What Is A CHTI?

What Is a CHTI? Quick Orientation

The Plain Definition of a CHTI

A CHTI is a Certified Human Trafficking Investigator: a professional who has earned a credential demonstrating applied knowledge of how trafficking cases are recognized, investigated, documented, and coordinated across agencies. The title describes both a certification and, informally, the person who holds it. When someone says "she is a CHTI," they mean she passed the final assessment and holds the active credential.

The acronym is shared by other credentials in unrelated fields, so it is worth stating the scope here: everything in this article refers only to the Certified Human Trafficking Investigator credential. If you want the shorter acronym explainers, see What Does CHTI Stand For? and CHTI Meaning. For a broader view of the program itself, What Is CHTI Certification? covers the credential at a higher level.

Who Issues the Credential

The CHTI is offered by the McAfee Institute. The institute publishes two product pages relevant to candidates: a program page for the full training path and a separate page for the exam-only route. Both describe an online-proctored final assessment of program competencies and applied knowledge.

What a CHTI Is Trained to Do

The publicly described curriculum centers on practical investigative competence rather than awareness alone. The themes the issuer's public narrative emphasizes include:

• Identifying and corroborating fragmented trafficking indicators that rarely arrive as a clean, complete picture
• Understanding victim dynamics, including trauma, coercion, dependency, and fear
• Developing investigative leads and intelligence
• Preserving digital and physical evidence
• Weighing interviews against victim safety and legal requirements
• Providing trauma-aware victim support and coordinating legal and resource referrals
• Applying federal law and visa provisions
• Coordinating federal, state, and local partners for cross-jurisdictional case development
• Documenting findings and preparing defensible professional reports

Notice how the list moves from recognition, through investigation and evidence, to coordination and reporting. That arc is the mental model to carry into the exam: scenario questions tend to reward candidates who think in terms of the whole case lifecycle rather than a single skill.

The Eleven Preparation Areas

This site organizes preparation into eleven categories drawn from subjects named in the issuer's current curriculum narrative. These are unweighted preparation categories, not an official exam blueprint, and they are not the issuer's thirteen advertised module titles. The complete module list is not disclosed in the public text we reviewed, so we do not reproduce or guess at it. For a deeper walk-through, read CHTI Exam Domains 2026: Complete Guide to All 11 Content Areas.

How the Exam Works

The confirmed, CHTI-specific exam facts are straightforward. The final assessment is online-proctored, closed-book, and completed in a single three-hour sitting. The published passing threshold is 70%. Identity and webcam checks apply. The exam-only product includes one attempt and a one-year exam license.

Because the time limit is fixed and the item count is unverified, practice pacing in terms of steady progress rather than a per-question target. Our guide on how hard the CHTI exam is discusses difficulty drivers, and CHTI Passing Score explains the 70% threshold in more detail.

What about the pass rate?

The issuer does not publicly disclose a pass rate. The 70% figure is the passing threshold, which is a different thing entirely. Anyone quoting a specific pass percentage for this credential is not working from published data. See CHTI Pass Rate 2026: What the Data Shows for what can and cannot be said.

Who Can Qualify

Eligibility combines formal education with relevant experience. The currently published routes are:

• A bachelor's degree or higher plus one relevant year
• An associate degree plus two relevant years
• A high school diploma or equivalent plus four relevant years

The exam-only audience restriction

This is the detail candidates most often miss. The exam-only product is intended for people with official investigative or intelligence responsibilities, and it excludes multiple private, nonprofit, volunteer, and advocacy roles. Broader marketing language on the course side does not override that restriction. If your role is ambiguous, for example a private-sector or nonprofit position with investigative duties, written approval from the issuer is the safe path before you purchase anything.

A background and conduct policy also applies. The number of references required has not been verified, so confirm it directly. For a fuller breakdown, see CHTI Requirements 2026.

Cost and Pathway Options

There are two main routes, and the price difference reflects what is bundled.

Two clarifications matter here. First, the 31 hours and 31 CPE credits describe the training, not the exam: they are not a question count or exam duration. Second, a one-year exam license and lifetime course access do not establish how long the credential itself lasts. No member versus nonmember fee schedule is published.

Qualified applicants may self-study and go the exam-only route, which is appealing if you already have strong investigative training. If you are newer to the subject matter, the structured course may be worth the added cost. Our CHTI Certification Cost breakdown and the ROI analysis can help you decide, and the CHTI Training overview describes the course path.

Where a CHTI Fits in the Job Market

The credential is aimed at people doing or supporting investigative and intelligence work. Realistic settings include law enforcement and investigative units, federal-adjacent task forces, and analytical or case-support roles that touch trafficking cases. The exam-only audience restriction itself tells you who the issuer sees as the core user: individuals with official investigative or intelligence responsibilities.

We do not cite salary figures here because none are published for this credential in the sources we reviewed. For a qualitative discussion of how certification may factor into hiring and advancement, see CHTI Jobs and the CHTI Salary Guide.

Staying Certified

The certification carries a two-year renewal cycle. The general license fee referenced is US$125, and a Department of Defense directory reports 25 CPE per cycle. Because those figures come from general or third-party references rather than a CHTI-specific issuer policy, confirm the current renewal fee and CPE requirement directly with the issuer. The course's 31 CPE credits are a training quantity and should not be assumed to map onto renewal requirements.

Sequencing Your Preparation

Since official weights are unpublished, a sensible approach is to build knowledge in the order the case lifecycle unfolds and give extra time to areas where you have less hands-on experience. One CHTI-specific way to stage it:

Adjust the pacing to your experience: an investigator comfortable with evidence handling may compress Week 4 and spend longer on victim dynamics or federal law. Our CHTI Study Guide goes deeper on structuring this, and the CHTI Cheat Sheet is useful for last-pass review of must-know facts. When you are ready to test yourself, work through the scenario-style questions on our CHTI practice test site, and use it again for timed practice closer to exam day. Practice-question allocation there is editorial, so treat results as a readiness signal rather than a prediction of the official blueprint.

What Is Not Publicly Confirmed

Honest preparation means knowing the gaps. Based on the public sources reviewed on September 29, 2026, the following remain unverified for this credential:

• The exact current question count and scored/unscored split
• The precise item-format mix
• The external proctoring vendor configuration
• A complete weighted domain blueprint and which area carries the most weight
• The full list of the thirteen advertised course module titles
• Calculator or adaptive-testing rules

The eleven categories used here are editorial groupings of subjects named in the issuer's public narrative. They help you organize study, but they do not replicate a paid curriculum or official blueprint. For scheduling questions, see CHTI Exam Dates, and for a general overview of the credential name and scope, CHTI Certification and What Is CHTI? offer additional context.

Frequently Asked Questions