Home Inspector Licensing & Certification

Every state or province have their own certification or licensing requirements, and some regulate home inspectors by issuing licenses and some do not.

Our InterNACHI® CPI certificate program is available to all members regardless of where they are located.

Choose an area below to learn more about becoming a home inspector in your location, or you can learn more about InterNACHI®'s global certification programs.

United States Home Inspector Licensing & Certification

If you want to get certified or licensed in United States, InterNACHI can help. Choose one of the options below for more information:

Canada Home Inspector Licensing & Certification

If you want to get certified or licensed in Canada, InterNACHI can help. Choose one of the options below for more information:

International Home Inspector Licensing & Certification

Member Notice:

InterNACHI’s Code of Ethics 1.10 requires that you comply with all government rules and licensing requirements of the jurisdiction where you conduct business. InterNACHI’s courses and Standards generally exceed the Standards of Practice that you are required to abide by locally.

InterNACHI’s General Pre-Licensing Course:

InterNACHI’s General Pre-Licensing Course is actually a combination of individual online courses that total 149 hours. The following online courses are available to InterNACHI members as a means of complying with pre-licensing training requirements in their state or province (if required). Successful completion of these courses may not be required in your state or province, so please check. These online courses are free to members.

  1. 4 hours: Complete InterNACHI’s online Safe Practices for the Home Inspector course (free), including all quizzes within and pass its final exam.
  2. 5 hours: Complete InterNACHI’s online 25 Standards Every Inspector Should Know course (free), including all quizzes within and pass its final exam.
  3. 8 hours: Complete InterNACHI’s online Residential Plumbing Inspection course (free), including all quizzes within and pass its final exam.
  4. 4 hours: Complete InterNACHI’s online Residential Electrical Inspection course (free), including all quizzes within, and pass its final exam.
  5. 4 hours: Complete InterNACHI’s online Roofing Inspection course (free), including all quizzes within and pass its final exam.
  6. 12 hours: Complete InterNACHI’s online HVAC Inspection course (free), including all quizzes within and pass its final exam.
  7. 4 hours: Complete InterNACHI’s online Structural Issues course (free), including all quizzes within and pass its final exam.
  8. 16 hours: Complete InterNACHI’s online Exterior Inspection course (free), including all quizzes within and pass its final exam.
  9. 4 hours: Completer InterNACHI’s online Communication and Customer Service for Inspectors course (free), including all quizzes within and pass its final exam.
  10. 14 hours: Complete InterNACHI’s online Attic, Insulation, Ventilation and Interior course (free), including all quizzes within and pass its final exam.
  11. 3 hours: Complete InterNACHI’s online Deck Inspections course (free), including all the quizzes within and pass its final exam.
  12. 8 hours: Complete InterNACHI’s online Moisture Intrusion Inspection course (free), including all the quizzes within and pass its final exam.
  13. 8 hours: Complete InterNACHI’s online Green Building course (free), including all quizzes within and pass its final exam.
  14. 12 hours: Complete InterNACHI’s online Wood-Destroying Organisms course (free), including all quizzes within and pass its final exam.
  15. 12 hours: Complete InterNACHI’s online Mold Inspection course (free), including all quizzes within and pass its final exam.
  16. 3 hours: Complete InterNACHI’s online Inspecting Foundation Walls and Piers course (free), including all quizzes within and pass its final exam.
  17. 8 hours: Complete InterNACHI’s online Log Home Inspection course (free), including all quizzes within and pass its final exam.
  18. 12 hours: Complete InterNACHI’s online Radon Measurement Service Provider course (free), including all quizzes within and pass its final exam.
  19. 8 hours: Complete InterNACHI’s online Commercial Inspection course (free), including all quizzes within and pass its final exam.

149 total hours

After all of the courses are completed, please contact us for assistance with attaining a state-specific certificate of completion. Before contacting us, be sure to have your final passing score from the InterNACHI Online Home Inspector Exam.

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Some features which make InterNACHI’s courses superior to existing continuing education options:

  • The course is free for all InterNACHI members.
  • InterNACHI is able to monitor student enrollment by requiring that each student log into the system with a unique identification at the start of the course, when the student begins the course portion, and when the student begins the final exam. The student enrolls by completing a registration form, which includes name, InterNACHI ID member number (if applicable), company name, address, e-mail, phone number, desired username and password.
  • Student identification is linked both to individual e-mail and mailing addresses, and also to membership information, if applicable. This information is stored with that inspector's unique Internet protocol (IP) address and is verified by the system before allowing the inspector to take the final exam.
  • The course comprehensively tracks the progress of the student and ensures progress through the entire course. The system records and displays the progress of the student through the course. If the student logs out of the course, the system remembers the student's position in the course and will automatically jump the student to where they left off when they log back into the course.
  • For courses that contain multimedia (video) presentations, those components must be viewed in their entirety by the student before s/he will be allowed to progress through the course. The student may stop, pause or rewind the video at any time. Once the presentation is complete, the learning management system will re-activate the navigation buttons, allowing the student to progress. The system is designed to ensure that students watch and listen to the presentations. If the student leaves the computer and the video finishes but the student isn't present to press the 'next' button to proceed, allowing the system to time out, the student will have to watch the video again from the beginning. Many quiz and exam questions are derived from the multimedia presentations, so the course system suggests that students take notes on each.
  • The student cannot progress to the final exam without visiting every slide of the course, playing every video of the course, correctly answering each question of each quiz, reading all required reading, and clicking all required links. Before the student can progress to the final exam, the system informs the student of portion(s) of the course that are incomplete, and provides an easy link to that portion of the course. The course provides opportunities for interactivity between the student and the course's author/instructor via direct email and the message board. The student can join in the conversation with fellow course-takers by visiting a dedicated online forum. The course author/instructor monitors and moderates the thread and forum.
  • The course is written in pure XHTML code for quick and accurate loading, even on old computers and those using dial-up Internet connections.
  • The course is designed using a hierarchical menu coupled with sequential page navigation, which provides the student with the option to easily repeat areas of weakness.
  • The course permits the student to start, stop and restart any part of the course as often as desired.
  • Each course contains a variety of images, including diagrams, illustrations and photos.
  • The illustrations can be enlarged for clearer viewing by clicking on them.
  • The text is integrated into InterNACHI’s Inspector Glossary. Rolling over blue-colored terms provides their definition.
  • The final exam uses multiple-choice questions that reference the images.
  • The course's quizzes and final exam have numerous advantages over traditional exam systems:
    • The course, quizzes and final exam incorporate built-in intelligence, which identifies and strengthens each student's unique subject weaknesses.
    • Not only is each question weighted with regard to score, but each answer is weighted, as well as the correctness of each answer.
    • Answers to easy questions are weighted such that the student is penalized, in terms of score, for answering incorrectly, but rewarded modestly for answering correctly.
    • Answers to difficult questions are weighted such that the student is rewarded, in terms of score, for answering correctly, but not penalized for answering incorrectly.
    • Answers to questions regarding basic safety, and questions every inspector should know the answer to, are weighted such that the student is severely penalized, in terms of score, for answering incorrectly.
    • The course measures learning and addresses comprehension of content at regular intervals. There are numerous quizzes integrated with the course's main topics to ensure comprehension. The quizzes contain multiple-choice questions that reinforce learning. Incorrect answers allow the student to review previous information for remediation. The student is not allowed to progress without correctly answering all of the questions.
  • Upon passing the final exam, the student can print out a Certificate of Completion which is auto-generated in their own name.
  • The student's (InterNACHI member's) information is recorded on InterNACHI’s servers for membership-compliance verification, and automatically logs completion into InterNACHI’s online Continuing Education Log.
  • The course management system stores: (1) the time that the student logs into the course (the start time); (2) the time that the student finishes the course (the end time); and (3) the time that the final exam starts and ends. Additionally, the system calculates: (4) the student's score on the final examination; (5) the actual questions asked; and (6) which answer the student provided for each question.
  • All information is stored securely over distributed databases and can be verified by InterNACHI at any time upon request by an official regulatory body. All records are kept for at least five years. All records can be provided to boards/departments upon request. All student attendance records will be automatically updated and emailed to the appropriate state contact person within five days of each student's completion of the course.