How Do You Recertify Your CSCS by December 31, 2026?

By Marc Ferrer · Founder, Engram Kinetics · Published November 2026

Short answer. The NSCA’s 2024-2026 cycle ends on December 31, 2026, for every certified professional, whatever the date on their certificate. If you earned your CSCS before 2024, you need 6.0 CEUs earned within the cycle, from at least two categories, a current CPR/AED certification, and the recertification fee: $65 for NSCA members, $90 for non-members. Certified later, you need fewer CEUs: 4.0 if you were certified in 2024, 2.0 in 2025, 1.0 between January 1 and June 30, 2026, and none after that. The NSCA says there is no grace period. Miss the date and the certification expires.

With about eight weeks left, the total is only part of the job. When the NSCA explains why a recertification can stay incomplete after someone has reported and paid, it lists a category maximum exceeded, CEUs still needed in a second category, a membership, insurance or RSCC fee paid instead of the recertification fee, and a second certification left without its own application. Those are fixable. The three mistakes further down can cost the certification itself.

What the 2024-2026 cycle asks

There are two ways to recertify. The NSCA calls the first one the common pathway: earn and report CEUs, then pay the recertification fee. The second is to retake and pass the exam before the deadline. Both require a current CPR/AED certification.

The number of CEUs depends on the date shown on your certificate:

Certified before 2024: 6.0 CEUs, and a fee of $65 (member) or $90 (non-member).
Certified during 2024: 4.0 CEUs, $55 or $80.
Certified during 2025: 2.0 CEUs, $45 or $70.
Certified from January 1 to June 30, 2026: 1.0 CEU, $35 or $60.
Certified from July 1, 2026: nothing to report this cycle.

Every CEU must be earned between January 1, 2024, or your certification date if it’s later, and December 31, 2026. If you recertified during the late reporting period of the 2021-2023 cycle, the window opens on February 1, 2024. What you did before it doesn’t count, and nothing rolls over into the next cycle. For most activities, one contact hour is 0.1 CEU, so 6.0 CEUs is the equivalent of 60 contact hours.

If you hold more than one NSCA credential, you don’t earn the CEUs twice. Someone certified CSCS and NSCA-CPT before 2024 needs 6.0 CEUs in total. An activity counts toward each certification you already held when you completed it. But each certification needs its own recertification application, with its affirmation and fee.

What counts, and where

CEUs fall into four categories, and each one has a ceiling. For a CSCS certified before 2024, the maximums are 5.5 CEUs in Category A, 4.0 in B, 5.5 in C and 4.0 in D. None of them reaches 6.0, so no single category can cover the requirement. The NSCA also asks for CEUs from at least two categories, and whatever you report above a category’s maximum doesn’t count.

Category A, attendance. Clinics, conferences, workshops and live-streamed events, in person or virtual, at 0.1 CEU per hour and 2.0 at most per event. The event must be live. It doesn’t need pre-approval and it doesn’t have to be run by the NSCA, but its content must fall within the scope of practice or the content outline of your certification.
Category B, sharing your expertise. Presenting at a clinic, conference or workshop: 1.0 CEU per hour, 2.0 at most per presentation. A talk counts once per cycle however often you give it, and a talk at a certification-prep course counts only if it prepares for an NSCA certification. Publishing: 1.0 CEU for an article in a peer-reviewed journal, 1.5 in an NSCA publication, once it’s published within the cycle, not when it appears ahead of print. A full year in an NSCA volunteer role, such as state or provincial director, committee member or member of the Board of Directors (0.5 CEU per year), or a review for an NSCA journal or grant (0.1 CEU each).
Category C, educational activities. College courses started within the cycle and after your certification date, finished before it ends and passed with a C or better (0.5 CEU per semester credit hour, 2.0 at most per course), a first aid certification (0.5 CEU, once per cycle), a 150-hour internship in strength and conditioning or personal training that isn’t for academic credit (2.0), an additional NSCA certification or a fitness, sport or exercise nutrition certification from an NCCA-accredited program (2.0), home study courses pre-approved by the NSCA, and personal development. Here too, the content must fit the scope of your certification.
Category D, quizzes. NSCA quizzes on Strength and Conditioning Journal articles, videos or conferences, worth 0.2 to 1.0 CEU each, passed with a score of 70 or more.

Personal development is the catch-all. Reading journals and books, listening to podcasts, or taking a recorded course that isn’t on the NSCA’s pre-approved list earns 0.5 CEU per year for at least five hours of activity, as long as the content relates to your certification. Over the whole cycle, that’s 1.5 CEUs at most.

Three mistakes that cost the certification

1. Counting what the NSCA won’t count

Your NSCA account shows two numbers per category: what you reported and what it allows. They differ when you’ve gone over a maximum. Some activities also look like CEUs and aren’t, or are worth less than you’d expect.

Your CPR/AED renewal. It’s a requirement of the certification, not continuing education, and it earns no CEUs. Neither does a standard BLS course. A BLS course counts as first aid (0.5 CEU) only with documentation that first aid was part of it.
A recorded webinar or a self-paced online course. Unless the NSCA has pre-approved it, it can only go under personal development, which gives 0.5 CEU per year once you’ve logged five hours, and no more however many hours you add. A course you follow live online is different: it counts in Category A, without pre-approval.
Clinical content. Diagnosing, treating, manual therapy and kinesio taping fall outside the NSCA scope of practice. At a 20-hour physical therapy conference with 10 hours on injury prevention and 10 on treatment, only the prevention hours count, so 1.0 CEU.
Anything completed before January 1, 2024, or before your certification date.

The audit is where this gets expensive. The NSCA selects a percentage of recertified professionals at random and notifies them right after they pay the fee. They then have 45 days to submit proof of every CEU they reported and of a current CPR/AED certification. If the documents don’t come, or show an activity outside the scope of practice, the conditions for recertification aren’t met and the credential is revoked. The fee isn’t refunded. Keep certificates, transcripts and attendance letters as you go.

2. Letting the CPR/AED certification lapse

Whichever pathway you take, the NSCA asks you to maintain CPR/AED certification throughout the three-year cycle, not only on the day you report. An online renewal is accepted if your certification hasn’t lapsed, as long as the course covers adults and includes a hands-on skills assessment. If it has lapsed, you have to take the course in person.

So check the expiry date on your card now. If it runs out before you report, renew it before it lapses. After that, only an in-person course will do.

3. Reading December 31 as a soft deadline

The NSCA’s recertification FAQ answers the question directly: there is no grace period, and all CEUs must be earned and reported within the cycle. The NSCA did run a late reporting period after the 2021-2023 cycle, and its CEU page still mentions it. Don’t plan on one this time.

An appeal isn’t an extension either. The NSCA doesn’t review appeals before the cycle ends from people who expect to miss the deadline. If a natural disaster or a military deployment is the reason, the FAQ asks you to contact the recertification team about accommodation forms before the cycle ends. Otherwise, appeals for a missed recertification are for extenuating circumstances, such as a documented disability, a serious illness, a military deployment or a death in the immediate family, and for this cycle they’re accepted from February 1 to March 15, 2027.

The last steps have their own delays. The fee can only be paid once your CEUs are reported. CEUs from an NSCA event usually reach your account within one to two weeks, although you can enter them yourself. A quiz passed on nsca.com shows up within 24 hours. Report early enough to see the word “Complete” on your application before the year ends.

If you miss the deadline

The certification expires. Three routes remain, and they aren’t interchangeable.

Reinstatement is possible at any time, but only if you earned the required CEUs within the cycle you missed. CEUs can’t be made up after the deadline. You document them, show a current CPR/AED certification, and pay $200 plus the recertification fees you skipped. You keep your original certification date.
An appeal after a missed deadline is meant for extenuating circumstances, with supporting documents and a $50 fee that may be returned if the appeal is approved in full or in part. The Certification Committee decides at one of its two meetings a year, in spring and fall. Appeals aren’t accepted from people who have missed two or more cycles.
Without the CEUs, and without an accepted appeal, you retake and pass the exam. You then get a new certification date and a new certification number.

A lapse has two other costs. If you’re insured through the NSCA’s professional liability program, that coverage needs at least one active NSCA certification: if the CSCS was your only one, the insurance is void once it lapses. And from January 1, 2030, US candidates for the CSCS exam will need a bachelor’s degree from a CASCE-accredited program (for a degree from outside the US, the change waits until January 2036). The handbook exempts anyone who holds the CSCS or earns it before December 31, 2029. It doesn’t say how it treats a former holder who retests after that date.

Retesting instead of reporting CEUs

The second pathway asks for a passing score before December 31, 2026, a current CPR/AED certification, and an email to recertify@nsca.com once you’ve passed. The full CSCS exam costs $340 for NSCA members and $475 for non-members, against a recertification fee of $90 at most. The NSCA also points out that the exams are updated each cycle and recommends reviewing the current detailed content outline before you sit it.

Timing matters here too. After a failed attempt, you can’t register for a retake until 30 days have passed since that test date. After a third consecutive attempt, and after every attempt that follows it, the wait before the next attempt is one year. A first attempt late in the year can leave no time for a retake: you’d still need an open test date and a passing score before the deadline once the 30 days are over.

If you were certified in 2026

Certified on or after July 1, 2026, you have nothing to report this cycle. You start earning CEUs in January 2027, for a deadline of December 31, 2029.

Certified between January 1 and June 30, 2026, you need 1.0 CEU and a fee of $35 or $60. On the two-category rule, the NSCA’s pages don’t agree. The recertification policy and the recertification FAQ apply it to people certified before January 1, 2026; the Stay Certified and CEU category pages state it with no date limit. The safe choice is to use two categories anyway, a first aid certification (0.5) plus NSCA quizzes for example, or to ask recertify@nsca.com.

What to do in November

Log in to your NSCA account, open the Certification Overview and compare reported and allowed CEUs in each category.
Check the expiry date of your CPR/AED certification and renew it before it lapses.
Fill any gap in a category where you still have room, with activities that reach your account quickly: NSCA quizzes, live events, a first aid course.
Pay the recertification fee for each certification due this cycle, then check that each application shows “Complete”. The NSCA also sends a confirmation email.
Keep every document in one place, in case the audit picks you.

Sources

NSCA, Stay Certified: the 2024-2026 cycle, CEUs and fees by certification date, the two pathways, reinstatement.
NSCA, How to Maintain Your Certification, recertification policies and procedures for 2024-2026: categories and maximums, CPR/AED, audit, appeals, reinstatement fee.
NSCA, CEU Categories and Activities: what qualifies in each category, personal development, first aid and BLS.
NSCA, Recertification FAQs: grace period, appeal window, online CPR/AED renewal, certification after July 2026, multiple certifications.
NSCA, Audit of Compliance: random selection, 45 days, revocation.
NSCA, Fees and FAQ: when the recertification fee can be paid, liability insurance after a lapse.
NSCA, Certification Handbook, effective July 1, 2026: exam fees, retake policy, CPR/AED skills assessment, the 2030 CASCE rule.

FAQ

How many CEUs do you need to recertify the CSCS?

It depends on the date on your certificate. Certified before 2024: 6.0 CEUs earned within the cycle, from at least two categories. Certified in 2024: 4.0. In 2025: 2.0. From January 1 to June 30, 2026: 1.0. From July 1, 2026: none this cycle. If you’re due this cycle, you also need a current CPR/AED certification and the recertification fee.

Is there a grace period after December 31, 2026?

No. The NSCA’s recertification FAQ says all CEUs must be earned and reported within the cycle, by December 31, 2026. After that date the certification expires. Reinstatement remains possible if you earned the CEUs within the cycle, and appeals for extenuating circumstances are accepted from February 1 to March 15, 2027.

What happens if your CSCS lapses?

It expires. If you earned the required CEUs during the cycle, you can apply for reinstatement, pay $200 plus the unpaid recertification fees, and keep your original certification date. If you didn’t, CEUs can’t be made up afterwards: you retake and pass the exam, unless an appeal for extenuating circumstances is accepted.

Retesting, or sitting the CSCS for the first time?

Engram Kinetics prepares you for it through decision training: 114 guided lessons, 32 decision banks, 8 case studies, 12 masterclasses and 3 practice exams. In the Engrams, every wrong option names the decision error behind it. $199, one payment. Engram Kinetics is not an NSCA-approved CEU provider, and its programs don’t award CEUs.

Start the CSCS sampler See the NSCA-CSCS program

Free account needed for the sampler.