Licensure and career
States in Compact Nursing License
Written and reviewed by Dana Whitfield, RN, MSN · 5 min read · Updated September 2026
Short answer
As of 2026, 41 states plus Guam and Virgin Islands participate in the Nurse Licensure Compact, letting an RN or LPN/VN hold one multistate license valid for practice across every member state. A handful of large states, including California, New York, and Massachusetts, are not members, so a compact license does not cover the whole country.
What the role or requirement involves
A compact license, formally a multistate license issued under the enhanced Nurse Licensure Compact (eNLC), lets an RN or LPN/VN practise both in person and via telehealth in every member state without applying for a separate license in each one. Your license is issued by your state of legal residence, called your home state, and the privilege to practise extends outward from there.
Membership is not universal. As of 2026, 41 states participate along with Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands, but California, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Oregon, and a few others remain outside the compact. If your home state or a state you want to practise in is not a member, you will need a separate single-state license for that jurisdiction regardless of holding a multistate license elsewhere. Check current membership on the NCSBN site before assuming a state is covered, since the list has changed as states join.
Getting there from here
If your legal residence is already in a compact state and your current license is single-state, most boards convert it to multistate automatically or through a short online application, since the underlying requirements, an unencumbered license and a completed criminal background check, are usually already on file. If you are moving your legal residence from a non-compact state to a compact one, you generally must apply for licensure by endorsement in the new state and declare it as your primary state of residence.
The background check is the step candidates most often underestimate. The eNLC requires a fingerprint-based federal and state criminal background check, and if your state has not previously required one, expect this to be the pacing item. Some boards will issue the license with the check pending under limited conditions; most will not, so budget for it up front rather than assuming it slots in quietly alongside the rest of the paperwork.
The paperwork
Expect to provide proof of primary state of residence, typically a driver's license, voter registration, tax return, or similar, since your compact privileges attach to your declared home state and boards do check this. You will also need your nursing education transcript sent directly from the school, verification of your current license if you are endorsing from another state, and the fingerprint-based background check noted above.
Most states now process this through Nursys, the NCSBN's licensure verification system, which speeds up endorsement between compact states because your license history is already visible to the new board. Application fees vary by state, generally $100 to $200, and are separate from the background check fee. Keep copies of everything you submit; boards occasionally lose documents, and re-sending a transcript request can add two to three weeks on its own.
What to expect
Timelines vary widely by state workload and whether you are converting an existing license or applying fresh by endorsement. A straightforward conversion within a compact state, with no background check pending, can complete in one to two weeks. A full endorsement application with fingerprinting from scratch more commonly runs four to eight weeks, and some understaffed boards have taken three months during peak application periods.
Do not resign a current position or accept a start date in a new state assuming a compact license will be ready by a specific day. If you are relocating, keep your original state's single-state license active until the new multistate license is confirmed issued, not just submitted, since 'processing' status is not the same as authorization to practise.
Where to go next
Confirm your target state's current compact membership status directly with its board of nursing rather than relying on a list that may be a year old, since membership has changed multiple times in recent years. Then check whether your state offers online conversion for existing residents or requires a full endorsement application, and start the fingerprint-based background check as early as possible since it is the most common bottleneck.
If you plan to work across state lines through telehealth, confirm with your employer which state's practice standards apply to each patient encounter, since the compact governs the license, not the standard of care, and that still follows the patient's location in most telehealth arrangements.
The next step on this is the same as on everything else here: answer questions and read the rationales. Our fundamentals practice questions are the closest set to what this page covers.
Common questions
How many states are in the Nurse Licensure Compact in 2026?
41 states participate, along with Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The list has grown steadily as more state legislatures adopt the enhanced NLC, so check the NCSBN's current member list rather than a fixed number from an older source.
Is New York part of the Nurse Licensure Compact?
No. New York, along with California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Oregon, has not joined the compact as of 2026. Nurses moving to or practising in these states need a separate single-state license regardless of holding a multistate license elsewhere.
Can I hold a compact license if I move to a non-compact state?
Not as your primary license there. Your multistate license is tied to your declared state of legal residence, so if you move your residence to a non-compact state, you will need to apply for a single-state license in that state and your compact privileges will not extend there.
Does a compact license cover LPNs and LVNs as well as RNs?
Yes. The enhanced NLC covers both RNs and LPN/VNs under the same multistate licensure framework, though each state's board still issues and tracks the two license types separately.
How long does it take to get a multistate license by endorsement?
Realistically four to eight weeks for a full endorsement application including a fingerprint-based background check, though this varies by state workload. Some states process faster if you are already a legal resident there and simply converting an existing single-state license.
More on fundamentals