An Overview Of Nursing Compact Licenses

The Nurse Licensure Compact is an agreement that allows multistate nursing licensure for registered nurses (RNs) and licensed practical nurses (LPNs) in an efficient manner. At the time of this writing, approximately 24 states participate in the Nurse Licensure Compact (NLC). A nurse who has established permanent residency in a NLC state has a multistate nursing license and is allowed to work in the other participating states. These states, commonly referred to as the 'compact states,' are:


However, for a nurse to have multistate practicing privileges, the nurse must reside in a compact state and hold a nursing license in that primary state (Emery, 2008). Nurses who do not live in a compact state will not be permitted to have multistate licensure unless they obtain licenses for each state in which they would like to practice. For instance, Bunny lives in California, which is not a compact state. She lives near the state line and has accepted a job in Arizona, which is a compact state. Bunny must obtain an Arizona nursing license by endorsement if she wishes to practice there. Furthermore, her Arizona license will not be a compact license because her permanent residence is in the non-compact state of California. However, if Bunny were to relocate to Arizona and set up permanent residence there, her Arizona license would become a compact license.

According to Emery (2008), if a nurse permanently moves from one compact state to another, a license change must take place within 30 days. As an example, Missy resides in Tennessee, which is a participating compact state, but is planning a permanent move to the compact state of Virginia. Since Virginia is now her new primary state of residence, she has 30 days to get a Virginia nursing license. A compact nursing license is similar to a driver's license. Once Missy has moved to Virginia, she can legally drive in Virginia under her Tennessee driver's license for 30 days, then she will need to obtain a Virginia driver's license in order to keep driving legally in her new home state. It is the exact same concept with a nursing license that is from a compact state.

Multistate privileges come in handy for travel nurses and people who live in close proximity to state lines. For example, Dolly lives in the compact state of Maryland, but would like to accept a travel assignment in South Dakota, which is another compact state. Since Dolly's permanent residence is in a compact state (Maryland), she has multistate privileges and is legally allowed to practice nursing in any other compact state without going through the hassle of obtaining a new license for each state that participates in the NLC. Another example involves Candy, who lives in the compact state of Nebraska. She lives very close to the Iowa state line, where she has accepted a job. As long as Candy maintains residence in Nebraska, she can continue to commute across the state line and work in Iowa (another compact state) under her Nebraska nursing license.