again. If the 24 months expire without exhausting attempts, you may complete new training or begin a new challenge cycle; previous passing results do not carry into the new cycle.

A failed component can be retaken alone while the current cycle remains valid. Each retake requires payment for the failed component.

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After Passing: Registry, Renewal and Endorsement

Headmaster transmits results, and candidates who meet Minnesota's testing route are automatically added to the NAR. Confirm your status in the Minnesota Nurse Aide Registry before relying on the listing for employment.

To stay active, perform at least 8 hours of paid nursing-assistant or nursing-related work every 24 months and submit the renewal through MDH with a recent pay stub. Orientation, training and in-service hours do not count. If the employer is outside the facility types MDH routinely recognizes, attach a job description showing direct-care duties. MDH does not require separate in-service documents for registry renewal and publishes no registry renewal fee.

A 24-month lapse of qualifying employment produces expired status. Use the challenge route to pass both exams again unless another current eligibility route applies.

For endorsement into Minnesota, good standing alone is not enough: the official route also requires at least eight paid nurse-aide hours in the endorsing state during the prior 24 months. Minnesota charges no processing fee.

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Minnesota Nursing Assistant Pay: Use Current Data

Minnesota DEED's first-quarter 2026 Occupational Employment Statistics reports $22.69 mean hourly pay and a $23.01 hourly median for nursing assistants statewide. Pay varies by region, employer, shift and experience; these are occupational estimates, not guaranteed starting wages.

A separate nursing-home wage rule takes effect September 10, 2026: covered certified nursing assistants must receive at least $22.50 per hour, with $24.00 scheduled for January 1, 2027. That rule is setting-specific and should not be described as a statewide CNA minimum for every workplace.

Nationally, BLS projects 2% employment growth for nursing assistants and orderlies from 2024 to 2034, with many openings driven by replacement needs.

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Official Minnesota Sources

• MDH Nurse Aide Registry
• MDH testing information and current FAQs
• Headmaster Minnesota testing hub
• Current Minnesota candidate handbook
• MDH training and testing rules
• MDH-approved curricula and 75/16-hour requirements
• MDH NATCEP frequently asked questions
• MDH registry renewal requirements
• MDH interstate endorsement requirements
• Minnesota State testing registration
• Minnesota DEED nursing-assistant wage data
• Minnesota nursing-home wage standards
• BLS nursing-assistant outlook

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