Licensure question regarding travel nursing

[AZO49008]

I'm going to be starting nursing school in September and am pretty sure I'll be doing travel nursing after I graduate and have the the required amount of experience under my belt (scrubs?).

I know I have a while to go before I even start angling towards my first travel assignment, but I'm curious: how does licensure usually work if you're traveling to different states. From what I can gather, it sounds like some states have reciprocal license agreements and you just need to complete some paper work and pay a fee. Do you have to take additional tests for states that don't have reciprical agreements?

[suzanne4, RN]

There is what we call a compact license but your state where you get licensed in must be a part of the pact. And then you just use the same license in the other states that are also part of the pact.

We do not have license reciprocity, only the exam has that. You will be applying for licensure to each of the states where you wish to work or hold a license. There is no limit as to the number that you can have, as long as you are willing to pay for them.

We no longer have individual state exams, and have not had them in quite a few years. NCLEX is the exam that all take and it is a national exam, and the results are valid in all 50 states and US territories. But you will need to meet the educational requirements of the other states to be able to get licensed there.