Certifications
Nursing Certifications: One License, 4 Credentials, No Degree
Three different things get called a qualification in nursing, and mixing them up is how a nurse ends up paying for the wrong one. One of the 5 credentials below is a license you must hold to work. 4 are voluntary. None of them is a degree.
License, Certification, Degree: Three Things That Are Not Interchangeable
You already hold the first one. A board of nursing licensed you after you passed the NCLEX-RN, and that license — not a degree, not a certification — is what makes your practice lawful in your state. Everything else in this section is optional in the legal sense, however it feels on your unit.
The reason this needs saying on a site about a degree is that the three are marketed as though they were rungs on one ladder. They are not. They are issued by different kinds of body, they answer different questions, and only one of them can be taken away in a way that ends your career.
| Credential | Who issues it | What it grants | What happens without it |
|---|---|---|---|
| RN license (NCLEX-RN) | A state board of nursing | The legal scope to practice as a registered nurse in that state | You cannot work as a nurse |
| Board certification (CMSRN, CCRN, PCCN and CEN) | A national certifying board | Documented evidence that you met that board's standard in a specialty | Nothing legal. Some postings prefer it and some units expect it |
| Bachelor's degree (BSN) | An accredited college or university | An academic award, and the usual entry requirement for an MSN | Nothing legal outside New York's 2017 law. Postings filter on it |
The 5 Credentials Covered Here
Ordered with the license first, because it is the only one you cannot decline.
NCSBN · Licensure exam
NCLEX-RN — National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses
The exam behind the license you already hold. Pass it and a state board of nursing licenses you as an RN — the one credential on this page that decides whether you may work as a nurse at all.
MSNCB · Voluntary certification
CMSRN — Certified Medical-Surgical Registered Nurse
The board credential for medical-surgical nursing — the broadest inpatient specialty there is, and where a large share of the nurses reading this site spend their shifts.
AACN · Voluntary certification
CCRN — Critical Care Registered Nurse
The critical care credential, held by intensive care nurses and the best known of the four voluntary credentials on this site.
AACN · Voluntary certification
PCCN — Progressive Care Certified Nurse
The progressive care credential from the same body as the CCRN, for the acuity band between a med-surg floor and an intensive care unit — step-down, telemetry, intermediate care.
BCEN · Voluntary certification
CEN — Certified Emergency Nurse
The emergency nursing credential, and the one most often written into a department culture where every experienced nurse on the roster holds it.
| Credential | Who it is for | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| NCLEX-RN | Everyone practicing as an RN. There is no route around it. | It grants the scope of practice. Nothing else on this page does. |
| CMSRN | Nurses working a med-surg floor who want the specialty on the record. | Nothing about what you may do. It documents a standard in the specialty. |
| CCRN | Nurses caring for critically ill patients, in an ICU or an equivalent unit. | Nothing about what you may do. Some ICUs expect it, which is an employer decision. |
| PCCN | Nurses on step-down and progressive care units. | Nothing about what you may do. It names an acuity level your job title may not. |
| CEN | Nurses working in an emergency department. | Nothing about what you may do. In some departments it is a social expectation. |
The One You Must Hold
The NCLEX-RN is a licensure examination, developed by NCSBN and used by boards of nursing as the standard a candidate has to meet before a license is issued. It is not a recurring exam. The license renews on your board's schedule; the examination does not repeat.
The point that matters most on a site about the BSN is what the exam does not ask. It does not ask which degree you hold. An associate degree and a bachelor's degree lead to the same examination and to the same license, with the same scope of practice at the end of it. That is the fact the rest of this site keeps returning to, because a great deal of program marketing depends on the reader not knowing it.
One state has moved from that position. New York's 2017 law requires nurses licensed after it took effect to earn a BSN within ten years of initial licensure, and grandfathers everyone licensed before it. Nothing comparable exists anywhere else, and the 80% target you may half-remember was a 2010 Institute of Medicine recommendation — never binding anywhere, and not met.
Licenses are also the reason your credentials behave oddly when you move. A certification is national and travels with you. A license belongs to the jurisdiction that granted it, which is why practicing across state lines runs through endorsement or the Nurse Licensure Compact. Which arrangement applies to you is a question for your board of nursing, and its answer changes as states join.
The 4 That Are Optional
CMSRN, CCRN, PCCN and CEN are board certifications. Each is owned by a certifying body rather than a state, each is tied to a specialty rather than a degree level, and none of them changes what you are permitted to do at the bedside. What they do is answer a question an employer cannot otherwise answer about a stranger: that somebody other than the hiring manager has tested this nurse against a published standard in this specialty.
That makes them useful in three situations and largely decorative in the rest. They matter when you are applying somewhere nobody knows you, when a unit has decided its experienced staff hold one, and when you are moving between specialties and need the new one on the record. If none of those describes you, the honest answer is that the credential is a preference rather than a step.
What this site will not tell you is how many practice hours each board wants, what the examination costs, how long the credential runs before renewal, or what share of candidates pass. We hold no data on any of it. Those rules are set by the issuing body, they are revised, and a nurse who budgets an exam fee or an eligibility window from a third-party site can lose a cycle finding out it was wrong. Each credential page here explains what the credential is and who it is for, then sends you to the board that owns it for the requirements.
One thing worth knowing about the pressure you may be feeling: if certification is being encouraged on a unit where nobody's job depends on it, the reason is usually a hospital-level target rather than anything about your practice. That is not a reason to refuse — reimbursement is common and the credential is genuinely portable — but it is a reason to ask who is paying for it before you put it on your own card.
Where the BSN Sits, and Why It Is Not on the List
A certification and a degree are answers to different questions. A certification says you met a standard in a specialty you already work in. A degree is an academic award from an accredited institution, it appears on a transcript, and it is what a graduate program reads when it decides whether to admit you. Neither substitutes for the other, and no combination of the four credentials above adds up to a bachelor's.
Where the degree binds is the posting. Health departments write a bachelor's into their minimum qualifications, payer-side and case management roles frequently ask for one, and hospitals set degree expectations for the people they promote into leadership. That is employer practice rather than law — a weaker thing than a statute and a more immediate one, because it decides which applications get read at all.
The federal wage data is honest about how little it can settle here. All 3,379,720 registered nurses sit in one occupation, SOC 29-1141, with a national median of $97,550, and that distribution is not broken out by degree or by certification. The one place a step is visible is a move into a different occupation entirely: nurse manager is counted in Medical and Health Services Managers, SOC 11-9111, whose national median is $123,860. Two occupational medians, not a raise — the nurse manager page sets out what that figure does and does not cover.
If you are weighing the degree itself, this site has checked 362 bachelor's programs against each school's own page to confirm they run an RN-to-BSN completion track, 290 of which carry enough federal data to rank across 24 states. How that was done is on the methodology page.
Questions About Nursing Certifications
Do I need a certification to work as a registered nurse?
Is the NCLEX-RN a certification?
Does a BSN make me eligible for these certifications?
Will a certification raise my pay?
Where to Go Next
- The five career routes — which of them is a different federal occupation, and which are the same job with different hours.
- RN-to-BSN rankings by state — what each accredited completion program costs and what the school states about delivery.
- Registered nurse salaries — the Registered Nurses distribution in your state, and what it can and cannot be read to mean.
Wage figures: BLS OEWS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 release — SOC 29-1141 (Registered Nurses) and SOC 11-9111 (Medical and Health Services Managers). A wage survey, carrying no employment projections. Credential requirements come from each issuing body and are not restated here.