- The exam is 150 questions in 2 hours; you need 113 correct, which NAPS describes as 75%.
- Registration costs $300 for NAPS members or $600 for nonmembers, including the legal manual, exam and certificate.
- Ten preparation topics, from laws of discrimination to joint employer, are unweighted, so study all of them.
- Renewal requires 20 contact hours (2.0 CEUs) yearly, 17 of them NAPS-approved content.
The One-Page Snapshot: Exam Format and Numbers
The Certified Temporary-Staffing Specialist (CTS) credential is run by the National Association of Personnel Services (NAPS). If you only have ten minutes before a study session, this section is the part to memorize. Everything here comes straight from NAPS's public descriptions of the program.
| Item | What to Know |
|---|---|
| Administering body | National Association of Personnel Services (NAPS) |
| Delivery | Online exam through the NAPS Certification Center; optional Certification Immersion Class (CIC) offers a paper-and-pencil exam |
| Number of questions | 150 |
| Question types | Multiple-choice, true/false, and case-based multiple-choice |
| Time limit | 2 hours |
| Passing requirement | 113 correct answers, described by NAPS as 75% |
| Study material | Certified Temporary Staffing Specialist Manual (legal manual), updated annually |
Do the pacing math before you ever open the exam window. Two hours for 150 questions leaves roughly 48 seconds per question on average. True/false items will go faster, which buys you extra time for the case-based items, where you must read a short scenario and pick the best legal or procedural answer. For a deeper look at how that pacing feels in practice, see our breakdown of how hard the CTS exam is.
The 113-correct threshold means you can miss 37 questions and still pass. That is a meaningful cushion, but because the exam is broad and the topics are unweighted, a single neglected domain can quietly consume most of it. Our guide to the CTS passing score covers the arithmetic in more detail.
Fees, Retests and Renewal at a Glance
NAPS prices the CTS with a member/nonmember split, and the registration fee bundles the study material, the exam attempt and the certificate. That bundling matters when you compare costs, because you are not buying a separate manual on top of the exam fee.
| Cost Item | NAPS Member | Nonmember |
|---|---|---|
| Registration (legal manual, exam, certificate) | $300 | $600 |
| Retest | $150 | $300 |
| Annual renewal (individual) | $35 (individual at a member firm) | $50 |
Two quick observations. First, the nonmember registration fee is exactly double the member rate, and a retest is half the registration fee in each category. Second, the renewal fee is due on your examination anniversary, not on a calendar-year date. For the full picture, including how the totals compare over several years, read our CTS certification cost breakdown.
Joining NAPS is not required to sit for the exam, so the decision is purely financial: weigh the membership cost against the $300 difference in registration and the lower renewal and retest rates.
Who Can Sit for It: The Eligibility Wrinkle
Eligibility is the one area where NAPS's own public pages do not line up perfectly, and a good cheat sheet should say so plainly rather than paper over it.
- No length-of-service requirement. You do not need a set number of years in the industry.
- No NAPS membership requirement. Nonmembers can register at the higher fee.
- Ethics and rules. Candidates must accept the NAPS ethical standards and program rules.
- The conflict. The current CTS page extends access to HR professionals and hiring managers. The Certification Program Rules page, however, retains language requiring candidates to be currently employed, full-time owners, partners, managers or employees in the temporary-service business.
Because those two statements pull in different directions, confirm your situation with NAPS directly if you fall outside the traditional staffing-firm employee profile, such as an HR generalist at a client company. Our CTS requirements guide walks through how to approach that question.
The 10 Topic Areas, Compressed
NAPS publishes a list of preparation topics rather than a weighted exam blueprint. The first six come from NAPS's public FAQ, and the manual description adds four more (with overlap on discrimination and contracts listed once). Treat all ten as fair game, since no official percentage weights were located. The complete walk-through lives in our guide to all 10 CTS content areas; the table below is the compressed version.
| # | Topic Area | One-Line Focus |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Laws of discrimination | Protected classes and what staffing firms may not do in hiring and assignment |
| 2 | Application and interview practices | Lawful questions, documentation, and consistency |
| 3 | Contracts | Agreements with clients and workers, and what they must address |
| 4 | Employer/employment definitions | Who counts as the employer and what counts as employment |
| 5 | Screening and selection of temporary workers | Evaluating candidates fairly and defensibly |
| 6 | Laws unique to temporary services work | Rules that apply specifically to the staffing model |
| 7 | Family leave | Leave obligations and how they interact with temporary assignments |
| 8 | ADA | Disability law, accommodation, and the interactive process |
| 9 | Drug testing | Testing policy, consistency, and legal risk |
| 10 | Joint employer | Shared responsibility between staffing firm and client |
Domains 1, 2 and 5: The Hiring-Pipeline Cluster
These three topics describe one continuous process: how you advertise, interview and select a temporary worker without creating discrimination exposure.
- Know which interview topics are safe and which invite liability.
- Understand why consistent, documented selection criteria are your best defense.
- Expect case-based questions that hand you a recruiter's action and ask whether it was lawful.
Domains 3, 4 and 10: The Relationship Cluster
Contracts, employer definitions and joint employer all answer the same underlying question: who is responsible to the worker, and for what?
- Learn how the staffing firm and the client business can each carry employer-type obligations.
- Connect contract language to the legal duties it can and cannot shift.
- Practice spotting the facts in a scenario that point toward shared employment.
Domains 7, 8 and 9: The Workplace-Compliance Cluster
Family leave, the ADA and drug testing are the topics most likely to produce scenario questions about a worker already on assignment.
- Understand how leave and accommodation duties apply when a worker is placed through a staffing firm.
- Know the principles behind a defensible drug-testing program, especially consistency.
- Pay attention to who is responsible for what when the worker sits at a client site.
Domain 6, laws unique to temporary services work, deserves its own flag. It is the topic that distinguishes this credential from a general HR exam, so candidates with a broad HR background should not assume their existing knowledge covers it. Our CTS study guide suggests ways to give it extra attention.
High-Frequency Confusions to Memorize
These are not official exam items, since the exam is private and the manual is paid content. They are the conceptual distinctions that the ten topic areas naturally push you to keep straight, and they are worth rehearsing until they feel automatic.
Employer versus joint employer
Domain 4 asks who the employer is; Domain 10 asks what happens when two businesses share that role. Do not treat them as the same question. One defines the term, the other applies it to the three-party staffing relationship.
Lawful interview question versus lawful hiring decision
A question can be asked in a way that creates risk even if the final decision turns out to be sound. In Domain 2 scenarios, evaluate the practice, not only the outcome.
Screening versus discrimination
Domain 5 is about legitimate, job-related evaluation, while Domain 1 is about the legal limits on that evaluation. The best answer in a case-based question usually respects both at once.
Accommodation versus lowering a standard
Under Domain 8, think of accommodation as helping a qualified person perform essential job functions, not as waiving the job's requirements. Keep that framing in mind when a scenario describes a worker request.
Policy existence versus policy consistency
For drug testing in Domain 9, having a policy is only half the story. Applying it consistently is where defensibility lives, and exam scenarios often hinge on whether it was applied evenly.
Key Takeaway
For case-based items, read the scenario twice and identify which of the ten topic areas it belongs to before looking at the answer choices. Naming the domain first narrows the legal framework you should apply and helps you eliminate plausible-sounding distractors.
A Domain-Ordered Review Schedule
Because the topics cluster naturally, the most efficient review order follows those clusters rather than the numbered list. This is the only scheduling section in this cheat sheet, and it is tied directly to the ten CTS topic areas. Adjust the pace to the date you plan to sit; see CTS exam dates and scheduling for how to plan around your own timeline.
Definitions First
- Domain 4: Employer/employment definitions
- Domain 10: Joint employer
- Why first: every later topic assumes you know who the employer is.
The Hiring Pipeline
- Domain 1: Laws of discrimination
- Domain 2: Application and interview practices
- Domain 5: Screening and selection of temporary workers
Staffing-Specific Law and Contracts
- Domain 6: Laws unique to temporary services work
- Domain 3: Contracts
Compliance Topics and Full Review
- Domain 7: Family leave
- Domain 8: ADA
- Domain 9: Drug testing
- Finish with timed practice at the real pace of 150 questions in 2 hours
You can run this over a longer stretch if the legal material is new to you. Starting with the practice questions on the CTS practice test site after each week helps you find weak domains early, while there is still time to revisit them.
Maintaining the Credential
Earning the certificate is not the finish line. NAPS requires ongoing education to keep it active.
- Annual requirement: 20 contact hours, equal to 2.0 CEUs.
- Approved content: at least 17 of those hours must come from NAPS-approved content.
- Renewal fee: $35 for individuals at member firms, $50 for nonmembers.
- Due date: your examination anniversary.
Plan renewal as a recurring calendar item from day one. The manual and exam are updated annually, which is one reason NAPS ties maintenance to yearly education; the public descriptions do not identify a specific current manual edition, so check which version your registration includes. If you are weighing whether the ongoing commitment pays off, our CTS ROI analysis takes up that question.
Quick-Fire FAQ
The exam has 150 questions in 2 hours. Question types include multiple-choice, true/false and case-based multiple-choice.
You need 113 correct answers, which NAPS describes as 75%. That allows up to 37 missed questions.
No. NAPS advertises a 97% pass rate for immersion class participants across CPC and CTS combined. It is not an overall CTS pass rate, and no overall figure is cited here. See our CTS pass rate article for how to read that number carefully.
No. Membership is not required, but nonmembers pay $600 to register instead of $300, and retests cost $300 instead of $150.
No official weighting was found. The ten topics are NAPS's preparation curriculum, not a published exam blueprint with percentages, so prepare across all of them rather than betting on a few.
This cheat sheet is a starting point, not a replacement for the NAPS manual. Pair the facts above with the official study material, and use targeted practice on the main practice test site to confirm you can apply the ten topic areas under time pressure.