CHRN Certification Cost 2026: Complete Pricing Breakdown

The Fee Schedule at a Glance

Certified Hyperbaric Registered Nurse (CHRN) is a credential with a short, clearly published fee list. The numbers below come from the issuer's own documents: the June 2026 initial application, the June 2024 Resource Manual and the August 2025 renewal form. Where a fee is not confirmed in a current document, this article says so rather than guessing.

Those figures are the "sticker price." The sections below explain how the tiers work, what sits outside the fee schedule, and how to avoid paying more than you need to. If you are still confirming that you qualify at all, start with our CHRN requirements guide covering eligibility and prerequisites, because the fees only matter once you are approved to sit.

Who Certifies and Who Tests

Two bodies matter when you read a CHRN invoice or application. The Baromedical Nurses Association Certification Board (BNACB) oversees nursing eligibility and certification. The National Board of Diving and Hyperbaric Medical Technology (NBDHMT) administers and grades the examination at approved testing centers. The exam is not a default test-at-home product; online testing happens at a designated testing site, and any in-house proctorship requires NBDHMT approval.

This matters for budgeting because testing is tied to an approved site. If your employer's facility is not already an approved location, factor in the practical cost of getting to one. Specific site fees, where they exist, are not listed in the retrieved documents, so confirm them directly when you register.

Exam Fee Tiers and the Membership Math

The June 2026 application confirms three tiers: US$250 for BNA members, US$300 for UHMS or ACHM members, and US$400 for other applicants. The application asks for membership evidence, so the discount is not automatic. You prove your tier when you apply.

What the tier gap means in dollars

• BNA member versus nonmember: a US$150 difference on the exam alone.
• UHMS or ACHM member versus nonmember: a US$100 difference.
• BNA member versus UHMS or ACHM member: US$50.

Because renewal also has three tiers (US$150, US$200 and US$250), the membership advantage repeats every four years. This article does not state current annual dues for BNA, UHMS or ACHM, because those figures are not in the retrieved source material. Check each organization's published dues, then compare them against the savings above. Membership may also carry value beyond the discount, but that is a personal judgment rather than a fee-schedule fact.

Costs Before You Pay the Exam Fee

The exam fee is not the first dollar you spend. The eligibility pathway front-loads several requirements, and some carry real cost, mostly in tuition, time and travel rather than in fees paid to the certifying bodies.

The 40-hour course and the 480 hours are prerequisites. They are not the two-hour exam timer, and they are not an exam-day expense. Most nurses on this path are already working in a hyperbaric department, which means the 480 hours cost nothing extra beyond the time you were going to work anyway. For a closer look at coursework, our page on CHRN training covers the preparation side.

Ask your employer first

Many hyperbaric programs sponsor staff through certification because the facility benefits from credentialed nurses. Before you pay anything personally, ask whether your employer will cover the course, the exam fee, membership dues or paid study time. Employer policies vary, and none of this is guaranteed, but the question costs nothing to ask.

Retakes and Registration Timing

The June 2024 Resource Manual lists US$100 for a repeat examination. The retrieved June 2026 initial application did not override that figure, but it also did not restate it, so treat US$100 as the last documented amount and confirm it with NBDHMT before relying on it. This article does not state the number of retakes allowed or any waiting period, because those details are not in the retrieved material.

Retake cost is small compared with the first attempt. The larger risk is delay: a failed attempt can push your credential date back and, if your employer ties pay or role to certification, defer the benefit. For context on how demanding the test is, see how hard the CHRN exam is. Note that a current CHRN-specific pass rate is not publicly disclosed, and the 74% figure sometimes quoted is a historical combined-program number rather than a CHRN-specific one. Our CHRN pass rate article explains how to interpret that.

Register early

The June 2026 application says to register 30 days before the test. Late or rushed registration can compress your preparation window, so build the 30-day lead time into your plan. For scheduling mechanics, see CHRN exam dates, testing windows and deadlines.

Renewal Costs Every Four Years

CHRN renewal runs on a four-year cycle. The August 2025 renewal form lists fees of US$150 for BNA members, US$200 for UHMS or ACHM members and US$250 for nonmembers. Over a long career, renewal is where membership savings accumulate.

The older manual says ongoing hours need not be logged. That does not waive the newer form's employer-validated recent-practice requirement, so follow the August 2025 form. CE hours are the hidden renewal cost: the credits themselves can be free or paid depending on the source, so budget for conferences, courses or subscriptions that supply Category A credit.

Spreading the cost

Because renewal comes only every four years, you can set aside a small monthly amount toward the fee and the CE hours instead of absorbing both at once. Dividing the nonmember renewal fee of US$250 across 48 months is a small monthly figure; dividing the CE cost depends on how you earn credits. If you are weighing the long-term value of staying certified, our analysis of whether CHRN certification is worth it works through that trade-off.

The Lapse Penalty

Letting the credential lapse is the single most avoidable cost in the CHRN lifecycle. A lapse adds US$100 to the renewal fee and removes member discounts. In practice, a nurse who would have paid US$150 as a BNA member now pays the nonmember renewal rate of US$250 plus the US$100 lapse charge, which comes to US$350 instead of US$150. That is the arithmetic implied by the published figures, so confirm the exact total on the current form.

The lapsed row is derived from two published facts: member discounts are removed, and lapse adds US$100. It is an inference, so verify against the form before paying. The cleanest defense is to calendar your renewal date at the start of your fourth year and begin collecting employer verification and CE documentation well ahead of time.

Where to Spend on Preparation

Preparation spending is optional and varies by person, but it is worth deciding deliberately. The exam is 120 multiple-choice and true/false items in two hours, with a 70% passing threshold. It excludes essays and short-answer questions. A pocket calculator is allowed and dive tables are provided, which shapes what you need to practice.

What the content actually covers

The issuer publishes sixteen preparation topics, and this site maps them to sixteen content areas. Weights are not verified, so no domain should be assumed to dominate. Our guide to all 16 CHRN content areas walks through each one. The scope spans history (Behnke, Bert, Boyle, Haldane and others), pressure unit conversions, the gas laws, decompression table use, hyperbaric oxygen mechanisms, accepted indications, oxygen toxicity, barotrauma, chamber types, fire and gas safety, transcutaneous oxygen monitoring, and nursing management.

Because dive tables are supplied, you do not need to memorize them. You need to read them quickly and correctly, which is a skill built by practice, not by buying more books.

Free versus paid resources

The Resource Manual is a public document, so your baseline study material can cost nothing. A caution: the June 2024 manual contains legacy clinical narrative, including a reference to a 1992 indications report as the most recent. That statement is outdated, since the UHMS 15th-edition front matter is dated 2023. Use the manual to understand scope, then verify clinical details against current authoritative sources. Do not treat the manual's sample questions as live exam content.

Paid practice questions are a reasonable investment if they let you rehearse the real format, so compare what you get for the price. For a structured plan, see our CHRN study guide for passing on your first attempt, and for a fast revision tool, the one-page CHRN cheat sheet. You can also rehearse under timed conditions with the CHRN practice test, which is a cheaper way to protect a US$250 to US$400 exam fee than sitting unprepared.

Three Budget Scenarios

These scenarios use only fees confirmed in the published documents. They exclude course tuition, travel, membership dues and CE costs, because those figures are not in the retrieved sources. Add them from your own quotes.

Add US$100 to any row if you need one repeat examination, based on the last documented repeat fee. Add the US$100 lapse charge, with member discounts removed, if you miss a renewal deadline. The spread between the BNA member row and the nonmember row is US$250 in fees across the first certification cycle, before you account for what membership itself costs.

For the earnings side of the equation, see the CHRN salary guide, and for roles that value the credential, the CHRN jobs overview. This page, CHRN certification cost, focuses on what you pay; those pages cover what you may earn.

Frequently Asked Questions