CFCN Cheat Sheet 2026: One-Page Review of Must-Know Facts

What This Cheat Sheet Covers (and What It Doesn't)

This page is a one-screen-at-a-time review of the Certified Foot Care Nurse credential, awarded by the Wound, Ostomy and Continence Nursing Certification Board (WOCNCB). It is specifically the nursing credential for foot care. Other certifications elsewhere in healthcare and business use the same four letters, and none of their rules, fees or dates apply here. Everything below is drawn from the WOCNCB's candidate handbook and published blueprint for foot care certification.

Note that the WOCNCB is a certification board and is separate from the WOCN Society, the professional membership organization. That distinction matters for pricing: the exam fee does not change based on society membership. If you want the full backstory on the credential, see What Is CFCN Certification? or the shorter explainer at What Does CFCN Stand For?.

The Exam at a Glance

Memorize this table first. These are the structural facts that shape how you pace yourself on test day.

The pacing math is simple: with 120 items and 120 minutes, you have roughly one minute per question. Because 10 of those items are unscored pretest questions that are not identified for you, treat every question as if it counts. A question that feels unusually obscure may be a pretest item, which is a good reason not to burn three minutes on it.

Fees, Retakes and Registration Mechanics

The fee structure is refreshingly simple. There is no member versus non-member split and no annual maintenance fee.

• Initial exam fee: $395 for one specialty.
• Renewal by examination or Professional Growth Program: also $395 for a single specialty.
• Retake: a one-time $100 discount makes the first single-specialty retake $295. Any later attempts use the full fee.
• Not included: the cost of your foot-care CE courses and supervised clinical training, which you pay separately.

Budget for the training costs, not just the exam fee, since the education requirement is where most of the real spending happens. For a fuller line-by-line view, read the CFCN certification cost breakdown. If you are still weighing the investment, Is the CFCN Certification Worth It? walks through the return side of the equation, and the CFCN salary guide covers earnings context.

For testing windows and scheduling logistics, check the CFCN exam dates guide, and confirm current availability directly with the WOCNCB and PSI before you commit to a date.

Eligibility Snapshot

You cannot sit for the exam until your application is approved, and approval depends on documented education and supervised practice. The core requirements:

1. A current RN license.
2. A bachelor's degree or higher in any field.
3. 24 foot-care CE/CME contact hours, of which up to 8 may be basic skin/wound care.
4. 40 supervised clinical hours, of which up to 12 may be basic skin/wound care.
5. All education and clinical hours completed within the preceding five years while functioning as an RN.

Because the five-year window is strict, start logging dates and supervisor details the day you begin training. The full eligibility pathway is laid out in CFCN Requirements: Eligibility, Prerequisites & How to Qualify, and the CFCN training overview explains how to structure the hours.

The Three Domains and Their Published Weights

The exam blueprint has exactly three domains. The blueprint prints both item counts and percentages, and the two do not line up perfectly: the printed percentages sum to 100.1%, and they do not exactly equal the item counts divided by 110. The source materials do not explain the discrepancy, so both sets of figures are reported here as published rather than recomputed.

The item counts total the 110 scored questions. Domain 2 is the largest by a clear margin, which makes it the logical place to invest the most hours. For a deeper walk-through of each area, see the complete CFCN exam domains guide.

Clinical Topics to Know Cold

The blueprint organizes content by domain, but the questions are clinical, so it helps to keep a short mental list of topics that cut across all three. Treat the following as review prompts rather than an official content list.

Patients Who Raise the Stakes

Foot care nursing centers on people whose feet are at elevated risk. Be fluent in how diabetes, peripheral arterial disease, peripheral neuropathy, immobility and impaired vision change both assessment and teaching. A common exam pattern pairs a routine request, such as nail care, with a risk factor that changes what is safe or whether the patient should be referred first.

Assessment Findings and Their Meaning

Be able to connect what you observe, such as skin integrity, temperature, color, hair and nail changes, sensation, pulses and deformity, to the underlying concern. Questions often reward recognizing which finding is most urgent rather than which is most common.

Scope and Escalation

Because the credential is for nurses, expect questions about what falls within nursing foot care and what requires another provider. When two answer choices both sound clinically reasonable, the better one usually respects scope and escalates appropriately.

Scoring and Pass Rate: Don't Mix Them Up

These are two different numbers, and confusing them is one of the most common mistakes in exam prep content.

• Passing score: The exam uses a criterion-referenced standard reported on a scaled score. The raw number of correct answers needed varies with the difficulty of your exam form, so there is no fixed "answer X questions correctly" target.
• Pass rate: WOCNCB reported 80.57% for 2025 across all foot-care exam administrations, not first-time candidates alone. The same table reports 133 administrations and 733 active CFCN holders as of December 31, 2025.

The 133 and 733 figures are counts of exam administrations and active credential holders. They are not search volumes, annual prep-course buyers, or a measure of how many people attempt the exam each year. The pass rate describes how a cohort performed; it does not set the bar you must clear. For a fuller treatment, see CFCN Pass Rate: What the Data Shows and CFCN Passing Score: Exactly What You Need to Pass. If you are wondering how demanding the test feels in practice, How Hard Is the CFCN Exam? offers perspective.

Exam-Day Rules and Delivery Options

PSI delivers the exam at test centers and through live remote proctoring. The exam is closed book: personal notes, reference materials and personal calculators are prohibited. If a calculator is permitted, it is one provided by the test sponsor.

Remote Proctoring Checklist

If you choose live remote delivery, confirm each of these ahead of time:

• A compatible computer, webcam and microphone
• The PSI secure browser installed and tested
• A private room, which you will be asked to scan on camera

Candidates who prefer to avoid technical surprises often choose a test center instead. Neither option is better for scoring; choose the one that minimizes stress for you.

Renewal: Exam vs. Professional Growth Program

Certification lasts five years. You maintain your RN license throughout and renew by one of two routes: retaking the exam or completing the Professional Growth Program (PGP). Either route carries the $395 single-specialty fee.

A Domain-Driven Four-Week Review Plan

If you already have your clinical hours and want a compact final review, weight your calendar to match the blueprint. The sequencing below puts the heaviest domain in the middle so you revisit it twice.

For a broader preparation framework, the CFCN study guide goes deeper, and you can test yourself against realistic questions on the CFCN practice test site. Taking a full timed set early in your review shows you which domain to prioritize.

Frequently Asked Questions

Keep this sheet handy as a quick reference, and pair it with the CFCN certification overview and the CFCN jobs guide to see where the credential can take your practice.