What is a Certified Master Inspector?

The Master Inspector Certification Board, Inc. awards the designation and owns the Certified Master Inspector® trademark in the U.S. and Canada. It calls the CMI an experience and continuing education based designation, open to any inspector who qualifies.

The board's FAQ sends questions to Nick Gromicko, who founded InterNACHI. Its mail-in application lists a Boulder, Colorado address, 1750 30th Street, Suite 301, which is the same suite InterNACHI lists on its own pages. The board's site says no association membership is needed to apply.

The Become a CMI page says every Certified Master Inspector® must do the following:

• Complete 1,000 fee-paid inspections and hours of education, combined
• Be in the inspection business for at least three years
• Agree to follow the board's Code of Ethics
• Agree to periodic criminal background checks
• Send the application and the one-time fee

The application spells out the count. Inspections must be for fee-paying clients, though they can be ones you did while working for someone else, and each home counts once. Education counts hour for hour, from classroom, home study, online, or seminars, as long as it's technical and tied to inspection. The two numbers add up to at least 1,000.

For the three years, the board takes one proof: an old license, business license, association record, tax return, or assumed business name filing, or three signed letters. A convicted felon or sex offender can't qualify. The board pays for the background checks, and its FAQ says they look only at felony and sex offender records, not credit. The application also asks for a copy of your driver's license.

The education side has limits. The board's FAQ says general business, accounting, and marketing courses don't count, and a repeated course counts once. Your signed application is the proof, but the board says it can audit your records, so keep a list of what you took.

The board's mail-in application asks for a $2,500 check or money order. Its FAQ says the fee is one time, good for life, and that a 0% interest payment plan is offered when you apply. There are no annual dues and no continuing education rule on the board's pages. The board says it processes an application within 48 hours and returns the fee if it says no.

Once approved, the inspector gets a certificate and a listing on the board's website, and may advertise as a Certified Master Inspector® and Board-Certified. The board states that it does not guarantee or warrant any inspection done by the inspectors it lists.

This table sets the CMI beside ASHI's top title, the ASHI Certified Inspector, as each published its rules on October 27, 2026:

The two are not exclusive. An inspector can hold both, and neither one is a state license. For the ACI in full, see what is ASHI and ASHI's own ASHI Certified Inspector page.

The CMI is a private designation. In a licensing state, the state license is what makes it legal to inspect for a fee, and the CMI doesn't stand in for it. Since the board names no exam, the National Home Inspector Exam plays no part in the CMI. The license is where that exam comes in: it counts toward the license in 33 states. See home inspector certification vs. license and the National Home Inspector Exam guide.

Russ Motyko, the instructor behind Inspector Exam Lab, holds the CMI. For the other common titles, see InterNACHI's Certified Professional Inspector, the NIBI Certified Inspector, what is InterNACHI, and home inspector certifications compared.