MATE Act Training: The 8-Hour DEA Requirement Explained

MATE Act training is the one-time, eight-hour DEA requirement on treating and managing patients with opioid or other substance use disorders. Every DEA-registered practitioner, except veterinarians, must attest to completing it when applying for a new registration or renewing an existing one on or after June 27, 2023.

Key Takeaways

• 8 hours, one time. The training is not recurring. After you attest once, current law never asks you to attest again (DEA Diversion Control Division).
• In effect since June 27, 2023. The rule comes from Section 1263 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, signed December 29, 2022.
• Applies to all DEA registrants except practitioners who are solely veterinarians. Physicians, dentists, PAs, and NPs are all covered.
• Two exempt groups: practitioners board certified in addiction medicine or addiction psychiatry, and recent U.S. graduates whose curriculum already included at least 8 qualifying hours.
• Old X-waiver hours count. Past DATA-2000 waiver training applies toward the 8 hours, and the hours can be split across multiple courses.
• Attestation is a checkbox on DEA Form 224 or 224a. You keep the certificates; the DEA does not collect them.

This is one of the easier compliance boxes in a prescriber’s career, but only if you handle it before the renewal window opens. The training is one time, the hours are cumulative, and free qualifying courses exist. The people who get burned are the ones who discover the checkbox with a renewal deadline two weeks out and no certificates on file.

What Is the MATE Act Training Requirement?

The Medication Access and Training Expansion (MATE) Act is Section 1263 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, signed into law on December 29, 2022. It requires DEA registrants to complete at least eight hours of training on opioid and other substance use disorders before their first new registration or renewal on or after June 27, 2023.

The requirement lives in federal law at 21 U.S.C. 823(l) (accessed July 14, 2026), which makes the training a condition of DEA registration itself, not a state CME rule. The same law that created it also dismantled the old system it replaced: the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 eliminated the DATA-2000 X-waiver and removed federal patient limits on buprenorphine prescribing for opioid use disorder, according to the DEA Diversion Control Division (accessed July 14, 2026).

The logic of the swap is simple. Instead of a special waiver for the small group of clinicians treating opioid use disorder, Congress moved to a baseline: every prescriber of controlled substances gets a foundation in recognizing and managing substance use disorders. The DEA laid out the details in a letter to registrants dated March 27, 2023 (accessed July 14, 2026).

The MATE Act attestation is one time. Once you check the box on your DEA application, current law never asks you to check it again.

Who Must Complete the 8-Hour DEA Training?

All DEA-registered practitioners must complete the eight-hour training, with one exception: practitioners who are solely veterinarians. Physicians, dentists, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and every other prescriber holding a Schedule II through V registration attest at their first new application or renewal on or after June 27, 2023.

By the numbers: nearly 2 million DEA registrants nationally fall under the requirement, per the ACCME (accessed July 14, 2026). DEA registrations renew on a three-year cycle, so by 2026 most established prescribers have already crossed their first attestation.

Who is still hitting this requirement fresh in 2026? Three groups. New registrants, meaning residents and fellows applying for their first DEA number. Practitioners returning to clinical work after a lapsed registration. And clinicians adding a registration for a new practice location, for example a physician who just earned a Michigan medical license and needs a DEA registration to match it.

From the applications we process, the registrants most often caught off guard are new graduates. They assume their school covered it, and sometimes it did. The exemption for recent graduates is real, but it has specific conditions, which we cover below.

What Counts Toward the 8 Hours?

Any combination of training on treating and managing patients with opioid or other substance use disorders from an approved provider counts. The hours are cumulative, not single-session. Classroom settings, seminars at professional society meetings, and virtual courses all qualify, and past trainings, including old DATA-waiver courses, count toward the total.

The DEA’s FAQ names the organizations whose training satisfies the requirement:

• The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM)
• The American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry (AAAP)
• The American Medical Association (AMA)
• The American Osteopathic Association (AOA), or any organization the AOA accredits for continuing medical education
• The American Dental Association (ADA)
• The American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (AAOMS)
• The American Psychiatric Association (APA)
• The American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP)
• The American Academy of Physician Associates (AAPA)
• The American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC)
• Any organization accredited by the ACCME or the Commission for Continuing Education Provider Recognition (CCEPR), directly or through a state medical society accreditor those bodies recognize
• Any organization approved or accredited by the Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use, the ACCME, or the CCEPR

On content, SAMHSA (accessed July 14, 2026) recommends curricula built around prevention, recognition, and care of people with substance use disorders, including patients with concurrent pain or psychiatric comorbidities. The training does not have to be buprenorphine-specific. It covers substance use disorders broadly.

Cost is the question behind some of the most-searched phrasings of this topic, and the answer is friendly: qualifying courses do not have to cost anything. SAMHSA funds the Providers Clinical Support System (PCSS-MOUD) to deliver practitioner training in opioid use disorder treatment, including the trainings needed for DEA registration, per SAMHSA’s MATE Act resources page (accessed July 14, 2026). Many professional societies also released low-cost or member-free 8-hour bundles.

Pro tip: you do not need one heroic 8-hour course. Stack shorter accredited modules until the total reaches eight. And check your training history first: DEA guidance confirms qualifying courses completed before the law’s enactment on December 29, 2022 still count, including DATA-waiver training.

Who Is Exempt From MATE Act Training?

Two groups are deemed to have satisfied the requirement automatically: practitioners holding board certification in addiction medicine or addiction psychiatry from the ABMS, ABAM, or AOA, and practitioners who graduated from a U.S. medical, dental, physician assistant, or advanced practice nursing school within five years of June 27, 2023 with a qualifying curriculum.

The details matter, so here is each group as the DEA defines it:

1. Addiction specialists. Board certification in addiction medicine or addiction psychiatry from the American Board of Medical Specialties, the American Board of Addiction Medicine, or the American Osteopathic Association satisfies the requirement outright.
2. Recent qualifying graduates. Graduation in good standing from a U.S. school of allopathic or osteopathic medicine, dentistry, physician assistant studies, or advanced practice nursing within five years of June 27, 2023, where the comprehensive curriculum included at least eight hours of training on treating and managing patients with opioid or other substance use disorders (or, for dental tracks, the safe pharmacological management of dental pain).

Two clarifications. First, solely veterinarians are outside the requirement entirely; they are not “exempt,” they were never covered. Second, exempt practitioners still complete the attestation. The checkbox asks you to affirm that you meet one of the training standards, and board certification or a qualifying degree is exactly that: a standard you attest to meeting.

Watch out: an old X-waiver is not an exemption. The DATA-2000 training hours behind it count toward your eight, which is useful, but holding the waiver itself never excused anyone from the attestation. The other recurring mistake is treating the training as a per-renewal obligation. It is one time under current law.

How Do You Attest on Your DEA Registration?

You attest by checking a box on DEA Form 224 for a new registration or Form 224a for a renewal. No certificates are uploaded, and the DEA does not review training documents at application. Keep your certificates on file anyway, because you are affirming completion on a federal application.

The DEA modified both forms as of June 27, 2023 to include the attestation section. Once you attest and the DEA approves the application, your certificate of registration issues as usual. The agency explicitly recommends keeping a record of training certificates or other documentation, even though nothing is submitted for review.

Checklist: before your next DEA application or renewal:

• Tally your qualifying hours, including any pre-2023 or DATA-waiver coursework
• Confirm each course provider appears on the DEA’s approved list or holds ACCME or CCEPR accreditation
• Save every certificate to one folder you can find in three years
• Check the attestation box on Form 224 or 224a
• Calendar the three-year renewal so the DEA cycle never collides with a state license deadline

In our experience helping physicians line up state licenses and DEA registrations together, the attestation itself takes seconds. The scramble is reconstructing certificates from courses taken years earlier, and confirming your identifiers match across systems. If you want a quick sanity check on how your provider record appears, our free NPI lookup tool shows what payers and registries see.

What Happens If You Don’t Complete the Training?

You cannot truthfully complete the attestation, and the application cannot move forward without it. The training is a condition of registration under 21 U.S.C. 823(l), so skipping it blocks your new DEA registration or renewal, and with it your authority to prescribe controlled substances.

The practical fallout goes beyond the registration itself. A lapsed DEA number stops every Schedule II through V prescription you write, which quickly becomes a hospital privileging problem and a payer problem. And because the DEA runs on its own three-year clock, separate from your state medical license cycle, it is easy to lose track of. We walk through that timing mismatch in our guide to the top questions physicians ask about license renewals.

One more caution: the attestation is an affirmation on a federal application. Checking the box without the hours behind it is a false statement to a federal agency, which is a far more expensive problem than eight hours of CME. If you are short on hours, finish them before you file. If your renewal is imminent, get a certificate-granting course scheduled now and coordinate the filing through our DEA registration and renewal support or, if a new state license is part of the move, our broader physician licensing service.

MATE Act Training: Frequently Asked Questions

This article provides general guidance only. Federal registration requirements can change, and individual circumstances vary. Always verify current requirements with the DEA Diversion Control Division at deadiversion.usdoj.gov before submitting your application or renewal. Last fact-checked: July 14, 2026.

Written by Medicallicensing Team · Reviewed by David Ivaniuk, CEO Medicallicensing · Last updated: July 14, 2026 · Last fact-checked: July 14, 2026

About the reviewer

David Ivaniuk is the CEO of Medicallicensing, a licensing services firm that has helped physicians, PAs, nurses, and other healthcare professionals navigate state licensing, DEA registration, and payer enrollment across all 50 U.S. states.

References

1. DEA Diversion Control Division. “Opioid Use Disorder: MATE Act Q&A.” Retrieved July 14, 2026. Link.
2. DEA. “MATE Training Letter” (March 27, 2023). Retrieved July 14, 2026. Link.
3. DEA Diversion Control Division. “Medication Assisted Treatment.” Retrieved July 14, 2026. Link.
4. SAMHSA. “Training Requirements (MATE Act) Resources.” Retrieved July 14, 2026. Link.
5. SAMHSA. “Recommendations for Curricular Elements in Substance Use Disorders Training.” Retrieved July 14, 2026. Link.
6. ACCME. “The Medication Access and Training Expansion (MATE) Act FAQs.” Retrieved July 14, 2026. Link.
7. 21 U.S.C. § 823(l). Retrieved July 14, 2026. Link.