Kentucky

The pathways, as the board describes them

Endorsement, and who it is for. Both endorsement pages open the same way: "Apply for licensure by endorsement if you were originally licensed in another state or U.S. jurisdiction by licensure by examination and have not held a Kentucky license previously." The board then names the two situations that bring a nurse to it: "If your LPN or RN license is not in a compact state and you want to practice in Kentucky" and "If you are moving from a compact state and are now declaring Kentucky as your primary state of residence (example: moving to Kentucky to become a permanent resident)". RN endorsement.

What the board requires. The route runs through one channel — "Submit the application through the Kentucky Board of Nursing Nurse Portal." — and carries a step uncommon in this collection, an examination on the state's own law: "Pass the Jurisprudence Exam with a score of 80% or higher" and "The Jurisprudence Examination cannot be accessed prior to having a current application on file with the KBN." RN endorsement.

Continuing education, conditioned on hours rather than years. The registered-nurse page: "Nurses who have been licensed for more than five (5) years but have not practiced at least 500 hours within the past five (5) years are required to complete 120 hours of continuing education (CE)." The practical-nurse page states the same condition in its own words and adds an exclusion and a window: "Nurses who have been licensed longer than 5 years but have not practiced as a nurse for 500 hours within the past 5 years will need to submit 120 hours of continuing education. These must be earned within a year of application date. (This does not apply to new graduates)". Both are quoted as published. The registered-nurse page also states what the requirement holds up: "A license will not be issued until all CE documentation and other application requirements have been received and reviewed." RN endorsement; LPN endorsement.

The multistate license, and what it costs. The board states there is no separate application or fee, and lists the compact's uniform criteria, among them "Is eligible for or holds an active, unencumbered license (i.e., without active discipline);", "Has submitted to state and federal fingerprint-based criminal background checks;", "Has not been convicted or found guilty, or has entered into an agreed disposition, of a felony offense under applicable state or federal criminal law;" and "Has a valid United States Social Security number." It states the one-at-a-time limit: "A nurse may hold a multistate license, issued by the home state/primary state of residence, in only one party state at a time." and that residence is a legal status rather than a property one: "For compact purposes, primary state of residence is not related to property ownership in a given state." NCSBN/Compact License.

Transcripts, and four states singled out. The practical-nurse page names states whose transcripts must come from the program itself — "California", "Connecticut", "Hawaii", "Florida" — and attaches a permit consequence to one of them: "(A temporary permit will not be issued to nurses who completed a program of nursing in and were originally licensed as an LPN in California until the transcript is received)". The registered-nurse page names one state in the same role: "If your nursing education is from Florida, you must request that your nursing program send an official transcript, with degree and graduation date posted, following the steps above." The two lists differ; both are quoted. LPN endorsement; RN endorsement.

The published process

Practice while the application is pending. Kentucky publishes two instruments with similar names and materially different terms, and the endorsement applicant's is the less restrictive of the two.

The temporary permit, on both endorsement pages: "A temporary permit can be issued while the KBN is waiting for receipt of the original verification from the other licensing board so long as all other requirements outlined above are satisfied." Its terms are stated in three short lines — "Practicing on a temporary permit does not require supervision.", "A temporary permit is valid for six months.", and "A temporary permit is only valid in the state of Kentucky." Note what the first sentence conditions it on: the outstanding item may be the verification and nothing else.

The provisional license, published on its own page, is the other instrument, and it does require supervision: "Direct supervision - means that the nurse responsible for the applicant shall at all times be physically present in the facility and immediately available to the applicant during working hours while the applicant holds a provisional license." It is described throughout in examination terms — "A provisional license is voided after the applicant has failed the NCLEX examination twice." — and carries its own titles, "RN Applicant - RNA", "LPN Applicant - LPNA", "APRN Applicant - APRNA". Like the permit it runs six months: "Regardless, a provisional license is valid for only 6 months, and then becomes void." and "A provisional license is valid only in the state of Kentucky". The board publishes no sentence in the captured sources stating which of the two an endorsement applicant receives in which circumstance; the two documents are set out here as the board publishes them and the question is not resolved on this page. RN endorsement; Provisional License.

Verification of the existing license. The board names the license to be verified precisely, and it is the first one: "Request that the verification of licensure be sent to the Kentucky Board of Nursing from the state where you took and passed the NCLEX and received your license by examination." On the channel and its cost: "This request should be made through Nursys if your state is a participating board. There is a fee of $30 that is paid to Nursys and not to the KBN. This fee is subject to change without notice." Where the other board does not participate, the board sends the applicant to it: "If your state is not listed on NURSYS you will need to complete the" verification of licensure form, and to "contact that board of nursing to determine the fee." The sentence is broken here because the board publishes the form's name as a link inside it. RN endorsement.

Fingerprints and the background check. The board requires both jurisdictions' checks and names the vendor: "Complete the state and federal criminal background check through IdentoGO®". The same check appears in the compact criteria as "Has submitted to state and federal fingerprint-based criminal background checks;" and again in the compact page, which states that an eligible Kentucky licensee declaring the state as primary residence "must submit a state and federal background check" — spelling the vendor's name differently there than the endorsement pages do. No amount for the check appears anywhere in the captured sources, including the consolidated fee schedule. RN endorsement; NCSBN/Compact License.

The three rows above answer the questions an experienced adviser raises first, from the board's own published documents, or record that a question is not answered in them.

Fees, as stated in the sources

All quoted; none totaled.

Endorsement. The endorsement pages state it inside the requirements list: "Pay application fee of $165 (ALL FEES ARE NON-REFUNDABLE)." The board's consolidated schedule states the same amount in its own format, dot leaders and all: "Endorsement......................................................................................................................................................... $165". RN endorsement; fee schedule.

The schedule's own frame, and other amounts on it. The schedule is headed "FEES FOR LICENSURE APPLICATIONS AND SERVICES" and "(All fees are nonrefundable and subject to change)". Among its other stated amounts: "Examination ...........................................................................................................................................................$125", "Reinstatement .......................................................................................................................................................$135", "Retired Licensure Status.......................................................................................................................................... $25", "Wall Certificate (All license/credential types except CMA/SRNA)..............................................................................$30", "Copy of Transcript ....................................................................................................................................................$25", and "Verification of Licensure, other than to a Board of Nursing in the United States........................................................$50". Each block of the schedule cites its own regulation; the license fees cite "Kentucky Administrative Regulations (KAR) 201 KAR 20:240, Section 1." Fee schedule.

The surcharge, which is not on the schedule. The fee schedule page adds what the document does not: "Effective July 6, 2020, fees assessed by the banking industry will be charged for each transaction. Payments made with a credit card will have an additional 2.75% of the payment added to the total. Payments made by ACH (online check) will have a $1.00 charge attached to the payment. The banking fees will be in addition to the fees due the Kentucky Board of Nursing." Fee Schedule page.

Verification, paid elsewhere. "There is a fee of $30 that is paid to Nursys and not to the KBN." Where the originating board does not participate in that system, the board states no amount and directs the applicant to ask: "contact that board of nursing to determine the fee." RN endorsement.

The compact license. "There is no additional fee or application for a compact license in Kentucky." NCSBN/Compact License.

What is not stated. No amount for the criminal background check appears in the captured sources, and no amount is stated for a temporary permit or a provisional license anywhere on the schedule or on their own pages. Fee schedule.

What any of it means for a particular application is for the board to determine.

Timelines, as stated in the sources

All quoted; none calculated.

Processing, with a stated exception. "Licenses may be issued within 14 business days after all documents have been received and reviewed. However, if you respond "Yes" to the disciplinary or conviction questions it can take up to three months to process your application." RN endorsement.

The temporary permit. "A temporary permit is valid for six months." RN endorsement.

The provisional license. "A provisional license is issued within 14 business days of meeting all KBN application requirements." and "Regardless, a provisional license is valid for only 6 months, and then becomes void." Provisional License.

Sixty days after a move. The board publishes the compact rule with a date: "Starting Jan. 2, a new Nurse Licensure Compact (NLC) rule has gone into effect." The rule itself, as the board quotes it: "402(2) A multistate licensee who changes primary state of residence to another party state shall apply for a multistate license in the new party state within 60 days." The board states what changed: nurses "have always been required to apply for a new compact (multistate) license when relocating and changing PSOR, but this new rule gives a hard deadline for this application to be filed." The year of that January 2 is not stated on the page. NCSBN/Compact License.

How long an application stays open. "Applications are valid for one year. If requirements are not met within one year, your application will expire and you will have to start the process over again." RN endorsement.

The continuing-education window. "CE may be completed beginning one year prior to the application date and through the application expiration date." RN endorsement.

What any of it means for a particular application is for the board to determine.

Source map

Change log

Aug 30, 2026 · Page created. Eight first-party sources captured mechanically through this jurisdiction's capture recipe. Findings: (1) `kbn.ky.gov` answers a bare fetcher with HTTP 403 and serves every one of these pages normally to a pinned browser string, so the recipe pins one — a fact about the fetcher, not about the board; (2) a capture hazard worth recording at length, because it failed quietly twice before it failed usefully: this board's pages are built on three different templates, and the two obvious scopes both returned plausible text for pages they had not actually read — the SharePoint content class captures only the first of the six blocks a page is split into, dropping every requirement, and `#bodyContent` holds the article on the registered-nurse endorsement page but only a section label on five of the others, so five sources came back as the words "Licensure Support" and looked like thin pages rather than failed captures; a third attempt at `.outerContainer` matched the site masthead first; the working scope is `.outerContainer.bodyRow`, which also carries the local section navigation, and that is left in rather than trimmed; (3) Kentucky publishes two pending-practice instruments with similar names and different terms — a temporary permit that runs six months and expressly does not require supervision, and a provisional license that runs six months and requires direct physical supervision at all times — and no captured source states which an endorsement applicant receives in which circumstance, so both are set out and the question is left open rather than resolved by inference; (4) the temporary permit's own condition is narrow, issuable while the board waits for the verification from the other board and only if everything else is already satisfied; (5) the board requires a jurisprudence examination passed at 80% or higher, which cannot be taken until an application is on file; (6) the continuing-education condition turns on practice hours rather than elapsed years — five hundred hours in five years — and the two endorsement pages state it in different words, one of them adding a window and an exclusion for new graduates that the other does not; (7) the board states that a compact license in Kentucky costs nothing extra and needs no separate application, which is not the common case in this collection; (8) the board publishes the compact commission's sixty-day relocation rule and dates its effect only as "Starting Jan. 2", with no year, and the page records that the year is not stated rather than supplying one; (9) both endorsement pages assert that the process is the same for LPNs and RNs, and the pages nonetheless differ — four states are named on the practical-nurse page as requiring a transcript direct from the program, with a permit consequence attached to California, against one state named on the registered-nurse page; (10) the board's own street address is published in three different forms across the contact page, the fee schedule letterhead and the endorsement pages, and the credentials mailbox in two letter cases; all are shown as published and none is corrected; (11) the board publishes a genuine consolidated fee schedule, which most jurisdictions in this collection do not, and the surcharge on card and ACH payments appears only on the web page that links it and not on the document itself; (12) no amount for the criminal background check appears anywhere in the captured sources, including that schedule. Automated or AI-assisted decision-making: none located; the terms artificial intelligence, automated decision, and algorithm return nothing across the eight captured sources, and that scope is recorded in `research/ai-disclosure.jsonl`. Capture pending: the background-check and jurisprudence-examination pages, the endorsement guidelines for internationally educated applicants and for Puerto Rico, the regulations the board cites, and Internet Archive captures. Reviewer: Carrie Schluter, reviewed Aug 30, 2026. Corrections on the record in this log: hello@fieldassembly.net.