- What This Calendar Actually Covers
- The Five Regular Testing Windows
- What Must Be Settled Before You Can Book
- Fees, Surcharges and Money Deadlines
- Test-Day Logistics at the Prometric Center
- Retake Timing: Same-Month Bans and the Six-Month Wait
- The Other Calendar: OTC Expiration and CEU Dates
- Pacing Your Prep Backward From Exam Day
- Three Scheduling Scenarios
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Regular OT-SC testing windows are February, April, June, September and November; active-duty military may test year-round.
- The exam is 150 four-option questions in 3 hours, with a published cut score of 108.
- Initial cost is USD 450 exam plus a USD 100 nonrefundable application fee; late registration adds USD 100.
- You cannot retest in the same month, and three consecutive failures trigger a six-calendar-month wait.
What This Calendar Actually Covers
The Orthopaedic Technologist-Surgery Certified (OT-SC) credential is issued by the National Board for Certification of Orthopaedic Technologists, Inc. (NBCOT) at nbcot.net. It is the surgical specialty add-on for certified orthopaedic technologists, and it is entirely separate from any occupational-therapy credential that happens to share a similar-looking acronym. Everything on this page concerns the orthopaedic OT-SC examination.
When candidates search for "OT-SC exam dates," they usually want a single answer: which day do I sit the test? The honest answer is that the credential runs on testing windows rather than a published list of single dates. You register, receive authorization, and then schedule an appointment at a testing center inside an open window. This article walks through how those windows work, the deadlines that sit around them, and the traps that cause candidates to lose fees or months of time.
If you are still deciding whether the credential suits your career, start with What Is OT-SC? and the OT-SC requirements guide before building a calendar around it.
The Five Regular Testing Windows
Regular OT-SC testing is offered in five months of the year. The exam is delivered through SMT/Prometric with IsoQuality Testing (IQT) at U.S. testing centers.
| Window | Who can test | Planning note |
|---|---|---|
| February | All eligible candidates | Good target if you finish your verification paperwork over the holidays |
| April | All eligible candidates | Natural second-chance month after a February attempt |
| June | All eligible candidates | Mid-year option; watch summer vacation conflicts in surgical departments |
| September | All eligible candidates | Lines up well with an October 1 renewal-year CEU push if relevant |
| November | All eligible candidates | Final regular window of the year |
| Year-round | Active-duty U.S. military only | Per the general examination page; not a civilian option |
Notice what is absent: January, March, May, July, August, October and December are not regular windows for civilian candidates. That gap pattern matters for retakes, because the "next window" after a miss can be two months away at best, and the same-month retest ban (covered below) means a failed February attempt cannot be repeated until April at the earliest.
Specific registration cut-off dates and the exact day-by-day availability inside each window are set by the issuer and the testing vendor and can change. Read the current examination page and handbook at registration time rather than relying on a blog post, including this one, for a hard deadline calendar.
What Must Be Settled Before You Can Book
You cannot simply pick a month and pay. Eligibility documentation is the real gating item, and it is the step that most often pushes a candidate out of their intended window. The prerequisites are:
- Current OTC certification, with evidence of current OTC status.
- At least one year of orthopaedic surgical experience.
- Notarized verification from both the attending musculoskeletal physician and the operating-room supervisor.
The two notarized verifications are the bottleneck. They depend on other busy people, a notary, and often a hospital's internal routing. Build in generous lead time. A candidate aiming for a June window should be chasing signatures long before spring, not in the final weeks.
Fees, Surcharges and Money Deadlines
The fee structure creates its own calendar pressure, because missing a registration deadline converts directly into extra cost.
| Item | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Examination fee | USD 450 | Core cost of the attempt |
| New-applicant application fee | USD 100 | Nonrefundable; credit cards are not accepted for this fee |
| Combined base cost | USD 550 | Before any extras |
| Late registration | USD 100 | Applies when you register after the regular deadline |
| Credit-card surcharge | 3% | Applies when a card is used where cards are accepted |
A few mechanics worth underlining:
- The application fee is not paid by card. Plan a different payment method for that portion so you do not stall at checkout on deadline day.
- Some candidates skip the application charge. The handbook exempts current holders recertifying by exam without a lapse, and candidates retesting within six months of their initial application. The current general examination page also grants an application-fee waiver to active-duty U.S. military candidates. None of these is a waiver of the USD 450 examination fee.
- Rescheduling and cancellation charges are separate from the base fees. The handbook's overlapping five-day language on rescheduling and no-shows means you should confirm your specific situation with the issuer before assuming a close-in change is possible or free.
For the full money picture, including what is and is not refundable, read OT-SC Certification Cost 2026: Complete Pricing Breakdown.
Test-Day Logistics at the Prometric Center
Once your appointment is booked, the calendar shrinks to a single morning or afternoon. The format is 150 four-option multiple-choice questions in American English, with 3 hours of examination time, excluding the tutorial. The issuer's examination page and linked scoring explanation publish a passing cut score of 108 on a 150-question form, set using Angoff standard setting. For a deeper look at what that number means, see OT-SC Passing Score 2026: Exactly What You Need to Pass.
What to bring and what not to bring
Testing is closed-book with strict rules. Arriving unprepared on logistics can forfeit your fee.
- Bring a physical government-issued photo ID; digital copies are not accepted.
- Bring printed admission documentation, not a phone screenshot.
- Expect no testing aids, scratch paper or writing instruments.
- Remember that approved breaks use examination time; the clock keeps running.
The no-scratch-paper rule has a real study implication. Surgical technologists are used to jotting quick notes; here you must hold sequences, instrument-set logic and sterile-field decisions in your head. Practice answering scenario questions without writing anything down in the weeks before your window.
Retake Timing: Same-Month Bans and the Six-Month Wait
Because windows are limited to five months, retake rules interact heavily with the calendar.
- No same-month retest. If you test in April, you cannot test again that same April.
- Three consecutive failures trigger a six-calendar-month wait, counted from the last attempt.
- Retesting within six months of your initial application avoids a second application charge, as noted above, which is one reason to schedule a realistic backup window early.
A practical consequence: if you sit in February and miss, the earliest regular retake is April, and a second miss pushes you to June. A third consecutive miss then forces the six-calendar-month pause, which could carry you past the November window entirely depending on timing. This is why the first attempt deserves a serious readiness check rather than a "let's see how it goes" approach.
The Other Calendar: OTC Expiration and CEU Dates
OT-SC is not a stand-alone credential. You must maintain OTC continuously, and that single fact reshapes how you should think about dates.
How expiration is aligned
Your initial OT-SC expiration aligns with your existing OTC expiration. It is not automatically six years after the day you pass the OT-SC exam. Later cycles run six years. So a candidate whose OTC expires in eighteen months gets an OT-SC credential that expires on that same date, which can mean a renewal decision arrives much sooner than expected.
CEU requirements and the October 1 deadline
Combined OTC/OT-SC CEU renewal requires 120 total approved CEUs, not 120 per credential. For a full cycle, that includes at least 20 Category 1 credits and 20 Category 1A surgical credits, with the remaining 80 drawn from approved categories. The initial Category 1A requirement is prorated to 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 or 20 credits when you have one through six years remaining, respectively.
Submit renewal CEUs by October 1 of the expiration year to avoid the USD 100 late fee. Reexamination is an alternative path, but passing OT-SC alone does not automatically renew OTC, so do not treat the exam as a renewal shortcut for your base credential.
| Date or trigger | What it means |
|---|---|
| Your OTC expiration | Sets your initial OT-SC expiration date |
| October 1 of expiration year | Renewal CEU submission deadline to avoid the USD 100 late fee |
| Years remaining at OT-SC award | Determines prorated Category 1A requirement (3 to 20 credits) |
Understanding this timeline is part of judging value, too. If the credential's renewal burden arrives quickly, factor that into the question explored in Is the OT-SC Certification Worth It?
Pacing Your Prep Backward From Exam Day
This is the one study-planning section in this article, and it is deliberately tied to the exam's weighting rather than generic advice. The four official weighted objectives, from page 8 of the 2026 OT-SC Certification Examination Application Instruction Book (revised November 2025), are:
- Domain 1: Pre-Operative Management (12%)
- Domain 2: Intra-Operative Management (52%)
- Domain 3: Post-Operative Management (25%)
- Domain 4: Regulatory and Ethical Responsibility (11%)
These are examination objectives, not a prescribed curriculum. An undated Role Delination / Examination Breakdown sheet uses different hyphenation and lists item counts alongside percentages, but those counts do not all equal the published shares, so this article uses the handbook's official weights only. For a full walk through each area, see the OT-SC exam domains guide.
The suggested pacing below is an editorial suggestion, not an issuer recommendation, and assumes a roughly six-week runway before your window.
Front-load Domain 2
- Intra-Operative Management is 52% of the exam, so it earns the most calendar time.
- Rehearse sterile technique, instrumentation and procedural sequencing without writing anything down.
Domain 3, then Domain 1
- Post-Operative Management (25%) gets a full block.
- Pre-Operative Management (12%) follows while Domain 2 material is still fresh for comparison.
Domain 4 and weak spots
- Regulatory and Ethical Responsibility (11%) is smaller but easy to lose points on through vague recall.
- Revisit anything you missed in practice sets.
Full-length simulation
- Run a timed 150-question session within a 3-hour limit.
- Confirm ID, admission printout and test-center directions.
The full strategy, including how to choose practice material, is in the OT-SC study guide. NBCOT does not endorse commercial preparation products, so evaluate any tool, including ours, on its own merits. You can try original practice questions on the main OT-SC practice test site; they are written for practice and are not recalled live-exam items.
Three Scheduling Scenarios
These illustrative scenarios are hypothetical, built to show how the rules interact.
Scenario 1: The clean first attempt
A technologist with a current OTC and more than a year of surgical experience gathers both notarized verifications over the winter, registers before the regular deadline, and targets June. Because she registered on time, there is no late charge; she pays USD 450 plus the USD 100 application fee by a non-card method for the application portion.
Scenario 2: The missed deadline
A candidate is still waiting on his operating-room supervisor's signature when the regular registration deadline for September passes. He can still register, but the USD 100 late registration charge applies, raising his cost before any card surcharge. The lesson is to treat signatures as the first task, not the last.
Scenario 3: The retake chain
A candidate misses in February and cannot sit again that month. She retests in April; because she retests within six months of her initial application, she avoids a second application charge, though the examination fee still applies. If she misses again and then a third time, the six-calendar-month wait begins, so she should only schedule the next attempt when genuinely ready.
Who benefits from all this planning? OT-SC holders work in operating-room settings where surgical orthopaedic experience matters, and employer interest varies. See OT-SC jobs and the OT-SC salary guide for realistic context; neither should be read as a promise of a specific pay premium for the credential.
Frequently Asked Questions
Regular testing windows are February, April, June, September and November. Active-duty U.S. military candidates may test throughout the year under the issuer's general examination page. Always confirm current availability with NBCOT at registration.
No. The issuer does not allow a same-month retest. After three consecutive failures, you must wait six calendar months from your last attempt before testing again.
The examination fee is USD 450 and the new-applicant application fee is USD 100 (nonrefundable), totaling USD 550 before extras. Late registration adds USD 100, and a 3% surcharge applies when a credit card is used where cards are accepted. Cards are not accepted for the application fee.
A physical government-issued photo ID and printed admission documentation; digital substitutes are not accepted. No testing aids, scratch paper or writing instruments are allowed, and approved breaks use your examination time.
Your initial OT-SC expiration aligns with your existing OTC expiration rather than running six years from the exam date; later cycles are six years. Submit combined OTC/OT-SC renewal CEUs by October 1 of the expiration year to avoid the USD 100 late fee, and keep OTC current throughout.
For a quick reference before exam day, the OT-SC cheat sheet condenses the key facts, and the OT-SC exam dates page is the place to return when the issuer updates its calendar.