Common Questions about ISA Credentials

Applications for all ISA credential programs can completed online and immediately sent to ISA using our online credentialing portal. To access the portal, use the same login information associated with your ISA account. If you do not have an ISA account you can sign up for one today.  

Only approved applicants will be able to move forward and enroll in an exam or register for a course.

Submitted applications will be reviewed within five (5) US business days. You will be notified by ISA of your application approval by email. If our team requires more information for approval, you will also be notified by email. You may review application status at any time through ISA’s credentialing system portal. You will only be able to enroll for an examination or register for a course once you have an approved application in the system for the program.

There are no practice exams available at this time. To help you study, we do offer exam outlines on the information page for each of our different program. We also offer suggested study materials within the ISA Store. 

Computer-based exams provide result notification immediately upon completion of the exam. Within four to six weeks, your results will be posted to your ISA account’s credentialing portal (you can login here) and mailed to the address we have in your account.  Your results are confidential. Please note that results cannot be obtained over the phone or by fax. 

ISA exam materials are confidential, to protect the integrity of the exam, individual question results cannot be made available for review of the questions and answers, and ISA does not provide a list of questions that were answered correctly or incorrectly. The only information available regarding your performance on the exam is provided on your score report. 

ISA Certification exams are sponsored by an ISA Certification Partner organization or offered through a Pearson VUE testing center. Candidates with a valid and approved application are able to view, search, and enroll for available examination events. For more information on local examination events, please contact your local ISA Certification Partner. To find out if a Pearson VUE testing center is close to you, visit https://www.pearsonvue.com/isa. 

Our current processing time for events that have been pre-approved for CEUs is four to six weeks. 

If you are an ISA credential holder and/or member, or if you have purchased any ISA products in the past, you have an online account with ISA. On your account’s Dashboard, look for ISA Credentialing which will take you directly to our credentialing system portal. You may also navigate to the portal directly, accessing the system using the same login information associated with your ISA account.

The costs associated with the ISA Certification or Qualification programs are outlined below and help support a wide spectrum of Credentialing Services—including application vetting and support, examination development and delivery, ethics and compliance monitoring, CEU management and recertification processing, as well as continued support for local ISA Components and Certification Partners.  

The credential programs ISA offers follow a pricing structure that includes a 20% discount on specified fees for ISA members and current credential holders as an acknowledgment of their impact in fulfilling ISA’s mission of promoting the professional practice of arboriculture. 

Fees for all ISA Certifications (excluding ISA Board Certified Master Arborist®):  

Fees for ISA Board Certified Master Arborist® program: 

Fees for the ISA Tree Risk Assessment Qualification (ISA TRAQ):

For ISA TRAQ, there is a standard application fee of $50 USD or $40 USD if you are an ISA member or a current credential holder. The program registration costs, cancellation and refund policies may vary and are provided by each course host. To find the price for a specific course, eligible applicants should login into their ISA account to view the list of TRAQ Courses offerings, click the course they are interested in, and follow the links to the registration information. 

No, the goal for our recertification program requirements is for current credential holders to: 1) gain new knowledge of up-to-date theories and techniques in the arboriculture industry; 2) transfer this knowledge and skills into their  professional practice; 3) improve overall tree care. 

The recertification period currently set and supported by the ISA Credentialing Council is three (3) years. This means that the achievement of the goals described above needs to happen within each three (3) year cycle. This is the reason why “roll over” of CEUs from one recertification period to another is not allowed.  

There are several ISA Certifications that offer exams in languages other than English.  

The ISA Certified Arborist® examination is also offered in French (Canadian),  Traditional Chinese, and Spanish. 

The ISA Certified Tree Climber examination is offered in Traditional Chinese,  Japanese, and Spanish. 

To better serve the diverse global community of arborists and tree care professionals, all program guides available on the ISA website have been updated to include Unicode-compliant text. This allows for easier translation using tools such as Google Translate. 

Additionally, the ISA credentialing system portal is optimized to support multilingual access for non-English speakers. 

Learn more about our online credentialing system here.