Administrator in Training Program in Virginia: Hours, Preceptors, and Exams

Virginia’s Administrator-in-Training program is the supervised, facility-based training you must complete before you can be licensed as a nursing home administrator or assisted living facility administrator in the Commonwealth. The Board of Long-Term Care Administrators, under the Department of Health Professions, approves each candidate’s training plan, registers the preceptor who will supervise the work, and signs off on completion before the candidate can sit for the national licensing exams. Depending on your education and experience, the required hours run anywhere from 320 to 2,000, and you have 24 months from Board approval to finish.¹

Which Track You’re On: Nursing Home or Assisted Living

The program runs on two separate tracks, and they have different rules. The nursing home administrator (NHA) track prepares you to run a licensed nursing home. The assisted living facility administrator (ALFA) track prepares you to run a licensed assisted living facility. The application, the eligible training sites, the required hours, and the exam at the end all differ between the two.

One cross-track rule matters up front: a licensed Virginia nursing home administrator is automatically qualified to administer an assisted living facility with no additional license. The reverse is not true. An assisted living administrator who wants to move up to nursing home administration has to complete a 1,500-hour AIT program and pass the NAB nursing home exam.²

How Many Hours You’ll Need

The hour requirement is a sliding scale. The more relevant education and management experience you bring, the fewer supervised hours you have to complete.

Nursing Home Administrator Track

You need at least 60 semester hours of college credit to enter the NHA AIT program.¹ From there, Virginia regulation 18VAC95-20-310 sets the hours:

2,000 hours if your highest qualification is 60-plus college credits without a relevant degree.
1,500 hours if you have significant health care management experience, such as four years as an assistant administrator or director of nursing in a nursing home, three years as a hospital administrator, or four years as a registered nurse in an administrative supervisory role.
1,000 hours if you hold a bachelor’s or master’s degree in an unrelated field, or a healthcare administration degree that did not include a qualifying internship.
400 hours if you have a bachelor’s degree or higher plus a 21-credit-hour certificate program in nursing home or healthcare administration.
320 hours if you have a bachelor’s or master’s in healthcare administration that already included a 320-hour internship under a licensed preceptor.³

Assisted Living Facility Administrator Track

The educational floor is lower on the ALFA side. You can enter with a high school diploma or GED as long as you have three years of health care experience, including at least one year in a managerial or supervisory role. The required hours run 320 to 640:⁴

640 hours if you have 30 postsecondary semester hours (with at least 15 in business or human services), are a licensed practical nurse without relevant supervisory experience, or are qualifying through health care experience alone.
480 hours if you’re a registered nurse without supervisory experience, have 30 semester hours in specific management and leadership content, hold a bachelor’s or master’s in an unrelated field, or are an LPN with at least one year of administrative supervisory nursing experience.
320 hours if you hold a bachelor’s or master’s in a health care-related field, are an RN with at least one year of administrative supervisory experience, or have at least one year as an assistant administrator or hospital administrator.⁵

If you completed a degree program that already included a qualifying 320-hour internship or practicum in an assisted living facility, you may not need additional AIT hours at all.⁶

Finding a Preceptor

You cannot start the AIT program without a preceptor, and Virginia is specific about who qualifies. An NHA preceptor must hold a current, unrestricted nursing home administrator license, have been employed full-time as an administrator in a training facility for at least two of the past three years, and complete the online preceptor training course offered by NAB. Registration costs $65.⁷

ALFA preceptors follow parallel rules: an unrestricted administrator license (either ALF or nursing home), at least two years of full-time administrator employment in the past four years, and completion of the NAB preceptor course.⁵

A preceptor must be routinely present at the training facility, though the exact on-site presence should be proportionate to your experience and the needs of the residents. Currently a preceptor may supervise no more than two trainees at once. The Board maintains a voluntary preceptor directory you can use to search, but inclusion does not guarantee availability, and some preceptors are restricted by their employers to training within their own company.⁸

Where Training Can Take Place

Virginia does not publish a pre-approved list of AIT sites. It publishes categories instead. For NHA training, the facility must be a nursing home licensed by the Virginia Board of Health (or a comparable body in another state), a long-term care institution operated by the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, a certified government-operated nursing home, or a certified nursing home unit within a licensed hospital.¹

For ALFA training, the site must be a licensed assisted living facility or unit with at least 20 residents. Facilities holding only provisional or conditional licenses under certain circumstances are excluded, as are those classified as “residential only.”⁹ You can verify a specific facility through the Virginia Department of Health’s licensure and certification database or the Department of Health Professions’ License Lookup tool.

Applying to the Board

Before you log a single training hour, you have to be approved. That means securing a registered preceptor, developing a training plan aligned with the Domains of Practice, and submitting a formal application to the Board of Long-Term Care Administrators. The NHA application requires official college transcripts, the completed training plan form, and a non-refundable fee of $215.¹⁰ The application itself is filed through the Department of Health Professions’ online portal, with supporting documents mailed separately with original signatures.¹¹

Complete applications are typically reviewed within 30 days. Hours completed before the Board registers you don’t count, and practicing as an AIT without registration is unlawful under Virginia law.¹

What the Training Covers

Training must span all areas of long-term care administration as defined by the National Association of Long Term Care Administrator Boards. Virginia’s training plan form groups these into four categories: Care, Services, and Supports; Operations (including human resources and finance); Environment; and Leadership and Strategy.¹²

Since December 2022, every training plan must also include content on caring for residents with cognitive or mental impairments, including Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. There is no fixed hour count for that piece; you and your preceptor set the amount based on your facility’s resident population. You’ll also be expected to work across weekday, evening, night, and weekend shifts so you see the whole operation.¹

Timeline, Monthly Reports, and Completion

Once the Board approves you, the clock starts. You have 24 months to finish all required hours. ALFA candidates serving as acting administrators have a compressed deadline of 150 days. Weekly credit is capped at 40 hours.⁵

Every month, you submit a report to the Board documenting hours worked, shifts completed, activities performed, and learning experiences, signed by you and your preceptor with original signatures. If your preceptor becomes unavailable, notify the Board within 10 working days and secure a new registered preceptor within 60 days. If the program terminates early, both you and the preceptor must submit written explanations within 10 business days. When you finish, you have 30 days to submit a Documentation of Completion form along with your final monthly reports.¹

The NAB Exams

Finishing the AIT doesn’t get you licensed on its own. Once the Board accepts your completion documentation, you apply for licensure by examination and register for the NAB exams. NHA candidates take the Core of Knowledge (CORE) exam and the NHA exam. ALFA candidates take the CORE and the Residential Care/Assisted Living (RCAL) exam.²

The CORE exam is 125 questions with a 150-minute seat time; the NHA exam is 75 questions with a 90-minute seat time. As of February 2026, the combined application fee for the CORE and NHA exams through NAB is $480. Starting January 1, 2026, candidates are limited to four attempts per exam per exam cycle, which runs July 1 through June 30.¹³ NAB delivers the exams through Pearson VUE testing centers as of January 2025.¹⁴ Virginia does not add its own state exam.¹⁵ Once you pass, NAB reports your scores to the Board, and the Board issues and mails the license within 30 days.¹⁶

Paths That Skip or Shorten the AIT

If your required hours were completed as an internship inside a formal accredited degree or certificate program, you’re exempt from the Board’s AIT application and the monthly reporting requirements during that training.²

If you already hold an administrator license in another state, you can seek Virginia licensure by endorsement. The Board may issue a license if you hold a current, unrestricted out-of-state license and can verify at least 1,000 hours of licensed practice in the preceding 24 months, or if your education and experience match Virginia’s initial licensure standards.¹⁶

A separate provision, effective July 1, 2024, under Code of Virginia § 54.1-2408.4, lets out-of-state administrators practice temporarily in Virginia for an initial 90-day period if they have an active, unencumbered license elsewhere and a contract or offer of employment from a Virginia facility. The facility must verify credentials and notify the Board before practice begins. If a permanent licensure application is still pending after 90 days, the authorization can be extended for another 60 days.¹⁷

Changes Coming to the Program

At its June 2025 meeting, the Board of Long-Term Care Administrators voted to raise the number of trainees a single preceptor may supervise from two to three, pursued through a fast-track regulatory action. The Board also opened a broader periodic review of the regulations governing both the NHA and ALFA programs.¹⁸

The Virginia Health Care Association and Virginia Center for Assisted Living is developing an 80-hour prelicensure course for assisted living and nursing home administrators, expected to become available in early 2026. As of mid-2025, the Board was considering whether those course hours could count toward AIT training requirements.¹⁸

Nationally, NAB has adopted “Administrator Residency” as its new term for what Virginia still calls the Administrator-in-Training program, and is moving from a four-domain to a nine-domain framework for its Domains of Practice. The related exam changes take effect July 1, 2027.¹⁹ If you’re planning your timeline now, check the Board’s announcements page before you file, since the fee, exam vendor, and hour rules have all shifted within recent memory and the periodic review is still open.

1
Virginia Department of Health Professions. Nursing Home Administrators-In-Training FAQ
2
LeadingAge Virginia. Need a License
3
LeadingAge Virginia. NH AIT Flowchart
4
Virginia Code Commission. 18VAC95-30-100 – Qualifications for Initial Licensure
5
Virginia Code Commission. 18VAC95-30 Part IV – Administrator-in-Training
6
Virginia Regulatory Information System. Assisted Living Facility Administrators Education and Experience Matrix
7
Virginia Regulatory Information System. Checklist and Instructions for Admin Preceptor
8
Virginia Association of Long-Term Care Administrators. AIT Preceptor Info
9
Virginia Department of Health Professions. ALFA-In-Training FAQ
10
Virginia Regulatory Information System. NHA AIT Application
11
Virginia Department of Health Professions. Applications and Forms
12
Virginia Regulatory Information System. Proposed AIT Program Training Plan Domains of Practice
13
NAB. Exam Info
14
Virginia Department of Health Professions. Board News and Announcements
15
Virginia Department of Health Professions. NHA Exams FAQ
16
Virginia Department of Health Professions. NHA Licensure FAQ
17
Virginia Code Commission. Code of Virginia § 54.1-2408.4
18
Virginia Townhall. Board of Long-Term Care Administrators Meeting Minutes, June 24, 2025
19
NAB. Domains of Practice