- The exam has 150 questions: 125 scored plus 25 unscored pretest items, with three hours of testing time.
- Passing requires a scaled score of at least 350 out of 500, not a raw 70%.
- Foundations of Practice is the largest domain at 36%, followed by System Design Lifecycle at 35%.
- Initial certification lasts five years; renewal rules change for applications submitted on or after February 1, 2027.
Identity Check: RN-BC vs. NI-BC
This page covers the Informatics Nursing certification administered by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). Many nurses still search for it as "RN-BC informatics," and that is the legacy shorthand this site was built around. According to ANCC's published credential updates, the designation currently awarded is Nursing Informatics-Board Certified (NI-BC). If you see both labels in job postings, study materials or older forums, they refer to the same informatics nursing credential. For a broader orientation, see our explainers on what RN-BC is and what RN-BC stands for.
Exam Snapshot: Format, Timing and Scoring
Keep these numbers on the front of your review sheet. They come from ANCC's current policies and the Prometric delivery details.
| Item | Must-Know Fact |
|---|---|
| Total questions | 150 (125 scored + 25 unscored pretest items) |
| Testing time | Three hours |
| Format | Multiple-choice, computer-based, delivered by Prometric at test centers |
| Passing standard | Scaled score of at least 350 on a scale with a maximum of 500 |
| Guessing penalty | None, so answer every question |
| Resources allowed | None: closed book; no personal calculators, study materials or outside electronic resources |
| Marking for review | Allowed; breaks consume testing time |
| Retake rules | Wait at least 60 calendar days; no more than three attempts in any 12 months |
Two details trip up candidates. First, the 25 pretest items are indistinguishable from scored ones, so treat every question as if it counts. Second, a scaled score of 350 is not 70% of anything. Scaled scoring adjusts for form difficulty, so you cannot reverse-engineer a raw number of correct answers. Our RN-BC passing score guide explains this in more depth.
Eligibility Routes at a Glance
Every candidate needs the same baseline: a current, active U.S. RN license (or a legally recognized international equivalent), a bachelor's or higher degree in nursing, two years of full-time-equivalent RN practice, and 30 hours of informatics nursing continuing education completed within the previous three years. On top of that baseline, you choose one of three routes:
- Practice-hours route: 2,000 hours of informatics nursing practice within three years.
- Hybrid route: 1,000 informatics nursing practice hours within three years, plus 12 semester credits in informatics courses within a graduate-level informatics nursing program.
- Graduate-program route: Completion of an informatics nursing graduate program that includes at least 200 faculty-supervised informatics practicum hours.
Fees and Scheduling Mechanics
Initial certification fees depend on membership status:
| Category | Initial Fee | Renewal Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Nonmember | USD 395 | USD 350 |
| ANA member | USD 295 | As low as USD 250 |
| ANIA member | USD 340 | USD 295 |
The initial fee includes a USD 140 nonrefundable administrative fee. After your application is approved, you receive an email containing an Eligibility ID, which you use to schedule with Prometric. Applications are accepted year-round, and you have a 120-day authorization window to test. Missing that window is an expensive mistake, so schedule soon after approval rather than waiting for the "perfect" date. For a full cost analysis, see the RN-BC certification cost breakdown, and for timing logistics see RN-BC exam dates and scheduling.
Domain-by-Domain Review Sheet
The exam blueprint has three weighted domains. The scored-item counts below come from ANCC's Test Content Outline (effective May 3, 2023; updated August 29, 2025). ANCC notes that the examples listed in the outline are not exhaustive and do not indicate relative importance, so use them as starting points rather than a complete syllabus. For a deeper treatment, read our complete guide to all three content areas.
Domain 1: Foundations of Practice (36%, 45 scored items)
The largest domain covers the professional and conceptual base of informatics nursing practice. Expect scenario questions that ask what an informatics nurse should do, not just what a term means.
- The informatics nurse's role as a bridge between clinicians, IT and leadership
- Ethics, privacy and security responsibilities when handling patient data
- Regulatory and standards awareness that shapes how systems are used
- Change management, communication and stakeholder engagement
- Evidence-based practice and quality improvement as applied to technology
Domain 2: System Design Lifecycle (35%, 44 scored items)
This domain follows a system from the first request through retirement. Questions often test whether you can identify the correct next step in a project phase.
- Needs assessment, requirements gathering and workflow analysis
- Vendor and product selection, and project planning
- Design, build and configuration decisions, including clinical decision support
- Testing strategies, training, go-live support and downtime planning
- Evaluation, optimization and ongoing maintenance after implementation
Domain 3: Data Management and Healthcare Technology (29%, 36 scored items)
The smallest domain is the most technical. It rewards candidates who can reason about how data is captured, structured, moved and used.
- Data governance, quality and integrity
- Interoperability concepts and standards used to exchange information
- Analytics, reporting and turning data into actionable insight
- Healthcare technologies that touch the bedside and the enterprise
- Security safeguards and access controls at the system level
Note the arithmetic: 45 + 44 + 36 equals the 125 scored items. The two largest domains together account for roughly seven of every ten scored questions, so a weak showing in Foundations of Practice or System Design Lifecycle is hard to offset elsewhere.
Key Takeaway
Because the exam is scenario-driven, practice identifying who should act, what phase of the lifecycle you are in, and which action protects patient safety and data integrity first. That three-part filter resolves many close answer choices.
Pass-Rate Data in Context
ANCC's 2025 certification data reports a 65% first-time pass rate for Informatics Nursing: 229 passes among 352 first-time candidates. As of December 31, 2025, 3,536 total certificants were recorded. Treat that as a dated cohort statistic, not a prediction of your personal odds. Candidates who are well-matched to the blueprint and have genuine informatics experience may do better than the average; those relying on a general nursing background may do worse. Third-party sites sometimes advertise much higher "pass rates," but those figures are not the official ANCC result. See our RN-BC pass rate analysis and difficulty guide for more perspective.
Sequencing Your Study Weeks
Rather than a generic schedule, order your preparation around the blueprint weights. Foundations of Practice and System Design Lifecycle deserve the most time, while Data Management and Healthcare Technology benefits from hands-on repetition because the vocabulary is dense. This sample sequence assumes about six weeks; stretch or compress it to fit your experience. A fuller plan lives in our RN-BC study guide.
Foundations of Practice
- Review role, ethics, privacy and change-management concepts
- Work scenario questions on stakeholder communication and governance
System Design Lifecycle
- Walk one imaginary project from needs assessment to evaluation
- Drill phase-ordering and "best next step" questions
Data Management and Healthcare Technology
- Memorize interoperability, governance and analytics terminology
- Practice reasoning through data-quality scenarios
Timed Mixed Practice
- Simulate the three-hour window with 150 mixed questions
- Review every miss by domain and re-study weak areas
When you are ready for timed practice, use the question sets on our main practice test site to rehearse pacing: with 150 questions in 180 minutes, you have roughly 72 seconds per question, and flagged items let you bank time for harder scenarios.
Renewal: Two Rule Sets
Certification lasts five years, and renewal rules depend on when you submit your application. Complete all renewal activities during the current five-year period before you submit.
Applications Submitted Before February 1, 2027
- Maintain current RN licensure and a certification that is eligible for renewal.
- Complete 75 specialty-related CE contact hours, including at least 60 formally approved hours.
- Complete one additional professional-development category in full. Options include an additional 75 CE hours, qualifying academic credits, presentations, EBP/QI/publication/research, preceptorship, professional service, 1,000 specialty practice hours, or examination.
- Practice hours are optional.
Applications Submitted on or After February 1, 2027
- Complete 75 relevant CE contact hours, all accredited and/or formally approved.
- Complete one activity within a professional-development pathway of additional continuing education, practice or scholarship. An additional 75 CE hours remains a pathway option.
Frequently Asked Questions
For this credential, yes in practice: RN-BC is the legacy label many nurses still use, while ANCC's current awarded designation is Nursing Informatics-Board Certified (NI-BC). Both point to the ANCC Informatics Nursing certification covered here.
The exam has 150 questions, of which 125 are scored and 25 are unscored pretest items, with three hours of testing time. Older descriptions citing 175 questions and 3.5 hours are outdated.
You need a scaled score of at least 350 on a scale with a maximum of 500. This is a scaled standard, not a raw 70% requirement, so you cannot convert it to a fixed number of correct answers.
You have a 120-day authorization window. Use the Eligibility ID from your approval email to schedule with Prometric, and book early so you do not lose the window.
You must wait at least 60 calendar days before retesting, and you can make no more than three attempts in any 12-month period. Review your score feedback by domain and rebuild your plan around the weakest areas.
Once you have the facts above memorized, the next step is turning them into reliable recall under timed conditions. Revisit this RN-BC cheat sheet the night before your exam, and weigh the long-term payoff with our guides on the RN-BC salary landscape and whether the certification is worth it.