Background: The Dutch health care system faces huge challenges with regard to the demand on elderly care andthe competencies of professionals required to meet this demand. However, a recent study showed that thecurricula in vocational education for nursing assistants and care helpers remains inadequate to prepare themfor the social and healthcare needs of the elderly.Objective: To determine the essential competencies for the initial education of nursing assistants and care helpersin elderly care.Methods: First, a draft version of essential competencies for the education of nursing assistants and care helpers inelderly care (N = 120) was developed and approved by experts, also members of the project steering committee.Second, a Delphi survey was conducted to determine the essential competencies. The Delphi panel consisted ofeleven field experts (teachers/educational developers) working for different vocational education trainingcolleges in the Netherlands.Results: Ten panel members participated in a two-round consensus building process via email.A definitive set of 116 essential competencies for the initial education of nursing assistants and 42 essentialcompetencies for the initial education of care helpers were determined.Conclusions: The competencies in the definitive set are more in line with social and healthcare needs of theelderly like: autonomy, daily functioning prevention of health problems, healthy ageing and wellbeing, involvement of informal care, collaboration between professionals and informal care. The main challenge now is totranslate these competencies into educational programmes for vocational education training colleges for carehelpers and nursing assistants. Recommendations are made for the implementation of these competencies inthe Dutch vocational education training colleges for care helpers and nursing assistants.