He was posthumously awarded the Order of Lenin (May 2, 1945), Order of the White Lion I Class (October 28, 1948), the Medal "Partisan of the Patriotic War" 1st class, and the Ľudovít Štúr Order, II Class (August 31, 1996). Ján Nálepka was posthumously promoted to the rank of Brigadier General by the President of Slovakia, Rudolf Schuster, on May 7, 2004. The village Vondrišel in Gelnica District, Slovakia was renamed Nálepkovo in 1948. Towns where streets have been named after Ján Nálepka include Brno, Ostrava, Piešťany and Pezinok. A commemorative plaque has been placed on the house in Smižany where he was born, and a street there has also been named after him. Overall, more than a hundred streets in former Czechoslovakia, and several in the former Soviet Union, bear Nálepka's name. A school in Stupava, where Nálepka worked as a teacher, has been named after him, and there is an equestrian statue of him in the same town. A statue of Nálepka also stands in the center of Spišská Nová Ves. There is also a monument to Nálepka in Ovruch, Ukraine, the town where he perished. In Yel’sk, Belarus, a commemorative plaque has been placed on the house where Nálepka lived from 1942 until 1943. A movie about Ján Nálepka, titled "Zajtra bude neskoro" ("Tomorrow It Will Be Too Late"), was made in 1972. It was a joint Soviet-Czechoslovak production, and casts Slovak actor Milan Kňažko as Nálepka.