RTVI Certification Cost 2026: Complete Pricing Breakdown

The Fee Snapshot: What ARRT Charges

The Registered Technologist - Vascular-Interventional Radiography credential, which this site abbreviates as RTVI, is earned through the American Registry of Radiologic Technologists (ARRT). Officially, ARRT calls the discipline Vascular Interventional Radiography (VI), and it is a postprimary credential. That distinction matters for cost planning: you are not paying for a standalone entry-level certification. You are adding VI on top of an ARRT Radiography credential you already hold, so your fee structure is simpler than a primary pathway, but your eligibility prerequisites carry their own price tags.

Here are the published ARRT fees that apply directly to this credential:

Always confirm the current figures on the ARRT fee page before you submit payment, since the registry can revise fee schedules. If you want the full picture of who qualifies and what documents you need first, our RTVI requirements guide walks through the postprimary pathway step by step.

Costs That Come Before the Application Fee

Many candidates budget only for the $225 and are surprised by what they spent before they could even submit it. VI is a postprimary credential, so several prerequisites carry costs that sit outside the ARRT fee schedule.

Current Radiography certification and registration

You must hold current ARRT certification and registration in Radiography. If you are already a working radiologic technologist, you are likely paying this renewal already, and it does not add a separate cost for VI. If your Radiography registration has lapsed, reinstating it is a prerequisite cost you must resolve first. Note that Nuclear Medicine Technology or Radiation Therapy alone is not a supporting credential for VI, so those technologists need Radiography in place before they can pursue this route.

Ethics compliance

You must comply with ARRT ethics requirements. There is no separate fee line for this, but a past violation can complicate or delay an application, so review your standing before you spend money elsewhere.

Basic Life Support certification

Clinical eligibility requires current BLS certification from an ARRT-recognized provider. Costs for BLS courses vary by provider and region, and many hospital employers cover or reimburse the class. If your employer does not, plan to pay for it yourself and keep the card current through your application and testing window.

What the $225 Buys You on Exam Day

Your application fee covers an examination delivered through Pearson VUE test centers. Understanding the format helps you judge whether extra prep spending is justified, because the exam is long and demanding.

• 210 total questions: 160 are scored and 50 are unscored pilot questions. You cannot tell which are which, so treat every item as live.
• 210 minutes of answering time within a 230-minute appointment. The extra time covers the tutorial, nondisclosure agreement and survey.
• Computer-based and closed book. Questions are primarily single-best-answer multiple choice, with possible alternative formats and image-based items. The ARRT handbook also describes multiple-response and ordered-response formats.
• Calculators: basic and scientific on-screen calculators are available, and Pearson can supply a basic four-function calculator on request. Personal calculators are prohibited.
• Navigation: you must answer each item before advancing, but you can flag and revisit answers.

The passing score is 75 on ARRT's 1-99 scaled-score range. That is a scaled score, not 75% correct, which is a common misunderstanding. Our RTVI passing score explainer covers how scaling works so you do not misjudge your practice results.

Retake Math: $200 Per Reapplication

The retake policy shapes your risk budget. ARRT allows three examination attempts within three years of the opening of the initial examination window. Each reapplication costs $200, which is slightly less than the initial $225 but still a meaningful expense if you underprepare.

For 2025, ARRT's Annual Exam Report lists a 61.2% first-time pass rate for 454 first-time candidates. Put plainly, a substantial share of first-time candidates did not pass on the first try. That does not mean you should expect to fail, but it does mean a retake is a realistic scenario worth budgeting for rather than ignoring. For deeper context, see our RTVI pass rate analysis and the difficulty guide.

Those totals are exam fees only. They exclude any added study materials you purchase after a disappointing result, which is where retake costs often balloon.

The Hidden Cost of 200 Procedure Repetitions

For most candidates, clinical experience is the real cost driver. VI requires at least 200 verified procedure repetitions within the 24-month eligibility window. The breakdown is specific:

Rules that affect your time investment

• Record 5-10 repetitions per selected procedure, and log no more than 10 procedures per day.
• You must be physically present in an active primary scrub or circulating role throughout the procedure. Observation alone does not qualify.
• A qualified ARRT-certified and registered technologist, supervisor or interpreting physician must verify the experience. Postprimary verifiers do not need to directly observe the work and may verify remotely.

Why does this matter for cost? If your department does a high volume of interventional cases and lets you scrub or circulate, you may accumulate repetitions as part of your normal job at no extra expense. If your site has limited procedure variety, you may need to rotate to another department, negotiate schedule changes or seek additional clinical access. Those arrangements can cost you income, overtime flexibility or travel. Nonvascular procedures in particular can be a bottleneck at facilities focused heavily on vascular work, so check early whether you can reach 50 in each category.

Structured Education: Sixteen Hours, Variable Price

You need 16 hours of structured education completed within the 24 months before you apply, with at least one credit in each major content category. Those categories mirror the exam's three content areas: Patient Care, Image Production and Procedures.

ARRT does not set a price for these hours because the courses come from many approved providers. Costs range widely, from free employer-provided offerings and society meeting sessions to paid online courses and conference registrations. A few points help you control spending:

• Ask your employer or radiology department whether it has in-house approved education that qualifies.
• Verify that each course is approved for structured education before you pay, since unapproved hours will not count.
• Confirm you have at least one credit in each of the three content categories, so you do not discover a gap at application time.
• Keep your timeline in mind: the 16 hours must fall within the 24 months before you apply.

Because the CE credits you later need for renewal are separate from this structured education, plan these as two distinct budget lines rather than assuming one covers the other.

Prep Spending Aligned to the Three Content Categories

Your preparation budget should follow where the exam's points live. The controlling content specifications, effective July 1, 2023, allocate the 160 scored questions as follows:

Within Procedures, the split is Vascular Diagnostic Procedures 41, Vascular Interventional Procedures 41 and Nonvascular Procedures 30. Radiation protection falls within Image Production rather than a separate safety category, so do not hunt for a standalone safety section when you evaluate study resources.

Where to spend and where to save

For a full breakdown of what each category tests, read our RTVI exam domains guide. When you are ready to turn knowledge into exam-style performance, our practice tests are built around these three categories, and the RTVI study guide lays out a plan you can adapt to your budget.

A lean scheduling approach

If you are paying for resources month by month, sequence your spending to match the point distribution rather than buying everything at once:

After You Pass: Renewal, CE and CQR

Earning the credential is not the end of the spending. Maintenance costs are modest but recurring, and the structure is friendlier than many candidates expect.

Annual renewal

Renewal is $65 per year regardless of the number of ARRT credentials you hold. If you already maintain Radiography, adding VI does not raise your annual renewal fee. That is a genuine cost advantage of the postprimary route.

Continuing education

You need 24 approved CE credits per two-year biennium, and these are counted per biennium, not per credential. The same credits satisfy your Radiography and VI maintenance together, so adding VI does not double your CE burden. You must also keep complying with ethics requirements.

Continuing Qualifications Requirements

Credentials earned on or after January 1, 2011 also require Continuing Qualifications Requirements (CQR) every 10 years. This involves a professional profile, a structured self-assessment and any prescribed CE. ARRT also permits you to accept the maximum CQR CE prescription instead of taking the self-assessment, which can be a useful option if you prefer to trade extra CE for avoiding the assessment. Neither path has a large upfront price, but plan for the CE hours and the time involved a decade from now.

Sample Budgets: Clean Pass vs. One Retake

Because structured education, BLS and prep materials vary so much, the table below shows the fixed ARRT amounts alongside the categories where your own costs will vary. Fill in your local figures.

The fixed ARRT portion of a clean pass plus first renewal is $290, and a single retake raises the exam-fee portion by $200. Everything else depends on your employer, your location and how efficiently you complete clinical repetitions.

If you want a broader orientation to the credential before committing money, start with What Is RTVI Certification? and review the one-page cheat sheet to gauge how much content you already know. You can also compare against the overall RTVI certification cost overview for a quick reference.

Frequently Asked Questions