The North Dakota Hearing Aid Specialist license, issued by the Board of Hearing Aid Specialists under Chapter 43-33 of the North Dakota Century Code, authorizes the holder to sell and fit hearing instruments in North Dakota. Licensure by examination means written and practical tests whose scope the Century Code itself publishes in §43-33-09. The PassProfessor North Dakota Hearing Aid Specialist program, described on the companion program page at /north-dakota-hearing-instrument-specialist-exam-prep/, prepares candidates for that Board-designated qualifying examination.
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The credential at a glance
| Item | Verified position |
|---|---|
| Program | North Dakota Hearing Aid Specialist, the license issued under North Dakota Century Code Chapter 43-33 to a hearing aid specialist |
| Licensing authority | Board of Hearing Aid Specialists, established by §43-33-15; the Board prepares and administers the qualifying examinations, issues and renews licenses, and designates the time and place for examining applicants (§43-33-14) |
| Examination | Licensure by examination under §43-33-07: the applicant appears at a time, place, and before such persons as the Board designates, to be examined by means of written and practical tests. The Board gives examinations once a year, and may give more frequent examinations if it deems them necessary. The Century Code does not name the written test, does not attribute it to any outside testing organization, and provides for no separate state law or rules examination |
| Examination scope | §43-33-09: tests of knowledge — basic physics of sound; the anatomy and physiology of the ear; the function of hearing instruments; elementary audiology; and any other requirements established by the Board — and practical tests of proficiency in fitting techniques (stated in full below) |
| Passing standard | No passing score or percentage is published in Chapter 43-33, and none is printed in this package (see the INTERNAL Omissions note) |
| Eligibility | At least 18 years of age; of good moral character; an education equivalent to a four-year course in an accredited high school; and free of contagious or infectious disease (§43-33-07) |
| Route | Qualifications → (optional Temporary Trainee Permit training year) → Board-designated written and practical qualifying examination → license → annual renewal with continuing education |
| Administrator note | PassProfessor is independent and is not affiliated with the Board of Hearing Aid Specialists |
North Dakota rewards candidates who read the credential as the legislature built it: a short chapter of law that does almost everything itself. Chapter 43-33 defines the practice, sets the qualifications, names the training permit and its hours, publishes the examination’s scope in the statute, fixes the renewal and continuing-education terms, and lists the conduct the license can be lost for. There is no separate blueprint document to hunt down and no vendor’s bulletin standing between the candidate and the standard: the standard is the chapter. The guide below takes each verified element in turn.
Reading the verified facts
Every fact in the table above was pinned to the official text of Chapter 43-33 during this program’s research pass. Three reading rules apply throughout the guide. First, the written test is never given a name the Code does not give it. Candidates arriving from other states’ material will meet references to national written examinations used elsewhere; Chapter 43-33 names none of them, attributes the written test to no outside organization, and describes a qualifying examination the Board designates, prepares, and administers (§§43-33-07, 43-33-14). Any source that tells a North Dakota candidate the name, format, length, or provider of the written test is going beyond the official record verified for this guide, and the candidate should ask the Board rather than trust the source. Second, no passing standard is printed, because the chapter publishes none: there is no percentage, scaled score, or section minimum in §§43-33-07 or 43-33-09, and converting the scope list into an imagined cut score would invent a fact. Third, the permit and the license are never merged: the Temporary Trainee Permit (§43-33-08) authorizes supervised training; the license (§43-33-06) authorizes independent practice; figures belonging to one are stated only for that one.
The route, step by step
Step one — establish the qualifications. Section 43-33-07 sets four: at least eighteen years of age; good moral character; an education equivalent to a four-year course in an accredited high school; and freedom from contagious or infectious disease. Two Code provisions soften the edges candidates most often worry about. A criminal conviction does not itself disqualify: under §43-33-02.1 it bars licensure only if the Board determines the offense bears directly on the person’s ability to serve the public as a hearing aid specialist, or that the person is not sufficiently rehabilitated under §12.1-33-02.1. And the examination itself is level-set by statute: it may not be conducted so that college training is required to pass, and may not imply the medical competence expected of physicians. Step two — decide whether to train on the permit. The Temporary Trainee Permit is optional in the sense that §43-33-07 does not make it a precondition of examination — but it is the only structured training the chapter provides, and the practical tests examine exactly the proficiencies a supervised year builds. Its terms are stated in the outline section below. Step three — apply and appear. The applicant appears at the time and place, and before the persons, the Board designates, and pays the examination fee the Board sets. Because the Board gives examinations once a year — more often only if it deems more frequent sittings necessary — the application belongs early in the candidate’s planning, not at the end of it. Step four — the license. The Board registers the applicant who passes and, on payment of the Board’s fee, issues the license signed by the secretary of the Board, effective until the expiration date stated on the license and identification card (§43-33-06). Step five — the endorsement alternative. An applicant already licensed by examination in another jurisdiction whose requirements and qualification program the Board finds equivalent or stricter may receive a certificate of endorsement without a qualifying examination, on the same fee footing as an initial license; the door is closed to anyone whose out-of-state license was obtained by experience.
The outline in full
The outline is §43-33-09, and it has two halves and a repeated tail. Each half closes with “any other requirements established by the board,” which means the outline below is complete as far as the statute goes and deliberately open where the statute leaves it open. The two halves are stated here in full, in the Code’s own order, because they interlock: the knowledge tests name the principles, and the practical tests name the same work performed.
The tests of knowledge
(a) Basic physics of sound. The foundation subject: what sound is and how it behaves, at the depth fitting decisions require — the candidate who cannot reason about sound cannot reason about thresholds, gain, or why an instrument behaves as it does in a real ear. (b) The anatomy and physiology of the ear. The structures the audiometer interrogates: the pathway from outer ear to auditory nerve, and the points along it where function fails and measurement changes. (c) The function of hearing instruments. What the devices do — amplification and its controls and limits — understood as function, the Code’s word, rather than as a catalogue of models. (d) Elementary audiology. The measurement discipline named at its statutory level: elementary audiology is the audiometry of the fitting room — thresholds, speech measures, and their interpretation for selection — examined as a working knowledge, not as clinical diagnosis. (e) Any other requirements established by the Board. The candidate’s obligation to the Board’s current directions: whatever the Board has established beyond the four named areas is, by the statute’s own terms, part of the examination.
The practical tests of proficiency
(a) Pure tone audiometry, including air conduction testing and bone conduction testing. The core performed skill, and the one the rest of the fitting stands on: thresholds obtained correctly by both pathways, in correct sequence, recorded correctly. (b) Live voice or recorded voice speech audiometry, including speech reception threshold testing and speech discrimination testing. The speech half of the measurement: the level at which speech is received and the accuracy with which it is discriminated, obtained by live or recorded voice as the test requires. (c) Masking when indicated. Three words that carry a judgement examination: not masking by routine, and not masking never, but recognizing the presentations in which the non-test ear would otherwise answer for the test ear — and applying masking in exactly those. (d) Recording and evaluation of audiograms and speech audiometry to determine proper selection and adaptation of a hearing instrument. The hinge technique, where the practical test stops being measurement and becomes fitting: the record evaluated, and a selection and adaptation decision drawn from it and defended. (e) Taking earmold impressions. The physical craft: inspection, safe procedure, and a finished impression that reproduces the ear. (f) Hearing instrument modification technique. The adjustment craft: modifying the instrument to the wearer, the skill that turns a selected device into a fitted one. (g) Any other requirements established by the Board — the practical half’s open clause, mirroring the written half’s.
The training the chapter prescribes: the trainee year in detail
Because §43-33-08 is the closest thing North Dakota publishes to a preparation syllabus, it deserves its own pass. The trainee permit issues on application and the Board’s fee to an applicant meeting the §43-33-07 age, character, education, and health requirements; no previous experience or waiting period may be required. The trainee trains for one year under the direct supervision of a licensee, in the same place of business as the supervisor. The floor of the training is numerical: at least thirty hours of book and visual aid training and at least ten hours of training with an audiometer. The public-contact rules are staged: a minimum of one week with the supervisor before the trainee’s first public contact alone; no dealing with the public outside the supervisor’s office until the initial requirements are fulfilled; after that initial period, one day per week in the office or place of business with the supervisor; and no sale of a hearing instrument without first consulting the supervisor and obtaining the supervisor’s approval. A supervisor may not have more than three trainees at a time, and the Board keeps a record of trainees, their place of training, and their supervisors (§43-33-10). If the trainee has not passed the licensing examination within the year, the permit may be renewed or reissued once, on the Board’s fee. Read as a study plan, the section tells the candidate where the examination’s weight sits: supervised audiometer hours and staged public contact first, book training alongside, and sales last and only under approval — the reverse of the order an unsupervised self-studier would naturally choose.
What is not published — and why this guide prints nothing in its place
A slower pass over the gaps is worthwhile, because in North Dakota the gaps are where third-party material most often misleads. No passing score appears in Chapter 43-33: not for the written tests, not for the practical tests, not as an overall standard. No examination length, item count, or format detail for the written test appears there either — the Code says written and practical tests, before Board designees, and stops. No fee amounts appear: the examination fee, the license fee, and the trainee permit fee are each set by the Board, and the chapter states the mechanism, not the numbers. No separate law examination and no named national examination appear, as the reading rules above state. Each of these is a fact about the official record, not an oversight in this guide: the Board “shall give examinations once a year at a time and place designated by the board” and designates the persons before whom applicants appear, which makes the Board’s own current communications — not any preparation provider’s page, including this one — the authority for sitting logistics. The candidate who builds a plan on the published scope, the published route, and the Board’s designated date has built it on everything the state has actually promised.
The sittings themselves
The sitting is the simplest in this family of credentials to describe, because the statute describes it in one sentence: the applicant “shall appear at a time, place, and before such persons as the board designates, to be examined by means of written and practical tests.” Three practical consequences follow. First, the date is the Board’s, and it comes once a year: §43-33-07 obliges the Board to give examinations once a year and permits more frequent sittings only as the Board deems necessary, so the candidate’s calendar is built around the designated sitting rather than around personal readiness alone. Second, the examiners are the Board’s designees: §43-33-14 gives the Board the power to appoint representatives to conduct or supervise the examination, and the practical tests are proficiency tests — performance observed by the people the Board appoints, not a self-paced instrument. Third, the Board is a working body with its own rhythm: it meets not less than twice a year (§43-33-17), keeps the records of licensees’ places of business and of trainees and their supervisors, and gives notices by certified mail to the licensee’s last notified place of business (§43-33-10) — a mechanical reason to keep the Board’s record of your address current from the trainee year onward. Candidates should confirm the designated time, place, and any Board-established requirements under §43-33-09’s open clauses directly with the Board well before the annual sitting.
A study plan built on how this examination is actually put together
Build the plan in the order §43-33-09 lists the work, weighted by the calendar. First, the annual date: fix the Board’s designated sitting as the plan’s endpoint and count backwards — a North Dakota plan without the date is a reading list, not a plan. Second, the performed audiometry — pure tone air and bone conduction, then speech reception threshold and discrimination — rehearsed on real ears under supervision until procedure, sequence, and recording are stable under observation, because the practical half is half the examination. Third, masking judgement: cases worked until the indication is recognized before the technique is reached for. Fourth, the hinge skill — recording and evaluating audiograms and speech results into a selection and adaptation decision — practised as complete fittings, impression and modification included, so the seven techniques are learned as one sequence rather than seven fragments. Fifth, the knowledge four — physics of sound, ear anatomy and physiology, function of hearing instruments, elementary audiology — studied against the performed work, each principle tied to a measurement the candidate has actually made. Sixth, the Board’s other requirements: whatever the Board has established under the open clauses, confirmed directly, and folded into the final weeks rather than discovered after them.
The working method: turning the outline into a performance
North Dakota preparation fails most often as a modality problem and a calendar problem at once: candidates read for a performance examination, on a schedule that ignores the annual sitting. The working method that answers both has four parts. Perform weekly, from the trainee year onward. Full audiometric runs — air, bone, speech, masking where indicated — and full impression and modification sequences, done on real people with the real recording forms, with every deviation from procedure named and corrected on the spot; the trainee year’s audiometer hours are the raw material, and deliberate rehearsal is what refines them into examination proficiency. An error log keyed to §43-33-09. Every missed knowledge item and botched practical step filed under its statutory paragraph — knowledge (a) through (e), practical (a) through (g) — so that after a month the log, not the candidate’s confidence, assigns the remaining study. Decisions defended aloud. The hinge technique, evaluation into selection and adaptation, practised as a spoken defence of each fitting decision, because a proficiency examiner’s questions are answered the same way. A calendar with the permit on it. The trainee permit’s year, its single renewal, the Board’s designated examination date, and the study peak plotted on one page — in North Dakota the route’s clocks are few, fixed, and unforgiving, and every one of them is published in advance.
The errors this examination is built to catch
The North Dakota set catches a recognisable set. Importing another state’s examination — preparing for a named national written test the Century Code never mentions, in a format it never specifies — spends the year on someone else’s paper; North Dakota’s authority is Chapter 43-33 and the Board’s designations under it. Studying the practical techniques as theory — knowing how masking works without having masked, under observation, repeatedly — meets an examination that tests proficiency. Treating the two audiometries as one skill concedes the speech half: reception threshold and discrimination are listed separately because they are performed separately. Skipping from measurement to sale — omitting the evaluation step §43-33-09(d) names — fails the technique the whole examination builds toward, and repeats, in miniature, the exact conduct §43-33-12 makes a revocation ground: sale without adequate and proper audiometric testing, or where need has not been established after such testing. Missing the annual sitting, or letting the trainee permit lapse past its single renewal while waiting for a more convenient year that the statute does not promise. And preparing only to the printed list while ignoring the Board’s other established requirements — the open clauses are in the statute precisely so that the list is not the whole examination.
The credential in one view
The North Dakota Hearing Aid Specialist license in one view is a chain of measured trust inside a single short chapter. The chapter defines the practice as measurement for the purpose of selection; trains the entrant under a licensee’s eye on staged public contact and supervised sales; tests the result twice over — what the candidate knows, in the four named areas, and what the candidate can do, in the seven named techniques; hands the passer a license that must hang on the wall of the place of business; and then holds the licensee, annually, to fees, ten hours of continuing education, and a conduct code whose first substantive sins are failures of measurement itself. The examination sits at the hinge of that chain, built in the chain’s own image: its knowledge tests are the trainee year’s book training examined, its practical tests are the trainee year’s supervised hours examined, and its most emphasised technique — evaluation carried through to selection — is the licensed act itself, performed once under examination conditions before it is performed for a career under the license.
After the sitting: the license and its clocks
Passing the qualifying examination and paying the Board’s fee produces the license under §43-33-06, and the clocks that govern it are annual. Renewal comes before expiration each year, on the proper fees with a certificate showing a minimum of ten hours of continuing education per calendar year at Board-approved schools or seminars pertaining to the fitting and sales of hearing instruments (§43-33-11). A thirty-day grace period follows expiration; after it, the Board may still renew on the same fees-and-certificate showing; and a licensee who applies within two years of expiration, with continuing education for the twelve months immediately preceding the application, may not be required to submit to an examination as a condition of renewal. Around the renewal clock run the standing duties: written notice to the Board of each regular place of business, the license conspicuously posted there, the §43-33-03 receipt with its signature, business address, license certificate number, make and model, full terms of sale, “used” or “reconditioned” marking where applicable, and the statutory statement that the specialist’s examination is not a medical examination, diagnosis, or prescription. The conduct frame of §§43-33-12 and 43-33-13 — no sale of a license, no false statements in applications, no sale to a person under eighteen unless a physician and an audiologist have examined that person within the preceding six months, no fitting or sale under a false name — is the daily operating standard the jurisprudence-free North Dakota route nonetheless examines its licensees by, through enforcement rather than through a test. And the institution behind it all stands as the legislature left it: the Board of Hearing Aid Specialists, whose consolidation into another board a 2025 bill (SB 2203) proposed and failed to pass.
Frequently asked questions
Which sources govern the North Dakota route?
Chapter 43-33 of the North Dakota Century Code is the governing source: §43-33-07 for licensure by examination and its qualifications, §43-33-09 for the examination’s scope, §43-33-08 for the trainee permit, §43-33-06 for issuance and endorsement, and §43-33-11 for renewal. Sitting logistics — the designated time, place, and examiners — come from the Board of Hearing Aid Specialists, which the Code charges with designating them.
Why does this guide not name the written examination?
Because the Century Code does not name it. Section 43-33-07 describes written and practical tests before Board designees, and §43-33-14 makes the Board the body that prepares and administers the qualifying examinations. Naming an outside examination or provider would add a fact the official record does not contain; candidates should confirm the Board’s current directions directly.
Is there a North Dakota law or rules test?
No separate law or rules examination appears in Chapter 43-33. The chapter’s requirements govern the licensee in practice — receipts, prohibited acts, renewal, and discipline — but licensure by examination rests on the written and practical qualifying tests alone.
What passing score should I aim at?
None is published in Chapter 43-33, and none is printed in this guide. The honest target is the §43-33-09 scope at working proficiency — the knowledge areas known and the seven techniques performable under observation. Any percentage quoted by third-party material for this examination should be treated as unverified.
Does the trainee permit have to come before the examination?
The Code does not state it as a precondition: §43-33-07’s route runs on the four qualifications and the examination. The permit is the chapter’s structured training route — one supervised year with stated training hours and staged public contact — and the practical tests examine the proficiencies that year is designed to build. A permit holder who has not passed within the year may have the permit renewed or reissued once.
Why does the examination forbid a college-training standard?
Section 43-33-07 provides that the examination may not be conducted in such a manner that college training is required to pass it, and may not imply that the applicant must possess the degree of medical competence normally expected of physicians. The credential is set at the level of the fitting trade the license authorizes — no higher, and, as the practical scope shows, no lower.
What should I do after an unsuccessful attempt?
Work from §43-33-09 against the performance: the scope is short enough to audit honestly, paragraph by paragraph, and the open clauses mean the Board’s established requirements should be re-confirmed before the next sitting. Protect the route’s clocks while rebuilding — the trainee permit’s single renewal and the annual examination cycle set the timetable, and the Board may give more frequent examinations only if it deems them necessary.
How does endorsement differ from licensure by examination?
Endorsement under §43-33-06 is the Board’s discretionary recognition of an out-of-state license by examination, where the other jurisdiction’s requirements are equivalent to or higher than North Dakota’s and its qualification program equivalent or stricter. No qualifying examination is required, the fees mirror initial licensure, and renewal, suspension, and revocation follow the license rules. A license obtained by experience in the other jurisdiction cannot be endorsed.
What continuing education does renewal require?
A minimum of ten hours per calendar year at schools or seminars approved by the Board, pertaining to the fitting and sales of hearing instruments, evidenced by the certificate filed with the renewal fees before the license expires, with a thirty-day grace period after expiration.
Does North Dakota restrict who may sell to a minor?
Yes. Under §43-33-12, fitting and selling a hearing instrument to a person under eighteen is a ground for revocation unless, within six months before the fitting, that person has been examined by a physician and an audiologist to determine whether any physical deficiencies would prohibit the effective use of a hearing instrument.
Is PassProfessor affiliated with the Board of Hearing Aid Specialists?
No. PassProfessor is an independent preparation provider. The Board alone licenses; this program is not a Board course and satisfies no training requirement.
When does enrollment open for the PassProfessor program?
The program is in the works and enrollment is not yet open. Leave an email address on this page and PassProfessor will write to you when the program is ready — and only about this program.