ALAT, LAT and LATG are the three technician certifications AALAS — the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science — issues for laboratory animal work: Assistant Laboratory Animal Technician, Laboratory Animal Technician and Laboratory Animal Technologist, in ascending order.
Which one you qualify for is decided by AALAS's eligibility table, which pairs your education with a set amount of hands-on laboratory animal experience.
This page walks through each level's requirements, the exam, the fees, what renews — and what certification actually does to pay.
What AALAS certification is
AALAS — the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science — certifies three levels of technician competence: Assistant Laboratory Animal Technician (ALAT), Laboratory Animal Technician (LAT) and Laboratory Animal Technologist (LATG).
The exams are the field's own ladder, run by the association.
The program is also long-established: the first AALAS certification exam was given in 1961, and uniform nationwide exams for all three levels were adopted in 1973.
It is a voluntary credential.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics, describing veterinary assistants and laboratory animal caretakers, puts it plainly: certification is not mandatory, but it allows workers to demonstrate competency in animal husbandry, health and welfare, and facility administration.
The legal duty sits on the employer instead.
Under the Animal Welfare Act regulations (9 CFR 2.32), it is the research facility's responsibility to ensure that animal technicians and other animal-care personnel are qualified to perform their duties, partly by providing training and instruction.
Certification is how an individual technician documents that competency on their own behalf — and, as you'll see below, sometimes a condition an employer writes into the job title.
These rules come from AALAS, and AALAS can change them
ALAT eligibility and exam
ALAT is the entry level, and its eligibility table is built to let experienced animal-care workers in without a degree.
You qualify for the ALAT exam by meeting one of three combinations of education and laboratory animal work experience:
- 2 years of laboratory animal work experience, with no education requirement; or
- a high school diploma or GED plus 1 year of experience; or
- an associate or bachelor's degree plus 6 months of experience.
AALAS counts that experience in work years of 1,950 hours, and experience from more than one facility can be combined.
Not every kind of experience counts, though: volunteer work and classroom or laboratory-course experience do not count as work experience, while externships, internships, preceptorships and fellowships completed inside a laboratory animal facility count hour for hour.
The ALAT exam itself is multiple-choice: 120 questions with a 2-hour time limit.
All three levels draw on the same three content domains — Animal Husbandry, Health and Welfare; Facility Administration and Management; and General Knowledge.
Exams are offered in English only, by computer-based testing at more than 250 Prometric testing centers nationwide, with pencil-and-paper exams by special request for groups of 10 or more; AALAS also offers remote online proctoring through Prometric ProProctor.
The logistics are the same at every level and worth planning around.
Once your application is authorized you have 90 days to schedule and take the exam, extendable by another 90 days for a $100 fee.
Fail, and you can reapply immediately on receiving your official score report.
In 2023, 77% of ALAT candidates passed on the first attempt — the highest first-time rate of the three levels.
Coming from clinic work? Your hours convert at 6 to 1
LAT eligibility and exam
LAT is the mid level, and you do not have to hold the ALAT first — the education-and-experience routes stand on their own:
- a high school diploma or GED plus 3 years of laboratory animal experience; or
- an associate degree plus 2 years; or
- a bachelor's degree plus 1 year.
The ALAT routes sit alongside them.
A current ALAT plus a high school diploma or GED qualifies you with 6 months of work experience gained after attaining the ALAT; candidates without documentation of education level can qualify with a current ALAT plus 2 years.
The handbook is explicit that on these certification routes, the work experience must be acquired after attaining the specified certification — the ALAT starts its own clock, rather than crediting your pre-ALAT years twice.
The LAT exam is multiple-choice, 155 questions in 2.5 hours, over the same three content domains as the ALAT.
In 2023, 65% of LAT candidates passed on the first attempt.
LATG: the Laboratory Animal Technologist level
LATG — Laboratory Animal Technologist, note the different word — is the top of the ladder.
Its eligibility combinations:
- a high school diploma or GED plus 5 years of laboratory animal experience; or
- an associate degree plus 4 years; or
- a bachelor's degree plus 3 years; or
- a current LAT plus a high school diploma or GED and 6 months of experience gained after attaining the LAT.
The exam matches the step up: 180 multiple-choice questions with a 3-hour time limit, over the same three domains.
It is also the hardest of the three on first attempt — 59% of LATG candidates passed on the first try in 2023, against 65% for LAT and 77% for ALAT.
LATG is also where this field's credential tracks sit closest together.
Alongside AALAS's exams, laboratory animal work has its own specialty academy: ALAVTN, the laboratory animal academy, holds provisional NAVTA recognition and focuses on animals used in laboratory settings — VTS laboratory animal covers how that credential works.
Cost, study materials and renewal
Exam fees, from AALAS's 2026 Technician Certification Handbook: $175 for ALAT, $225 for LAT and $275 for LATG.
The handbook adds a $75 processing fee that applies only to nonmembers — its stated alternative is to join AALAS instead.
AALAS's certification page publishes the same arithmetic as all-in prices:
| Level | Exam fee (2026 handbook) | Member / nonmember price (AALAS site) |
|---|---|---|
| ALAT | $175 | $175 / $250 |
| LAT | $225 | $225 / $300 |
| LATG | $275 | $275 / $350 |
Two other money notes.
The 90-day scheduling window stretches another 90 days only for a $100 extension fee.
And per AALAS, veterans are entitled under the GI Bill to reimbursement for licensing and certification tests, including the AALAS exams.
On study materials, the sourced map is the exam's own content outline — the three domains above, published in the handbook.
Our research found no independent evaluation of prep courses or manuals, so we won't recommend one; study to the published outline and treat any "guaranteed pass" material with suspicion.
Renewal is where a common misreading happens, so it's worth being precise: certification doesn't expire.
Once you pass, an AALAS technician certification — ALAT, LAT or LATG — is yours for life.
What renews is the separate, voluntary Technician Certification Registry.
Passing any exam enrolls you in it for 2 years at no charge, with the right to an R in front of your acronym — RALAT, RLAT, RLATG.
Staying in the Registry takes continuing education units every 2 years — 10 for ALAT, 14 for LAT and 24 for LATG — and nonmembers also pay a $75 Registry renewal fee.
Does certification raise pay?
There is no sourced number for this.
Our research found no AALAS or BLS figure for what ALAT, LAT or LATG certification adds to pay; AALAS's salary survey data, if any, is not public.
Treat any specific claim to the contrary ("certification is worth $X more a year") as unsourced, including when it appears in a job posting or a recruiter pitch.
What is documented is that some employers build certification into the job itself.
The clearest example in our research: the University of Missouri System's Laboratory Animal Technician title requires employees who are not already LAT-certified to test for AALAS LAT certification within six months of employment in the title.
That is one employer's rule, not a pattern — but it shows certification functioning as a condition of the role rather than a bonus on top of it.
Don't generalize that deadline, though.
Employer requirements vary.
Missouri's six-month window is one example; other postings our research surfaced had post-hire windows anywhere from 6 to 24 months, though only the Missouri rule was read at source — and we found no source that counts how many employers require certification, or on what clock.
The posting and the interview are where you find out.
Ask directly whether certification is expected, who pays the exam fee, and whether the facility meets AALAS's definition of a laboratory animal facility — because that last answer decides whether your hours there start the eligibility clock at all.
For the pay data that does exist for this occupation — and the combined-occupation caveats that come with every figure — see the laboratory animal technician job guide.
Reading this from the employer side?
The same ladder shows up in hiring: deciding which level a role requires, and who pays for the exam, is worth settling before the offer goes out.